Meet David Krouse

 

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Krouse. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

David , so great to have you with us and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with the community. So, let’s jump into something that stops so many people from going after their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. We’d love to hear about how you dealt with that and persisted on your path.

“Why should I worry? Why should I care? Even when I cross that line, I got street savoir-faire.” – Billy Joel, Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight.

Last year I discussed in ShoutOutLA “conversation with someone who didn’t understand the impact of film exhibition, or that film careers involve more than just the director/actor and production phase of a movie’s life.” Without the exhibition part of it, filmmaking isn’t a career – it’s an expensive hobby.

Movie Theaters are the Film Industry.

When I audited the opening of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, we were asked to collect additional data about the movie going experience beyond standard theater checks. That made it all that much more special when Tom Cruise gave us a shout-out in his industry thank-you letter: “. . . To every theater and every employee who helps bring these stories to audiences, thank you.” And shared this video – https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x_4l0iWbzkI.

Even more special given 2025’s already been generous with haters and naysayers.

Bo Tyler–an amazing actor–received a volley of Tik-Tok hate recently in his quest to land an audition for NightWing. Too young. Too old. Too Fat. Too Ugly. . . As I shared with him, “Publicity can be a terrible thing. But only if you don’t have any.” – Jane Russell.

First week of April, I got some free publicity myself: ‘Is David Krouse selling the Brooklyn Bridge?’ and ‘David Krouse in CanvasRebel Magazine: Tall Tales? A Rebuttal.’ The disciplinary memo’s author claimed former teacher status, even publishing under the pseudonym ‘Professor Maverick.’

“I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.” – Deadpool

While questioning my “dubious expertise” and “questionable achievements” that supposedly “warrant scrutiny,” Professor Maverick (who shall henceforth be known as Professor M) ends up undercutting himself crediting me with “graduation.”

Joke’s on him: I didn’t graduate college! (Although my real professors wrote some nice LinkedIn Reviews).

He also needs to clean his glasses and re-read my ShoutOutLA Interview, “I . . . got involved with The Valley Film Festival, moving up to House Manager and then Co-Producer for several years.” He also should read the below email between me and the American Cinematheque while he’s at it.

Apparently, Professor M didn’t prep for his lecture—or check my IMDb.

As for AMC, two days after Professor M’s attempted public lashing, Denver Labor emailed to confirm that AMC was sending me a check for wages owed since November 2023, (my second legal win against their “corporate malfeasance”). AMC also admitted last year they owed me those wages in March 2024 (as evidenced by the email in my CanvasRebel Interview) but declined to send them until compelled to do so this year. I think that makes it clear who really had “a reluctance to accept responsibility” and who has “a propensity for making unsubstantiated claims”.

Then there’s Professor M’s struggle with understanding the connection between art (movies), psychographics, and how they create community.

I recommend he go see the new Superman! It’s a case study—not to mention an amazing movie—in how modern audiences connect to their own experiences reflected back in Superman’s: pets are family, vulnerability to online hate and cancel culture, opposition to wars of aggression and genocide perpetrated by Russia and Israel against Ukraine and Gaza, the overreach and narcissism of tech gods in our daily lives, and their willingness to rip apart the world… take your pick.

And let’s not forget Professor M’s linguistic style itself: He sounds like his Dad spanked him with a thesaurus. “Penchant,” “Oscillating,” “Self-aggrandizement,” “Tumultuous,” “Substantiation,” “Propensity,” “Dubious,” “Malfeasance”… (He left out “Supercilious,” “Mendacious,” “Indefatigable,” “Callow,” and “Oy Vey”).

Could I ignore Professor M?

Suuure . . . But why waste another opportunity to talk more about Top Gun: Maverick?

Top Gun: Maverick ANALYSIS

It’s ironic Professor M claims I ignored “storytelling,” when my thesis was the story Tom Cruise, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Joseph Kosinski chose to tell: a no-contact relationship between a surrogate father and son, after Maverick sabotages Rooster’s career – for narcissistic reasons.

According to Kosinski’s December 24, 2022 Collider interview, this dynamic was his idea—and it was what convinced Cruise to finally sign on after turning down a sequel for decades. As the Australia Broadcasting Company reviewed “Playing at reconciliation between surrogate fathers and sons, Top Gun: Maverick is a movie for middle-aged men desperate for validation as good dads.” (https://collider.com/top-gun-maverick-director-joseph-kosinski-interview/).

It’s also a full arc for Tom Cruise back to All the Right Moves and a commentary on how generational relations have evolved—and not for the better. Now Tom Cruise is Coach Nickerson—only worse.

