We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Caroline Pace a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Caroline , thank you so much for making time for us. We’ve always admired your ability to take risks and so maybe we can kick things off with a discussion around how you developed your ability to take and bear risk?
As a child, it was evident that I was wired to be a risk-averse person. My mother recalls how I would make sure my arm-floaties were sufficiently inflated before I dared jump into the lake. Somewhere along the line I have become so acquainted with risk-taking that I now rummage the streets of New York City, staring down the barrel of my upcoming off-broadway directorial debut and a dream that I, quite frankly, have no logical reason to pursue. Maybe it was delusion driving me but I’d like to think it was re-wiring the way I see risk as an exciting opportunity instead. As a Gen-Z’er myself, I’ve noticed a whole new symptom of failure plague me as social media and worldwide communication becomes more accessible: our “failures” are more public than ever. Talking to my peers I’ve discovered that most of us are more tormented by the embarrassment that comes with falling on our faces than the act itself.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn how to reframe all the looming embarrassment and reality-checks to empower yourself to learn from your mistakes and get it right on the next risk you take. Each song you write will be better than the last, because you learned something about your process from the last one. Every failure is just one step closer to being confident in your craft and they’re imperative to our growth. If you never make that awful short film that you’re bound to be embarrassed by in a few years, you will never have the skills and knowledge to direct a feature for a major studio one day. And all those friends and family who follow you on social media who you’re terrified will judge you once you crash and burn? They’ll have the privilege of one day going “I followed their career back when they were just teaching themselves how to do it”
Think of it this way – if you were to put an ice cube on a countertop with the goal of melting it and you set your thermostat to 28 degrees, it would not melt. The next day you set it to 29, then 30, and then 31, and finally 32. You’re putting in the steps to make a change but still not seeing results, what gives? If you were to give up there, you wouldn’t know that the next step would actually give you the results you were looking for. And yes— technically, the final step was the one that got you your results, but that doesn’t discount the other temperature changes you made before that final one. When you want to take a huge leap of faith, you need to take the steps necessary to equip yourself with all the skills and knowledge you want before you take that risk.
I’m not telling you to declare yourself the next Taylor Swift and quit your day job tomorrow, but I am encouraging you to spend your free time producing your own songs and taking lessons and then maybe in 3 months time – you’ll be confident enough in your craft to finally quit your day job! At the end of the day, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risks at all.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been creating short films and writing scripts since I was a hyperactive theatre kid in middle school. Since then, I have turned this hobby into a life-long passion with my short films having been admitted in many international film festivals and by also winning the 48 hour film festival a few times now.
Since moving to New York City from Nashville, TN in 2021, I have worked in the production offices of many major network television and film studios such as NBCUniversal, Showtime, Paramount, Hulu, Disney, and Comedy Central. In 2023, after the double whammy of both a car accident and the WGA/SAG strikes, I focused once more on bringing my own stories to life and I’m happy to say I am launching my own production company, Not To Be Dramatic Productions, with my best friend Tyler where our speciality is pushing ourselves and our clients past any pre-conceived limits.
On April 28th, 2024 I will be making my Off-Broadway Directorial debut in “You’re Invited To: The Sleepover Show” alongside my good friend and frequent collaborator Mackenzie Jaquish at Soho Playhouse!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think the biggest piece of advice I could ever give to someone early in their career is to find the people in your classes/workplace/family who inspire you the most and learn from them as much as you can. A lot of people get fixated on what resources they don’t have yet and underestimate the value in the people they have in their own network. I realized in my early 20’s that you really are the combination of the five people you spend the most amount of time with and that realization changed the whole game for me. Finding people who not only encouraged my growth but heavily contributed to my own journey is the most amazing gift I’ve received in this life. I hope to spend the rest of my life growing and being inspired by the people I am so incredibly privileged to call my friends. At the end of the day, the best quality you can have when pursuing something scary is an insatiable thirst to learn even more as you grow. So to answer your question, the ability to grow/learn, networking with genuine connections in mind, and to always leave room for yourself to feel inspired.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I don’t think these two options are mutually exclusive at all. I think it’s always possible to go in on your own strengths but also dip your toes into the areas you aren’t as confident in if it so you can have a more well-rounded understanding of what industry/project you’re correctly working on/in. Especially in my industry, film/television, because often times in the very beginning you have very limited resources available to you so you have to wear multiple hats in order to kickoff your career. I want to be a screenwriter, so in order to do that I have to direct and edit some of my own projects because it gives me control and I don’t have the resources to pay an entire team to do all those things for me just so I can only focus on the writing part.
Plus, having an understanding of how other jobs work helps me write and produce with that project in mind and I think it’s applicable to all facets of production. Back when I was working as a Production Secretary on various television shows, I always made it a point to ask my Office Assistants what their end goal was. When one told me she wanted to be a cinematographer, I told her that although she wasn’t going to get much hands-on experience with cameras in the office setting, that I would make a point to have her help me with the camera department’s expendables orders whenever they requested them so that she could utilize her experience in a different department to benefit her end goal.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://carolinepace.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolineepace/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-pace-9564181b7/
Image Credits
Jesse Korman Peter Newsom Cooper Smith
