The Highlight Reel - An Interview Series with Filmmakers
Episode I - A Conversation with Gavin Wild
Welcome to this week’s Wednesday Edition of The Backlot. These mid-week newsletters are reserved for deep dives of the latest filmmaking news, interviews with filmmakers, and episodic series on major issues affecting the industry.
NOTE - The mid-week version of this newsletter, including the Documentary Film series, is for paid subscribers. All Sunday Evening posts are free.
This week, we’re kicking off our interview series…
🎞️ A Conversation with Filmmaker Gavin Shwahla
🎬 News from the Industry
Gavin Shwahla is a filmmaker, photographer, and conservationist based in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. His films have captured the importance of conservation, commentated on the novelty of the superhero genre, and captured the beauty of reconnecting with your natural soul.
I first met Gavin while working as a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in the Colorado Rockies nearly a decade ago. We were both pursuing careers in wildlife biology and connected through similar projects during the nearly three months in the mountains, before returning to our prospective coastline.
As our lives and careers progressed, we both found ourselves on a similar path, turning away from research and fieldwork to follow another childhood dream - filmmaking.
Since then, we’ve collaborated on several projects, including our current work on Tommy’s Island, a feature-length documentary film about a local citizen's effort to protect an island on the Jersey Shore.
Gavin has a unique story and path into filmmaking. He worked as a wildlife biologist studying different species of birds before committing to a career in film and photography. Since then, he’s combined his two passions, using his background to produce both narrative and documentary films that shed light on the idea of rewilding your soul.
During our conversation, he shared a little bit about his history with film, his connection to nature, and his perspectives as an indie filmmaker.
I hope you enjoy our conversation.
A Conversation with Gavin Shwahla
Hey Gavin, thank you for joining me today and sharing a little bit about yourself and your journey into filmmaking.
It’s an absolute pleasure and stoked to be here.
Let’s start by telling me a little bit about what got you into filmmaking? When did your interest in filmmaking begin, and how did it start?
I think I always liked movies. It was a family thing, but I didn't really appreciate movie-making or filmmaking. Truthfully, I had no inclination to get into it when I was a kid.
Actually, I think in fourth grade, I tried to write or wanted to make a film because I was inspired by Fantastic Four. So, I created my own characters and whatnot. But then when I went to my dad and asked, how do I make a movie? He told me you have to write it. I was like, nope, not for me. And just as soon as I realized I had to write the film, it was over because I didn't want to be a writer; I just wanted to make a movie. I didn’t realize writing is literally the blueprint for the film.
Then, years later, the desire came back around in high school, and I turned one of my superhero characters, which I would draw sketches of in my notebooks, into a little short film.
At the time, I knew nothing about filmmaking or how to tell a story with a camera visually. I just had something I needed to express, which was my experience throughout high school and through my parents' divorce. I just grabbed the camera and some friends in that class and set out and made something. We just figured it out. That's when I realized that filmmaking was for me.
What was it like, at such a young age, figuring out the basics of how filmmaking works in this film, which was called The Garnet Gull? How did you manage to direct your friends and produce the film?
I think if they didn't have to do the class, they wouldn’t have stuck with me. Just because I didn't know how to use a crew. I didn’t know how to direct a crew at all.
So, I would really just bounce ideas off of them. I would have them just, you know, hold the microphone and or lighting equipment while I worked the camera.
I learned you can't do it without other people. You can try; there are plenty of solo filmmakers and solo productions out there. For myself, though, the films that I was watching on TV and stuff like that, there's no way you can do that by yourself.
I think I learned being able to be vulnerable with people, not just in your film, but be able to communicate and express to your friends or coworkers - hey, this is why this is so important to me. I think that's ultimately why that first short film was so critical because people saw how important the Garnet Gull was to me. I was lucky enough to have friends who cared enough.
I think a lot of filmmakers start out by making stuff on their own, but it’s almost like with the Garnet Gull; you started out with the crew and community right away. How did that feel to be a part of that community around your project?
Well, it took me six months to make a half-hour superhero film. We premiered the Garnet Gull and showed it in front of 150 people. It was for a school project and a no-budget film. The film is great, and I'm really proud of it. The response I got was better than I ever could have imagined.
I remember watching it in the premiere and waiting for that first joke, just that first beat, where I try to make you feel something. As soon as that hit and I heard the majority of the audience laugh, I relaxed. I was like, okay, they're going to get it. They're going to like it; it's going to be fine.
You just don't know that you can do it until you see that you can do it, you know. I guess it's different for each project, but this first one, when you're testing all these abilities and everything like that, I couldn't have asked for it to go better.
I want to touch on this other aspect of your history, and that's the conservation aspect because these two obviously connect at one point in your journey. Tell me a little bit about how that came into play in your life? When did you first start getting interested in conservation, and when did that path emerge for you?
