An Inspired Chat with Billy Hanson of Mid-City

We recently had the chance to connect with Billy Hanson and have shared our conversation below.

Billy, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
This is something I’ve thought about a lot since hitting my 40s. Middle age tends make people question their past decisions and consider their consequences in the future. Where did I come from? How did I get here? Where am I headed? Have I taken the wrong path? Those are all reasonable questions, and all of them can be difficult to answer. But I’ve been lucky enough to know what I wanted to do since I was 5 years old, so at the very least, I’ve always known what direction I was headed.

It would be easy to say that I’m following a path, but if you know anything about the film business, then you’ve probably heard that there is no clear path to success. There’s no clear ladder to climb, no companies to rise up through the ranks. At least not that I’ve ever found. The journey is different for everyone. To get ahead in this business, you really need to gather your own tools, do your own career cartography, and forge your own path ahead.

I’ve found that setting my goals and knowing my destination have been a great strength over 20 years of living and working in Los Angeles. It can be frustrating to have to find your own way, that nobody is there to walk you through the steps you have to take. But in the wilderness of the movie business, creating your own path can also prepare you for the challenges you’ll face when you finally reach that hard won destination.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I usually introduce myself as a storyteller, first and foremost. In 2015, I started my company, DIRIGO ENTERTAINMENT, as a way to get all of my stories out to the world. Since starting the company, I have published two books, LONG TERM DAMAGE in 2024 and SPIDER SEASON in 2018, which won the Gold Medal in Fiction Anthology at the 2019 Readers Favorite Book Awards. My feature film, BONE COLD, was released in the summer of 2023 and still continues to be distributed around the world. Several music videos have also been released from London-based artist, COACH HOP.

Outside of my own company, I’ve written comics for Zenescope, worked as a screenwriter/story producer for the Eli Roth-produced series, THE LEGION OF EXORCISTS and THE CURSE OF ROBERT THE DOLL. I also published my short story, SCREAMER, in the 2024 anthology, MACABRÉ, and I served as co-editor of the upcoming short story anthology, KEYS TO THE KINGDOM, which includes two of my stories, POWDER BLUE and LIFE SENTENCE.

I have multiple projects at different stages of development, but keep an eye out for some exciting new developments to be announced in early 2026.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
Both of my parents were incredibly hard-working, with their own awe-inspiring work ethic. I like to think that I’ve inherited my mother’s ambition and my father’s stubbornness. They both knew how to finish everything they started and could solve any problems on their own. That’s a good combination for someone who decided to make a life in a nearly impossible business like the movies. They taught me to find joy in the work that I do, even the seemingly meaningless, mindless, thankless jobs of my teenage years.

In high school, I played a ton of music both during school and after school, and I participated in dozens of extracurricular activities. My parents always encouraged me to stay busy with things that I enjoyed, and helped me to understand that the things I love would always take extra work. If I wanted to play in the best bands, I’d have to work hard to practice and get better. If I wanted to keep on acting, I’d have to work on my lines and be prepared for set. They never let me set aside the responsibilities of my daily life or my schoolwork, but they always helped me to get the most out of the things I wanted to do.

I carried that understanding with me throughout my entire life, and when I got to LA, I realized pretty quickly that I would have to work hard to stay in the city, and work even harder to do the things I wanted to do. That’s really the only way to keep pushing yourself forward in a busy and expensive city like this.

And another important part of my parents’ work ethic, was finding joy in the work that you’re doing. My parents both managed to find joy in their busy lives and their hard work, and I’ve tried to do the same. Didn’t matter if I was working the Christmas rush in the Toys R Us video game department or working until 4am in the iCarly post department. Joy is absolutely attainable in a crazy, difficult, and overwhelming world, but you really have to learn how to wring it out of your life like a wet sponge.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Literally every day.

