Podcast: Download (Duration: 45:11 — 62.8MB)

Beth Harrington is an independent producer, director and writer with a passion for American history and music. In this episode of Getting Work To Work, we talk about what it means to be independent, technology and nostalgia, the economics of filmmaking, how stories affect her as the storyteller, and taking risks and being courageous in later stages of her career.

Several quotes from this episode:

• “It’s one thing to want to do this and make an avocation, it’s another thing to try and make a living at it.”
• “Because there are that many more people able to do it, decision makers don’t have to pay as much money for things; they can kind of wait around for you to finish your film before they have to really put any skin in the game.”
• “I think every generation has those things that they harken back to, whether it’s a kind of music or a film style or a typeface, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that plays with the tropes of the past and speaks to certain generations of people.”
• “I like to tell stories that help us understand the present by looking at the past.”
• “If I have to convince somebody else that there’s merit to this story, that’s probably a good thing to know before you start filming.”
• “I get to meet all kinds of cool people, I get to listen to really cool stories. One of the reasons I do what I do is cause I like being given entrée into another world that I wouldn’t get to go into ordinarily.”
• “It was so humbling to realize I was so wrong, and yet ultimately right, The Winding Stream was very well received.”
• “I got increasingly wrapped up in the idea that I had to finish this film because it said something about me if I didn’t.”
• “Is this the thing for you? Cause if it’s the thing, then just go for it. Throw yourself into it and do it. But don’t have any illusions about how lucrative it might be.”

Show Links

• Beth Harrington
• David Greenberger
• An American Family
• The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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