[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: Is filmmaking a smooth ride?
Blake Ridder, Filmmaker/Writer/Actor/YouTuber: I think everybody agrees that it’s never a smooth ride, especially at the start, even now.
You learn along the way. You make mistakes.
I think the important thing with filmmaking is you have to make mistakes.
That’s when you improve and through those mistakes obviously that’s not easy in terms of the journey whether it’s not being able to make footage look as you imagine in your head or no success in festivals or being recognized or being congratulated by your peers.
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All those have its own downfalls.
You learn from those scenarios.
Film Courage: If I were to look at your social media, all the films that you’ve done, you’ve written a few books, it looks to me from far away easy.
That you have talent and grace and you’re charismatic, it all worked out.
Blake: It did seem on the surface level, yeah, of course.
But at the beginning, for example, before I even got into the movie industry, I was pretty shy.
I wasn’t connecting very well with people.
I was doing my 9-to-five job as a marketer.
That gave me the experience of being creative and I…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Blake Ridder is a filmmaker, writer, director and actor, born in Shanghai and raised in the United Kingdom from the age of nine. He began acting in 2017, then wrote and directed his first short a year later. His feature debut, Help (2021), picked up multiple festival prizes and marked him as a fresh voice in contained psychological thrillers. Ridder’s horror follow-up, Manor of Darkness, was released in December 2025, while his third feature, the California-set suspense thriller Spill, is completed and heading for festivals/distribution. Across more than 70 shorts he has written, directed, and appeared in award winners such as The English Teacher (2020). He founded Ridder Films, an independent production company operating in Los Angeles and London, and launched the Ridder Film Festival in 2024 to spotlight emerging genre filmmakers. His behind-the-scenes filmmaking content has attracted an online audience of over half a million followers. Ridder speaks English and Mandarin fluently.
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