Coach Nickerson was narcissistic and behaved badly to protect his god complex and career—but Stefan Djordjevic was also selfish and deserved some punishment (paddling, dawn patrol, and cleaning team equipment with a toothbrush). The problem with Nickerson’s punishment—cutting Djordjevic from the team and blacklisting him to colleges and condemning him to a life in the factories—is that it suited his massive ego, not Stefan’s actual offense (willfully disobeying his coach during a play that cost them the game, and petty vandalism).

Top Gun: Maverick, however, breaks the Boomer father/Gen X son formula, because Gen X Mitchell kneecaps Millennial Rooster—who was on track to be an amazing pilot–Top Gun is the best of the best after all–precisely because he was on track to be an amazing pilot and that got in the way of Mitchell’s needs. Coach Nickerson’s actions had a sense of rough justice; Mitchell’s had none at all. In 1986, Mitchell was driven by his father’s legacy—acting out to live up to an idealized image. In 2022, Maverick is still trying to desperately hold onto an idealized image of himself – at everyone else’s expense.

But Maverick’s logic doesn’t logic.

He starts the movie fighting hard for manned fighter jets—but makes no effort to ensure there’s a new generation of pilots to fly them. He had the chance to train Rooster into the best pilot Top Gun had ever seen, but instead, he sabotaged him. And yet, Mitchell still expected the U.S. taxpayer to bankroll a program that leads nowhere – except stoking Mitchell’s need for speed.

Compare that to recent generations of parents who “parentified” American society in the name of protection—then turned around and mocked their kids for being “overprotected.”

Example: There’s no shortage of Boomer and Gen X memes claiming they were the last generations raised right—as free-range kids—while sneering at Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. Yet these are the same generations of parents who eagerly created virtual umbilical cords like Life360 and gleefully robbed younger generations of any sense of self or independence. Think Bill Maher sneering at David Hogg: “What do young people have to be anxious about?”

Also check out TV Soap Star turned Realtor/Generational Economic Disparity Analyst Freddie Smith’s Tik-Tok about how previous generations have sabotaged future ones.

Back to Top Gun: Maverick. Mitchell lasted two months as an instructor before getting canned—then spends years dodging the job, only to criticize the next generation for being unprepared. He pulled Rooster’s papers from the Academy, then questioned whether Rooster had what it takes (he never acknowledges that Rooster somehow made it to Top Gun on his own, and in spite of him).

Maverick glorifies manned aircraft for himself—but he’s also the root cause of why they’re becoming redundant, with a shortage of well-trained Top Gun pilots and the relevance of the academy itself now in jeopardy.

That’s not old-school mentorship—it’s narcissistic taunting of someone you crippled. It’s also textbook covert manipulation and gaslighting. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise… We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Mitchell tries to justify his actions by claiming he was “protecting Rooster’s mother”—that it was easier for Rooster to hate him than her. But that’s not what good fathers do. A father’s role is to moderate a mother’s potential harm, not enable it. If Mitchell were serious about being a good father, he would have dragged Rooster’s mom to his Top Gun graduation—by the hair. (Kosinski sidesteps this dilemma by killing her off before the movie even starts).

Jacques Lacan calls this the paternal function—the “Name of the Father.” Mitchell could have done the right thing: supported Rooster and let the mom fume. Instead, he did what he wanted to do not matter how harmful it was and then hid behind a dead woman’s memory to avoid facing the fact that he screwed up. Worse, he rationalizes his harmful behavior with the fantasy that Rooster will eventually forgive him and let him off the hook. There’s no consideration for the harm he perpetuated. Even his conversation with Iceman is telling. It’s not about Rooster’s well-being—it’s about Maverick’s: “Either way, I could lose him forever.”

Good dads do what’s best for their sons—not themselves.

As for nostalgia—sure, it’s a factor. But not as big of one as “Professor M” seems to think. CoughSpace Jam 2cough*.*

Paramount put out confusing data when they announced 55% of audiences were 35 or older. This tells one story, but it’s not the whole picture. According to the AARP, only around 18% audience were 55-years-of-age or older. A significant portion of the audience wasn’t born when Top Gun came out in 1986.

Top Gun: Maverick was limited to Western Markets – It DID NOT release in China or Russia. Audience by sex was 58% male. Now compare to other successful shows consumed by that same audience. According to Nielsen, the top scripted streaming show in 2021 was Lucifer, with The Boys ranking third. Among female audiences, Bridgerton was the top streaming show for 2021.

