KARL SHEFELMAN
The interview
 Karl Shefelman, Director
Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
New York, NY in the West Village, Manhattan. Your script or media entry stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your project ? Screenwriter, Zareh Artinian, pitched the TV pilot to me at the Big Apple Film Festival in NYC where his script was in competition. Zareh has been a school teacher in past years and the threat of a mass shooting was heavy on his mind. It is something that disturbs me deeply every day as an American and I knew it was a project I could get passionate about. I previously made a short film entitled “Man on the Tower” which depicts my early childhood memory of what was the first mass shooting on a public campus, the UT Sniper shooting in my hometown of Austin Texas in 1966. Zareh agreed to let me help him develop America Jonze as director and I directed and co-produced the sizzle reel to help pitch it to producers. |
How long did it take you to write your script or produce your pitch deck/sizzle reel/trailer...and what was your development process? The sizzle reel was pulled from a couple of key scenes in the pilot script. I spent a couple of months with Zareh tightening and adapting it to sizzle reel format, storyboarding it and finding an affordable location which we could art direct to look like a US government office and hallway, which is not easy to do. We also had to create a scene set in The US House of Representatives using archival footage and Visual FX. We had a great cast and crew to make it all happen on a shoestring budget. |
 On location: night shooting
What is your ultimate ambition as a writer or filmmaker?
I have written and directed one feature film and several shorts, but I am starting to get asked or hired by other writers to direct their scripts, which I love as well. I also have worked for years as a storyboard artist for several of my greatest idols, Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, Ron Howard, and Ridley Scott, to name a few. Now it is my turn. My ultimate ambition is to become a successful, working director both for my own scripts and others. Which film directors or screenwriters inspire you? Why? Well as I mentioned, I have worked as a storyboard artist for some of them, but am also inspired by directors Stanley Kubrick, Wim Venders, David Lynch (RIP), Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Hitchcock, Jane Campion, etc. I could go on and on but I like the above directors for the way they take their hero or protagonist through “dream-like or psychological journeys” even within the real world, if that makes sense. |
 Karl directing from his storyboards
What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show?
I think I can honestly say my favorite movie of all time is Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. But also, from some of the directors mentioned above, “Apocalypse Now”, “Paris, Texas”, “Mulholland Drive”, “Vertigo”, “Taxi Driver”, “The Piano”, etc, etc. As for TV, maybe “The Twilight Zone” and “Twin Peaks” (old AND new). Plus I like limited series like “The Night After”, “Escape from Dannemora”, etc. I like “Journey Films” and “Psychologic Thrillers”, or a combination of both…trippy stuff with good stories. What advice do you have for others hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have? Always keep generating and writing down ideas for cinematic stories, be it a movie, limited series or whatever, and either write the script or find a writer to work with. Or, like I have done, find other people’s scripts or stories and collaborate. Build a team of like-minded creative people. Also, be able to step outside yourself AND your work and try to assess whether it’s any good or not. Seems obvious but you’d be surprised how many filmmakers out there can’t do this. You don’t want to be an “Ed Wood” after all. Lastly, if you really want to be a good filmmaker, DO. NOT. STOP, even in times of defeat or failure. What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
I have two solid film scripts I’ve written in development; one is a darkly comedic True Crime Drama based on a Texas Monthly Article, set mostly in Austin called “The Gold Porsche Robberies”, the other is a Y/A Coming-of-age Adventure Drama called “The Hunters”, set in West Africa. Both scripts have garnered awards and placement in major competitions. Pitchdecks are available for anyone interested. I have also RE-EDITED and will be re-releasing my debut feature film “Looking for the Jackalope” – a cautionary tale about nostalgia. It is currently being distributed by Indierights Movies. Where can the world find you? (Website, IMDB, etc.) You can find me and samples of my work on the following links: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0790754, https://www.youtube.com/@KarlShefelman and https://www.shefelboards.com. |