A lot of what I do can feel like screaming into a void. Like I said before, this business requires you to forge your own path ahead, so you have to be comfortable feeling like you’re lost in the woods. It is a constant struggle to remind myself that these things I’m doing are actually worth while. I’m not wasting my time or spinning my wheels by researching Executive Producers from projects similar to one that I’m trying to make. It’s not pointless to reach out to people I haven’t met to see if they’d be interested in collaborating on something. Most of the time, my emails, phone calls, and texts are all ignored. And if they’re not ignored, they’re usually a clear and concise, NO.

But every once in a while, there’s a win. Someone will connect with me or my work, and they’ll start a conversation, a back and forth that could lead to something, or lead to nothing. But even when those lead to another NO, they can give just a glimmer of hope that someday you’ll get a YES. And take my word for it… you keep going, keep pushing through that feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, and uselessness, you will make that connection and get that YES that shows you the value of all those unanswered emails, and the overwhelming number of NOs.

In fact, after more than two years trying to get one of my films off the ground, I just recently got the YES that pushed it forward. And while I can’t yet say who I got it from, I can tell you that when this project goes, it will be because I took a big swing, reached out to a person I’d never met, presented my work, and made a solid connection. That’s something that never would have happened if I gave up.

Hopefully that YES will keep me going through the next 5,000 NOs.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
One of the biggest and best lessons that I’ve learned during my time in the movie business – and I say the movie business very loosely – is the realization that there’s nobody out there with all the answers. There isn’t one person that you meet who will unlock the whole industry and pave the way for you. You should remain focused on your personal goals and utilize your own skills and knowledge, rather than spending too much time trying to find someone to do it for you.

It’s also important to understand that your experience and your perspective have value. It’s so easy to fall into a position of “Well, I don’t know, so I’m not qualified.” Sure, if you’ve never made a film, you probably shouldn’t be in charge of a multi-million dollar production, but it doesn’t mean you’re stupid, inexperienced, or unimportant. I struggled for a long time to remind myself that even though I didn’t have a feature film under my belt, I had nearly two decades of production and post-production experience that most other filmmakers didn’t have. That’s certainly not nothing. But you have too many conversations over drinks with negative people and you might start to believe you have no chance of ever getting where you want to be, or ever deserve it.

As soon as I learned to value myself and my experience, I became truly unaffected by other people trying to make me feel like an idiot for not knowing something, or for taking big swings with my career. A lot of the film business is built on a make-believe hierarchy that assigns values to people and work that I simply don’t understand. I’m a very practical person and I tend to break everyone down into two categories: People who can get things done, and people who can’t. It’s very simple.

Trust me. As a young filmmaker with passion, a clear vision, and persistence, you have so much more value than someone who has been sitting in an office watching box office numbers for twenty years.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. How do you know when you’re out of your depth?
In the film business, I’m constantly out of my depth. At every step of the process. Every new project has its own challenges and new things to learn. But I’ve learned that being out of my depth isn’t a bad thing. If you’re passionate and tenacious about making movies, you’ve got to be comfortable with this feeling, because it will happen at the start of every project you make, no matter how much experience you have.

For example, my last film was about two Navy SEAL snipers on a Black-Ops mission in a war zone. Problem was, I knew very little about military life. I hadn’t grown up in a military family. So I was out of my depth from the word GO on that project. But through the writing process, I researched a ton, listened to people who knew about that world, and relied on my genuine and honest approach to the story. So, even though I felt under-qualified and out of my depth, I made a film that received high praise from members of the military community.

I’ve often talked about how I consider myself to be kind of an idiot when it comes to most things, and how that’s been one of my greatest assets. That remains true after 20 years in LA. Don’t even be afraid to be out of your depth, because that’s when you just might do some of your best work. But you have to be willing to learn, grow, and change. That way, you’ll likely find yourself well within your depth at the end of a project.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dirigoentertainment.com/
• Instagram: @atta.boy.billy
• Youtube: @billyhanson
• Other: GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17520181.Billy_Hanson

Image Credits
Booked It Photography
Judy Bouley