All these shows—Lucifer, The Boys, and Bridgerton—are unavailable in China (and, since 2022, in Russia), yet still command strong audiences. Each centers on characters grappling with the same struggles Rooster has with Maverick.

Lucifer focuses on a son resenting his father’s rejection—and being sent to hell at his mother’s behest. In The Boys, Huey, Annie, Butcher, and Homelander are all furious with parents who sabotaged their lives. And in Bridgerton, Daphne and Simon’s entire love story is shaped by deliberate parental selfishness.

So what’s going on with this specific audience?

They were largely raised by the narcissistic generations Christopher Lasch described in 1979.

In 2020, Karl Pillemer—Hazel E. Reed Professor of Human Development at Cornell—published Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, based on his research into the growing generational estrangement of the 2010s. According to The Cornell Chronicle (Sept. 10, 2020) 27% of Americans 18 and older who cut off family members and reported being upset by the rift–or 67 million Americans in Western Markets.

Sound like a pretty solid market metric to me.

Still not convinced?

iCarly Generation (younger Millennials) star Jennette McCurdy’s memoir ‘I’m Glad My Mom Died’ (2022) describing her selfish, narcissistic mother’s abuse
sold out in 24 hours of going on sale, and became the number 1 New York Times bestseller for non-fiction in both print and ebook formats. It’s sold 3 million copies and has been on the most borrowed library book list for 2023 and 2024. It’s still selling strong in 2025 and already been signed for a movie adaption.

It’s also not without historical precedent.

Charles Dickens was shipped off to a workhouse, and his mother planned to leave him there even after his father was released from debtor’s prison. “I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.”

Dickens’s experience fueled many of his novels (the media of its time), including David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby. It also led him to take out an advertisement in London refusing to pay his parents’ debts and demanding that they leave England. These novels also tapped into a shared psychographic with one of his biggest fans—who was likewise subjected to maternal abuse, domination, and the 19th-century version of Life360: Queen Victoria.

My take?

Maverick rode a cultural wave of generational resentment in 2022 – like Billy Jack did in 1971.

‘That Never Happened’ and ‘Ciure’

“Inflated Professional Achievements While discussing his career, Krouse emphasizes his role in securing the U.S. premiere of That Never Happened: Canada’s First National Internment Operations. He boasts about obtaining coverage in the Los Angeles Daily News and the film’s subsequent screening at the United Nations. However, he neglects to clarify his direct involvement in these later achievements, raising questions about the extent of his contribution.” – Professor Maverick

“Self-Promotion and Questionable Achievements He boasts about organizing an encore screening of the film ‘Ciure’ at Los Angeles Valley College, emphasizing the significance of this event . However, the prominence of this achievement appears inflated, as such screenings are relatively common in academic settings and do not necessarily denote exceptional accomplishment.” – Professor Maverick

“But you have heard of me.” – Jack Sparrow.

And read every single word and then wrote about my career for a whole new audience!

‘Professor M’s flaw is he assumes too much for someone who wasn’t on the email chains. He also doesn’t appear to have ever worked in exhibition or he’d understand the difference between a campus screening of a movie that’s being released and a special screening of a movie which hasn’t been released or signed distribution in North America yet – a month before it’s BAFTA qualifying festival run.

What you see is what you get with me—but it’s rarely all there is.

And what people see depends on the frame they use.

I learned that in History of Animation with an adjunct instructor who absolutely hated having me in class. But one day, I surprised him by volunteering that Spain hadn’t produced much cinema during the 1930s due to the Spanish Civil War. Without skipping a beat, he said, “Very good!”—sounding both amazed and a little proud—before asking, “How’d you know that?”

I was surprised at his surprise, given I’d taken junior-level coursework as a freshman at Defiance College and a number of media history courses at a few places (and I have been caught opening a book a few times). In all fairness to him, the disbelief may have had something to do with the fact that I was a class clown and that teacher popped up on my schedule more than Mr. Feeny (seven classes—almost nine—at two different campuses), and most of our emails revolved around where my homework was and why I hadn’t turned it in.

“Hey David, Will you not be there tonight?  Please make sure you bring in a hard copy next week.”
“David, I have zeros in the slots for you where there should be grades for these reviews.”
“Printed this one out for you.  Don’t tell anyone.”

Last one was my mid-term paper. He printed it and turned it into himself! (I never had a teacher do that before or stay on my ass every week about my homework–he really wanted to be full-time!)

