Meet Thomas Petborisooth

We were lucky to catch up with Thomas Petborisooth recently and have shared our conversation below.

Thomas, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

The thing they don’t tell you in Tv & Movies is that whatever it took for you to get to where you wanted to be will be what it takes for you to maintain that role or position. The best way I can express how I keep my creativity alive is to keep what put me on this creative path in the first place alive: actualizing my inner child. Growing up in the 90’s (yes, it was the best decade) I was flooded and stood upon the decades before but it was also a time of a lot of risk and experimentation in the world. So things like Cable, Western influx of Japanese Anime, Cartoons based on Comics, Theme Parks for the express purpose of selling movie franchises, pretty much the best parts of consumerism were at my feet and fingertips. Not only were those available but a scary new technology, the internet was beginning to set foot but I wasn’t overwhelmed… I was curious. I was allowed to approach all these things that wanted my parent’s money, time, my attention, but I was guided by my concerned and modest parents to enjoy these things. Fast forward twenty years later, it’s so saturated that many people are drained and at bandwidth capacity. The room changed and so my effort to keep a child like wander had to as well. I avoid the “YOU NEED TO WATCH NOW” online content, and indulge in Art and Media that allows me to find nuggets of personality and imperfections. To sum up, I had a college professor say, in order for us to fully engage with film and cinema we need to reawaken the child that was hyper aware of the sounds and smells of theme parks for the first time. When our senses dull, so does our outlook. Grow Up, but never Grow Old.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

For the last ten years, I’ve bounced all over Los Angeles in the TV/Film/commercial world where I could boast working on Warner Bros, Paramount, Apple, Shell, Youtube Red (remember that?) and a dozen more companies. Which is funny because all my life I dreamed of working amongst folks who were just as jazzed up as I was to be there and when I recently joined the Television Academy part of the Directors Peer Group, no one cared. What they did care about was throughout my time, I started a podcast, I wrote, produced, self funded, and directed short films, tv pilots, and web series, all the “unsexy indie stuff” which were actually the sexy things. Despite popular belief there is a lot more reverence for the kids who built stuff out of their garage than the intern who shot up to executive because only one of those knows how to find the media slot on a camera. So primarily I make a living in TV & Film, but online a lot of folks know me hosting Nerd On! The Podcast where I shake my fist in the air about learning to love and unlove movies so we can engage with the filmmaker’s intentions and what the film says about the long tapestry which is cinema history. I am pretty google-able (that should be a verb) where you can watch my work on the online platforms many are accustomed to seeing through a quick IMDB search. I am always looking for producers and collaborators who want someone to elevate and bring their projects to life.

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?

The world is filled with great mentors (and speakers who get paid to say what I am about to say) so I’ll try to offer some qualities that anyone can use in life and explicitly in the tv & film industry.
“Figure it out” and I mean it in the dual tough love way that we live in a world of information and smart phones but we are allowing mediocrity from our people. Look up the masters, watch, observe, listen, practice, fail, analyze, and recalibrate. Sometimes the way to do it right, is to do it wrong. You can’t be afraid of the humble pie you’re gonna eat that you never try. Take a deep breath and try. That’s all part of the figuring it out. The second part is learning how to use your resources, if you keep returning to the same wells of knowledge for every query and conundrum, you’ll never witness the nuances of every situation and answer. I don’t ask my electrician why I have a dry cough, I don’t ask a comedian what the school curriculum should be, and I certainly don’t read reviews to form opinions on movies. At this junction of my life, I have friends in education and parents, and I ask them what they want in schools, it doesn’t dictate my feelings but I at least open myself to that perspective, this applies to filmmakers too, I look at what Guillermo Del Toro says about animation, AI, and cinema, someone who has dedicated twice my lifetime into the art should have a reverence over how we consume the media over online journalists who got approved to throw tomatoes last year. When you can discern what sources actually open you up to positivity and kindness, you’ll figure out which sources are actually nourishing for your life.

“Learn to ask for help” a lot of my upbringing and a lot of the atrocities we see today are results of hyper independence or this faux-pas bravado that we have to pull ourselves from our boot straps for everything. There has’t been better experiences than when producers have opened the door for us to throw our hands up and say, “I need help”. So much undiagnosed narcissists, bi-polar disorders, and many more (which aren’t death sentences) go unchecked and force us to just accept when people, even our loved ones, can’t emotionally and mentally show up at their best. We accept that what harmful things we think of laced with fits of rage and utter despair is a normal way to live. It’s not. We accept life is too hard so we just gotta take it in the teeth, we don’t. Everyone’s journey is their own, but it doesn’t mean we need to do it alone. If you want to be more active, reach out to a friend to get out and move your body. If you wanna kick a habit that you have identified, seek an accountabili-buddy. If you don’t know how to ask for help, go back to the first quality “figure it out”. In order to even ask for help, you have to acknowledge you need it, you have to accept that change isn’t overnight and sexy, and help isn’t an end all be all. The help you ask for also requires the 90% initiative from you. In work, you ask for help to learn, not for it to be done for you.

“Love, Unlove, and Love Again” – There are so many, maybe too many things screaming for your devotion, time, and money. But in life, there are things that we love acutely more than others. Some of us seek to immerse, or even throw our hand in producing more of it in the world. Music, Photography, writing, filmmaking, and so much more. It’s easy to love at first sight, but if you can learn to unlove it and see it for the hardships and pain you will see it for its faults. If you don’t know the historic atrocities people who make some amazing films and music, then I suggest you read up. For every franchise that died, for the people who died making movies that no one watched, for the songs that flopped that artists put their souls into just for it to be outshined on some app, and on top of that the poking and prodding like animals some of these people survived being paraded around like objects. Then you think about how even the best intentions make some of the worst experiences in these fields but people suck it up to make a living and then get stormed with death threats by faceless users. Even witnessing some of the behind the scenes drama in your favorite works, it can dishearten it all. BUT, if you can come back learn how to love it again, knowing what you know that the knowledge toothpaste can’t be put back in, then you will truly be unstoppable. Many people refuse to disavow the artist because they sang their favorite songs, make their favorite films or book, but those pieces of art are beyond them, and connect you to a world larger than one person. To love, unlove, and love again, also reflects most of our maturing experiences with people and relationships. Nothing is without fault, but those faults make them individual and human, loving someone or something because it is lack of faults is a young person’s eyes.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

Being a multi-hyphenate in a world of oversaturated content creators is like a worse craigslist ad for “film ninjas”, that’s a deep cut for those who actually answered those back in the 2010’s. The muddy content creator verbiage has ruined specialists which was already a worry for the generalists. So a lot of folks think because I can shoot, edit, or do audio, means I don’t need help doing all of it by myself. I have been asked to shoot projects and that means to light, edit, throw sticks down, find power, manage media, mic everyone up, put up redundant booms, and then call me a camera guy. It truly takes a village and the kind of folks I want to work with more need to have that discernment. The idea “oh yeah bring your mirrorless camera to location and we’ll just make something vibey” has really created a bad expectation of the care we should have towards our projects. Even if it is an online show, a panel, a news story, whatever… so if you want to work with someone that cares that we make things that rip people out of the doom scroll and third screen viewing then hit me up. I’d rather spend time with someone who wants to tell a story that means something or connects a community over the best of the best content creators. It’s ok to make content, but have meaning, have purpose, aim for a message that is beyond “big numbers and engagement”. I want to connect with folks who want to provide nourishment into the streams they are part of, not just be taking people’s mind space and time.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

HAAPI FEST
SCOTTY TOMAINO
COREY POWERS

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