I mean, you know this, it's Steve Irwin. I mean, before film, I wanted to be the next Steve Irwin. I just saw him when I was around three and knew that was it. That's who I wanna be, and that's what I wanna do.
Then, when he died, I was devastated. His passing almost cemented it even more for me because I felt like I had to fill this gap—carry on the legacy. He really inspired me. I mean, I was already inclined to nature before that, but he really just launched me into it.
My story, though, is that on my father's side of the family were blueberry farmers. I remember them having the farm, going there, and walking those fields with my dad. Some of my earliest memories are of the blueberry bushes and seeing groundhogs, birds, and deer. My grandfather would always bring me frogs or box turtles that he would catch on the farm before he knew it was bad.
And then, when I was around five, they sold the farm and my grandfather stopped bringing me box turtles and frogs. Instead, he'd give me $20 bills, which I'm really grateful for, but as a kid, box turtles were a lot cooler. So, then there was no place to go because although we had little pieces of property left, most of the farm was just houses now.
And so we, you know, that message that places you love and the wildlife you love are fragile and can go away, I learned that really early on in life.
Do you think having that realization really early on and also being interested in films influenced each other? I think the realization of climate change, environmental issues, etc., is a tipping point in many of our careers.
Hmm. no. I mean, that's, that's a part of it now, but that was never the motivating factor.
I always forget who told me this, but some scientists and biologists I’ve met in my career think our job is to conserve nature and save it. Ideally, though, our job is just to observe and study it. That's what we want to do. Nobody wants to feel that they have to save it, right?
I've wrestled with that my whole life. I’ve asked myself why I put this pressure to save it on myself. I even asked one of my favorite professors, Curt Stager, how do you deal with this burden? He told me you can look at it as a burden, or you can look at it as you have an opportunity to do something. You know, it's an honor to be able to help.
Let’s move forward a bit to when you're in college - you're studying wildlife biology, you're making these conservation videos and shorts about nature. When did this start to become something that was not so much of just, I'm making videos and shorts, but this is what I wanna do for a living?
One of the best experiences of my life was my trip to Nepal which I did through school. It was the first kind of real documentary film project that I made besides the Garnet Gull. Well, the Garnet Gull wasn't a documentary. Really, I only got into documentaries because telling the scripted stories took too much effort, and I wanted to practice with what was just right here, the stories that were available to me at the time.
So, this became my class project to document our class's trip to Nepal. It was the first time that I actually stepped into Steve Irwin's shoes. I was the host.
There's a scene in that film where I catch this gecko, and I teach the owner of our guest house, his son, about geckos. He’s afraid to touch it. He's afraid, you know, because he doesn't know anything about them. So he sees me touching him, and I can tell he knows enough English that I can get through, “This is safe,” you know.
At the end of that interaction, he’s listening to me give the spiel to the camera, and he touches and pets the gecko. He was not afraid anymore. That was just a big moment. I was like, holy shit, I like this. I just invoked the same feeling that Steve Irwin invoked in me as a kid. I can do that; that's incredible.
So, probably from there, that's when I knew I had to find a way to do this more. I have to find a way to incorporate this into my career.
And going off of that, I want to talk about the idea that you have around your work - your photography and your film. The idea of rewilding your soul. Tell me a little bit about what rewilding your soul means and how that's influenced you?
It just means loving yourself. When you love yourself, you're better able to love the people around you, the strangers you meet, and our earth.
I mean, I’ll give it away right now; I’m on a continuous journey. But rewilding your soul is realizing that your soul is already wild, that you're already everything that you ever need to be.
I don't know; there are so many things I could say. We talk about this all the time, but I think in a gist, it’s just learning how to acknowledge and observe fear and let go of that so the love can come for yourself and then the world.
I think a good note to add is that rewilding your soul to rewild the planet goes both ways. You know, for me, it started with wanting to help the earth. And through that connection to nature, I realized that nature was healing me.
For indie filmmakers and people working in the industry or trying to work in the industry, I kind of want to talk about your experience over the last few years trying to break into both the documentary and narrative fields. What has that experience been like for you?
It's a great question, but it’s not something that I think about trying to “break into the industry.” I'm just making it a job and a career. My approach has been to just do it—to just make things and get better with each one. And that has been happening.
Especially working on the first feature documentary with you on Tommy's Island. I’ve learned alot going through the process of doing all the work that you don't want to do as a filmmaker, as a director, doing all this work upfront just so you can make the film.
It's weird to not pick up a camera or write a script and still be working on a film, to still be a filmmaker. That's been a new rewarding experience because it's shown me how this can be a job, you know.