That first semester I had him Fall 13, I covered some of in Voyage LA, but I’ll briefly recap–Fall13 I nearly failed every class I took and almost dropped out of school. Among other things living on the streets of Los Angeles + Community College Cinematography class = middle-aged Gen Xers who passed junior high but never left, egotistical film nerds, and taking the bus to Malibu and back four days a week for work before sitting in three-four hour night classes.

That semester I had a lot of haters and naysayers. Followed by mono. (I ended up repeating Astronomy and Sound Design to recover my GPA).

It was actually pretty humiliating to go from a 4.0GPA, two-sport NCAA D-III athlete completing junior-level bachelorette coursework as a Freshman to a junior college student face-planting again and again in multiple classes. But he was determined I was going to stay in the ring and finish the semester—even if that meant throwing me back in with a bloody nose, sucking air, and guarding the ropes so I didn’t escape. For some reason he found my a job on campus (probably his idea of creative detention. Maybe he figured he’d have a better chance of getting my homework if I was at school). He even graded an entire semester’s worth of papers overnight at the end of the semester so I didn’t fail his class.

He also signed me up for the only class he was teaching the next semester – his advanced film class, which ensured I stayed in school when I was thinking about dropping out altogether. That’s where he ended up grading my blood-stained homework (don’t rip staples out barehanded). But without flinching, he patched up my finger, graded my blood-smeared assignment (brushing it off like it was nothing). Then he hit me with a smile and quipped, ‘You’ve bled for your art—now we have to make you cry.’

(A few years later, he made sure I did both).

He also drew a sharp frame around me in bright, strong sharpie color too—show up AND ON TIME for class or get tardied by the Sharpie he wielded like the schoolmaster from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which he fondly referred to as his “teaching tool”—demanding focus, generally fair, and sometimes delivering stinging lessons in injustice for a well-rounded education. (Although he did say my excuse for why I was hungover—“It was Friday and I have a pulse”—would be a great title for a movie.)

The sharpie also drew a colorful frame around me.

During a four hour class, I showed up half-hour late and was unable to sign-in. Fair enough. He decided to have his advanced class attend a professional mixer of industry people. During the mixer everyone stayed for a respectable minimum amount of time before Irish goodbyeing and signing out – except me. I’d been too busy networking and met the late Paul T. Murray, who just happened to be the first 10 Degrees Hotter winner at The Valley Film Festival. After it finished, I discovered that the teacher had pulled the sign-out sheets too and I was marked absent for the entire day – LOL. (On the other hand that frame did motivate me to tune-out problematic people the next school year I had him – maybe that was the point).

One memorable whupping another semester was being cc’d on an email he sent another student who had asking if I could get an exception for bartstool attendance:

“David is a man of free will and can come and go as he pleases. I suppose we’ll find out just how serious he is about his education. Please feel free to check on him. He can either be found in class building his future, or in a bar drinking it away.”

It even arrived while we were at a bar, drink in hand! Hands down my favorite critique from a teacher – Sharp, fair and wicked! (I even used it in my Twitter bio for a while).

He hated my ‘smartassery’ (I inspired new vocabulary), and really hated it when I brought a Nerf football to class —‘Catch!’ (He almost didn’t give it back and started assigning me classroom chores!) My silly string practical effect stunt earned negative participation points. But that “Very Good” was the minute he sorta re-evaluated my dunce cap.

But only sorta. The following semester I got this email –

“Hi David,

I know you sent this before but I don’t think I knew you were actually involved…which is what I glean from this email.  Is that right?  Are you involved in this festival?”

Getting back to our LARPer and dealing with Haters and Naysayers; Professor M read every word I wrote and (and probably all of this too) and still got it wrong – he didn’t even quote his source material accurately.

But as one friend pointed out he gave me free publicity! And gave me material for this interview which I’ve been putting off since last October!

Thank you, sir—may I have another?

Less flourish, more thwack!

 

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

At the moment, enjoying my native Colorado.

I’ve restarted my yoga practice and attended the 2025 Rally for Life. This year’s Easter Vigil was special due to the global synchronicity of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Calendars.

As far as the movie industry – So much.

I’ve resumed auditing theatrical openings for the studios and finished three seasons with the Denver Film Festival. I’m also returning as VFF25’s Producer this year to help wrap up The Valley Film Festival after twenty-five years.

And thanks to the Encore Screening of ‘Ciure’ I produced last year at Los Angeles Valley College, I was able to get a U.S. Distributor interested and they invited the filmmakers to submit to them for consideration.

