Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tash Ann. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tash , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Not dissimilar to a lot of filmmakers, I started my career in film at a young age wanting to be an actor. This, paired with the fact that I chose to move immediately from a small town in Indiana to New York City, known to chew up and spit out people on a regular basis, is the foundation for my resilience.
When it’s happening, especially when it’s happening in your formative years, rejection can feel like an unbearable tragedy. But to me, honestly, those early rejections are what truly built my ability to keep going through the following rejections.
Each time I didn’t get a part, or didn’t get the audition for that matter, or didn’t get the raise I needed in order to be able to only work 2 day jobs instead of 3 to make it in the city, I felt like my world was collapsing. But it didn’t. It stayed exactly the same, and there was something refreshing about that.
Most of the time, the biggest risk to making any move is that your life stays how it is right now, and if you don’t do anything, it already IS going to stay exactly the same. Once I had this philosophy, I started to take larger risks.
In 2013, I moved from New York City to Los Angeles with two suitcases and a dream. Of course that dream swiftly changed from acting to directing once I began making my own content for my acting reel, but the need for resilience stayed the same.
My first years wanting to direct were HARD. I’d switched careers thinking that one would be easier to accomplish than the other, only to find out in a short amount of time that the gates for any part of this industry are similarly high for a woman.
As I lived in Hollywood and began to learn more about the history of the business, I learned one more thing that I added to my resilience toolkit… People almost always give up when they are almost to the finish line. They get tired, and resilience wains. They can’t see the perspective of how far they have come and how little left they have to go.
I also learned that most of the people who have been successful in this industry (and likely others) have all had people in their life think they were crazy for continuing on.
I began making my own short films with absolutely no money, literally trading in money I needed to feed myself to rent meager amounts of equipment and talking crew into working for credit. Once I began doing my own shorts, I knew there was no stopping. This was what I was meant to do.
Since then, over the last 10 years I have had peaks and valleys in success. I have been hired to make more content than I have had to self fund, but I have also lost out on opportunities I really wanted too. I failed to make multiple feature films I worked very hard to get made. I produced and directed for a company that unexpectedly and suddenly went out of business, starting me once again at square one.
I have, like most people do, moments where I am so tired, so I rest. But I keep going, because the worst thing that could happen if I fail is that I am right where I am now, which from my vantage point is a great place to try again.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a director and producer. I love creating worlds and telling stories. My most worked in genres are thriller, drama and horror/action. I believe that film and TV can make important statements about society but at the same time it can just provide entertainment and relief from a world that is, frankly, sometimes really scary and hard to live in.
When I was young, TV and movies were always my best friends. From staying up late to watch Gilligan’s Island and Married with Children to taking a day off school to grieve when Buffy the Vampire Slayer died. I know not everyone feels that way about the medium, but plenty of people do. I always feel that if I can put content out into the world that makes anyone feel less alone, or more understood then I am happy with my career.
I am currently working with a handful of incredibly talented writers to finish a couple scripts in the horror/thriller genres to pitch. I have recently completed the festival run of my web series pilot pitch “Abstraction” which won 23 awards and was an official selection at 12 additional film festivals. It will now be streaming on the Vyre Network later in 2023. In addition, I have taught for stage32 classes and webinars about creating award winning short content.
You can find more of my work at tashann.com or at my instagram page @iamtashann.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities or skills that I think have most impacted my career journey are: 1. Resourcefulness
2. Resilience
3. Delusions of granduer
Ok, the third one is a little bit of a joke. What I really mean here is infallible spark of belief in your career and talents. I listed it third, but it is possibly the most important if I’m being honest. Being a filmmaker is difficult. There will be a tons of voices and events that make you feel like there is no point to continue, that your dream is out of reach. If you can’t keep the little voice in your head that truly believes you can make it and that you will make it, then the resilience and the resourcefulness will not hold up. If you already have the dream to work in the entertainment industry, this spark of belief probably already exists within you. You just have to make sure to keep it alive when things are hard.
Resilience comes with life experience and grows each time you get back up after being knocked down. It can feel forced at first, but as refused to let myself stop time and time again, it became more of a second nature. It is important to remember that even though resilience is extremely important, rest is too. People sometimes mistake resting for quitting, but its not. Avoiding periods of rest will make resilience next to impossible, at least it would for me.
Resourcefulness only comes from making your own content, as much of it as you can, so you learn how to do a lot with a little and how to problem solve in the moment without letting it destroy the project you are working on. As you work more and more, this skill will grow and it will become your best friend. Eventually, after making a lot of content, my mind has started to immediately start looking for solutions when encountering a problem without wasting time on how that problem makes me feel. The more quickly you can realize that solutions are held at bay by blame placing and your personal feelings, the more of an asset you become on sets.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
When I am overwhelmed the first thing I do is prioritize rest for a day or an hour, whatever I have time for. Pushing forward when having these feelings will usually not result in good problem solving or good creative products.
For me personally rest can look like a variety of things from binge watching a show to going on a hike. When I am lacking inspiration from feelings of overwhelm, I especially love to go hiking here in Los Angeles, In general exercise always makes me feel a little bit better, but when I can top that off with a view of the city that symbolizes my goals it really helps to bring things into perspective in a way that calms me.
Another thing I really love to do is use my times of overwhelm to look at old vision boards and/or create a new one. This really helps me to remember the end game and remember how far Ive come down that road.
Meditation also helps, but truthfully I really struggle with it. Basically, there is no one size fits all formula for self care you just have to find what works for you and take care of yourself when you feel overwhelmed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tashann.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamtashann/
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/irciJHWtLr4
Image Credits
Kristin Mendez, Josh Pare, Ryan Seale, Max Michalsky