You just do it because it's how you make the thing. And I know from life that the greater that struggle is, the greater the yield is on the other side.
I think that process of learning how much actually goes into a film is the moment where you're like, okay, this is a career - this is a job. This isn't just something I'm doing for fun. At the same time, you start to realize there is more to this than just writing a script and then filming it. This takes a lot. I think that's a huge moment in anybody's career.
Yeah, that's why when you're watching a film, there are so many freaking names at the end of the credits.
I'll say this, too; When I was starting out, my goal in life was to see these things in my head play out and tell some stories before I die. And I said, I'm going to figure out how to do that in the most professional, most beautiful way.
I thought I needed to know every aspect of the crew and the filmmaking process. I thought if I was gonna be the director, I needed to know everything. I needed to be able to do every job. But, I have realized after some time being a director with a crew that, yes, it's good to know about different roles and departments, but really that's why they're there.
With a feature film, too, you just can't do it alone, and I wouldn't want to. And honestly, if you're doing it right, which I feel like we are, your crew feels like a family.
Do you think that’s the sign of running a good set or being a good director? When your crew starts to feel more like a family than a crew.
I definitely thought of this - what are the filmmaking skills that make a good filmmaker or a good film director? Yes, creativity, yes, story structure, you know, and things like that, but it’s more about the life experience.
It’s about the ability to communicate, the ability to be vulnerable, and the ability to bring a village around your story. To cultivate that collaborative environment and that film family.
That's the stuff that I don't know film school would teach you. That’s what I think life and experience - just going through and doing it - teaches you.
I want to touch on something about Wood Vibrations, your award-winning short film. This kind of style in documentary film is where you are using narrative elements and narrative themes to progress the story. In Wood Vibrations, personally, and I think other people would agree with me, it’s the highlight of the film. Especially in that scene where he's yelling at the door. I think that scene alone is probably the strongest aspect of that film. Where did this idea and style come from?
Thank you for bringing it up because I love to talk about this. This is why I say I'm not a documentary filmmaker. Yes, I've been telling true stories that are other people's stories, but I do not think of myself as a documentary filmmaker. And this, you know, I've been on an odyssey with my film career to get back because the full intention of my career is to make scripted theatrical films.
The door scene came from doing the interview with Brian (the subject of the film) and learning about his story. He told me the first thing he ever created out of wood was this old door, and he fixed it up, and I think he said he made a bookshelf out of it.
I was just digesting that story and what he was going through at the time. The actual story of how he became this artist resonated with me, and the door just was so significant for those mental blocks that keep us from being ourselves and from doing what we love. It's fear. And I wanted to express how we move past that. How do we open those doors? How do we knock them down?
It was just something that I dreamt up. Brian sitting there like the Buddha, that's his character as a driftwood Buddha. So it just made sense, right? Sending some mental waves at the door.
Because I’m trying as a director in these documentaries to show you the world how I see it. To show you this character, how I see them, and a lot of times, I feel too limited in typical documentary formats or techniques.
Okay, and finally, to finish up, can you tell me one film would recommend for anyone to watch?
Sleepless in Seattle because it is a masterclass in anticipation. The first time I watched the film, I got so caught up in the profound amount of anticipation. They do it so well in the story. It showed me how important it is to build anticipation but also to have it pay off, which they did so well.
Gavin’s feature-length debut film, Tommy’s Island, is currently in development and will be filming in the summer of 2025. If you want to learn more about his work, you can visit his website or watch his award-winning short film, Wood Vibrations.
Mid Week Updates
This week’s updates from the world of filmmaking…
An article in The Guardian reported that crew members from the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis indicated the production was tumultuous, with entire days dedicated to short scenes, the loss of staff, and some reports of inappropriate conduct.
Furiosa debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday night and received a 7-minute standing ovation from the crowd. Critics are claiming it is one of the best prequels of all time. The film will be released in theatres worldwide on May 24th.
A new Lord of the Rings film has been announced, following the story of Gollum and “delving into those parts of his journey we didn’t have time to cover in the earlier films,” announced Peter Jackson. Andy Serkis will return as Gollum and will also direct the film, with writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (from the original trilogy) returning to write the script.
According to Deadline, Netflix has ordered a new series following several of the men’s basketball teams on the road to the 2024 Paris Olympics. The film is being produced by the team behind The Last Dance, which is often considered one of the best sports documentary series of all time.
Katheryn Bigelow, the acclaimed director of Point Break and Zero Dark Thirty, has announced a new project for Netflix, her first film in nearly seven years. Bigelow was the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director with her 2008 masterpiece, The Hurt Locker.
On Sunday, we’ll be discussing …
🎞️ The Wonderful World of Funding Documentary Films
🎬 Best Places to Find Grants
🗞️ Weekly Movie Recommendations
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