I’ve spent the past few weeks putting together a global jury of over eighty filmmakers for the 10 Degrees Hotter Award and also combing through current and past few seasons for shorts that I can sent over to ShortsTv. I actually did this my first year producing VFF17, where I sent them a dozen shorts and generated offers for all but one of them, and I just heard back today as I’m finishing this up that they are interested in five of the seven movies I sent them this year. We’ll see what happens.

Unfortunately we couldn’t program everything this year and lost two programming days when we moved our dates from August to September, so I’ll shout-out several of our semi-finalists:

– Half-Life of Memory: America’s Forgotten Atomic Bomb Factory. 2025. Dir. Jeff Gipe. Available on Amazon Prime, Youtube and AppleTv. https://halflifeofmemory.com/ (I had the privilege of House Managing the World Premiere at the Denver Film Festival and recruited it for our submissions.)

– Day Of A Lion. 2025. Dir. Bianca Foscht. Dilara Foscht. (Canada). https://www.day-of-a-lion.com/
Synopsis: After their father’s death two sisters reunite at their childhood home to uncover forgotten secrets and rip open old wounds.

– Memento Vivere. 2025. Dir. Mallory Grolleau. http://www.mallorygrolleau.com/memento.htm
Synopsis: In the 19th century, a group of fugitives fled a mysterious drama. In the middle of nowhere, the secrets of the past become monsters…

– Nonkonform. 2025. Dir. Arne Körner https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33852256/
Synopsis: Dietrich Kuhlbrodt: Hitler boy, film critic, actor, senior prosecutor, screenwriter, punk musician, temporary porn commissioner, and family man.

– The Runner. 2025. Dir. Tony Tacheny. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32880991/
Synopsis: A bereaved man struggles to move on from a tragic loss, haunted by memories that torment his psyche, forcing him to confront his past demons before they consume him.

As mentioned in Canvas Rebel, producing the ‘Ciure’ screening reconnected me with SEEFest, I’ve since joined their screening team reviewing features from Bosnia, Hungary, Montenegro, Ukraine, Greece, Romania, and Croatia (among others).

Four features I really enjoyed and will give a shout-out too were all from Hungary;

‘But What About Tomi’ (2024). – Attila Till https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6rJ_Q8HyM4
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33368113
Synopsis: Two alcoholics search for their friend who seems to have disappeared, while trying to stay sober in a country where drinking is widely accepted as a daily practice.

‘Cream’ (2020) – Nora Lakos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAxKgIjwc3A
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8287172
Synopsis: On the brink of losing her beloved movie star themed pastry shop, Dora hires a family to qualify for a ‘family business grant’ not realizing that the Big Brother/Candid Camera style vetting process that it demands. Things get messy when her ex-boyfriend and his wife also join the contest along with several other eclectic families.

‘Raw Material’ (2024) – Martin Boross
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22770464/
Synopsis: A young film director, Tamás is invited to a village to lead a summer art workshop for kids. He quickly discovers that the village is overrun with corruption and exploitation. He starts an investigation into the abusive mayor and exposes him by shooting a documentary. The mayor finds out about Tamás’ new mission, the locals turn against each other, and what began as an easygoing summer adventure, starts to threaten everyone involved.

‘Lesson Learned’ – Balint Szimler . (2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkzaH0sRqMg
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30807200/
Synopsis: Young teacher Juci attempts to challenge the outdated methods in her school, while new student Palkó, recently relocated from abroad, struggles to adapt to the demanding educational system. Their personal stories offer insight into an oppressive system, reflecting the broader Hungarian society.
For the record, there were so many good movies from so many countries.

Something else that’s been really rewarding is watching my friends launch their careers!

I’m particularly enjoying Bo Tyler’s quest to be cast as ‘NightWing’.

I remember how excited Bo Tyler was attending ‘Joker’ World Premiere in 2019. Nightwing/Boy Wonder has been a life-long passion of his that’s motivated his focus on acting. Despite no formal acting training, Bo Tyler was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 2022, His ‘choice challenge’ video was the first one Matthew McConaughey re-Instagrammed. Since then, he’s been steadily developing and refining his interpretation of NightWing and sharing videos that showcase fresh angles on a character he’s studied for years, (while engaging James Gunn on Threads).

Lately, things have started to take off—he’s now inspiring fan art and building momentum on TikTok and Instagram.

Then there’s Jason Gagne –who recently launched his online Good2Go Body training program.

During Covid-19, Jason decided he was going to make an online work-out series. I watched as he taught himself to film, edit, do sound design etc . . . cramming several years of film school into three or four months – with no prior training! He went ahead and shot ninety different thirty-minute workout videos with varying locations etc . . . in little over a year.

The program is now online and available for purchase. https://www.good2gobody.com/

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1). Have Courage.

As a young man, Alan Moore’s statement about the order of the world (or lack thereof) slapped hard;

“Yes, there is a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping each other up … the main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.”

Like Evey, you have to learn to live without fear and push the lever – even with a gun at your head.

It is so easy to give-up. And for good and valid reasons.

What should have been my high school years 2002-2006, were spent at home in the middle of nowhere — a township of 1,454 people, a county of 19,614 — between recessions. I was living in the wrong one of John Edward’s two Americas, ravaged by Mike Males ‘War-on-Youth,’ Clinton Neo-Liberalism, and Joshua Harris’s ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye.’ Dial-up internet and literally waiting for the rapture so I didn’t get left behind like Kirk Cameron.

Eight tv channels – half were preaching the rapture, while the other half were ringing the alarm about Y2K, Anthrax, West Nile Virus, SARS, H1N1, Mad-Cow Disease. Add 9/11, two shooting wars in the middle-east, dot.com burst, multiple layoffs, housing market crash and The Great Recession. Didn’t end up mattering, State law required driver’s ed under 18-years-old and the school district cut driver’s ed–so no driver’s license–in an area that required one for employment (driver’s license–NOT photo ID).

By the time I turned twenty-one, the unemployment rate in my area was officially between 15 and 16 percent — and I was a homeschooled high school dropout with no GED, one part-time seasonal farm job, and a driver’s license I had held for less than a year. I’d been ‘Waiting for Godot’ my entire life. A low point in my life was being twenty-two and told McDonalds had already filled the positions advertised same day in the ‘Help Wanted’ ads a few weeks before.

It’s not easy to drag yourself out of the wreckage. When I saw the trailer for ‘The Long Walk’ it resonated with me in a way that a lot of movie trailers don’t (I also haven’t read the Stephen King book).

I will say this–the best one liner I have ever heard was ironically from a televangelist;

“When the devil comes stalking, just keep on walking.”

But I managed to climb-out of all that and made it to Los Angeles for more misadventures. Now I’m in Denver.

2). It’s a marathon, not a sprint—and I hate marathons. I’m a sprinter by nature. But marathons are what move things forward. Most people quit because they try to sprint and burn out, when what they really need is to pace themselves. Don’t take it from me, Tom Cruise has been “running in movies since 1981.”

3). Don’t believe the mirage. The Los Angeles Film Festival was bigger, bolder, and funded far more than The Valley Film Festival has ever been. Yet we were all sitting in the lobby of Laemmle NoHo 7 at VFF18 when the news broke that LAFF was permanently wrapped after eighteen years. Two years later during Covid-19, every film festival in SoCal cancelled their live events, except for VFF–Tracey converted it into a drive-in movie! Past several years multiple well known, big budget film festivals *cough* OutfestLA *couch* made the papers for imploding. This year, The Valley Film Festival has made it to twenty-five-years.

Finally, watch Randy Pausch’s ‘The Last Lecture.’ He is my favorite Professor that I never had.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

There’s a reason Tracey Adlai wrote an online review about me saying “Everyone needs their own MacGyver and David is ours” – I tried (unsuccessfully) to hack a DCP in the lobby of Laemmle NoHo 7, after the KDM didn’t work and the post-house in Vietnam was unable to help us.

During Covid, Jason was cranking out exercise videos at warp speed—until all his devices choked at the same time. Too much footage for the storage space to handle. The Genius Bar’s advice? Delete the work! Start over!

I told him to drive up and gave him perspective—and a plan.

To Jason, it was a mini-Y2K – months of dedicated hard work in jeopardy from a technical glitch. To me? Lol. Anyone who’s run a movie theater or dealt with media knows the drill: full drives, frantic dumps, zero glamour. Everybody loves the Director – nobody talks about the Digital Imaging Technician.

The fix I came up with was one AirDrop (I at least learned one thing from that adjunct professor) at a time. Jason’s iPhone + mine + External hard drive. Delete. Repeat. Started 1pm Friday and finished 4pm Saturday (we marothoned movies waiting for the data to transfer).

When it started working, Jason asked me why the Genius Bar couldn’t have come up with this, too which I replied, “You asked an ideologue, when what you needed was a philosopher.”

The moral of the story, to quote Shakespeare: “A jack of all trades is a master of none. But often times better than a master of one!”

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