Kathi Carey is an award-winning Writer/Director of films and web series. Her shorts have been selected at Academy-qualifying festivals including LA Shorts, USA Dallas and Rhode Island IFF. Her film Worth qualified for Academy consideration.
Her films and web series have also been screened all over the U.S. and around the world from Italy, Portugal, Cancun, China, S. Korea, Toronto and dozens of other countries. Though her films have won, cumulatively, over 50 awards and honors, it is not award- recognition that drives her. Kathi strives to connect her audiences with the personal, sometimes solitary journey of her protagonists. Her projects focus on interpersonal relationships and deep character introspection.
Because her characters face moral and ethical dilemmas, audiences want to discuss the film’s various themes and turning points, and ponder things they may not normally consider in their day-to-day life.
A “signature” of Kathi’s work can be summed up in this quote from Emmy-award-winning ABC journalist from Salt Lake City, Utah, George B. Severson after he viewed her film Reflections of a Life: “Reflections of a Life touched me deeply. The film provided an intimate perspective to what my mother must have been going through when she fought and fortunately won her battle with breast cancer.”
Reel 360 News had a chance to chat with Kathi to learn more about her as well as her many interesting projects.
Kathi, what’s your origin story?
I grew up in what you might refer to now, fondly, as the “American dream.” Our family was Leave it to Beaver: Dad worked, Mom stayed home, wore a dress, and raised 3 kids in the idyllic, middle-class neighborhood of Portola Valley. We lived so close to Stanford University that I could ride my bike there. Both of my parents went to Stanford so it made sense for them to settle and start their family there and it certainly wasn’t yet the expensive tech bubble that it has become.
My mom, being somewhat musically inclined, decided she wanted all of her kids to take piano lessons, at least the basics, and it was discovered quite early that I was gifted on the piano – I think I was about 4 or 5. Thus my future, at least as far as my parents were concerned, was set: I would become the next female Van Cliburn. It seemed I was well on my way to that goal. I played in numerous concerts and recitals throughout my childhood and young adulthood.
I performed Mozart’s Piano Concert #21 (the Elvira Madigan) with the local symphony orchestra as a senior in high school, won the Chopin Piano Award and won the Bank of America award for Fine Arts for the State of California in addition to a full-ride scholarship to Brigham Young University as a piano major.
However, the fly in the ointment was that I was interested in a lot of other things besides being a concert pianist. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I was fascinated with and tried my hand at, various arts and crafts. I also took dance lessons. wrote books and, eventually, I picked up my Dad’s 8mm camera and started making movies with my best friend. Eventually, naturally, I rebelled against the idea of becoming a concert pianist.
Oh yes, I did go to BYU for one year, didn’t really like it, came home having completed two years in one (I tested out of my freshman year of most of my subjects) and applied to the University of California system and got accepted. So, I stayed home and got a job.
I started dancing with a jazz dance company in the Bay Area, performed half-time shows at 49er games, and took lessons with the San Francisco Ballet Company school. All of these activities were much more to my liking. So I took a gap year, continued working, went to night school and danced. Then, after saving my money and establishing what I felt was enough of a technical grounding in my craft as a dancer, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment.
How did you become a director?
Reluctantly. I know, that sounds a bit… odd. My first desire and really my most burning desire was to be an actress. But not just an actress. An actress like Shirley MacLane – one who could do it all—sing, dance and act. Film, stage and the showrooms of Las Vegas, which meant I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an entertainer.
So, once I got to L.A. in addition to going to school (first UCLA and then Cal State U. LA) I continued to dance, sing and act. In fact I met my husband singing in a band. Interesting side note: Before the popularity of The Voice and American Idol, the singing entertainer John Davidson tried his hand at mentoring young singers in a similar fashion with his John Davidson’s Singers Summer Camp (JDSSC). He casually mentioned that he was thinking about doing this one night on the Johnny Carson show and received, literally, thousands of applications for that summer’s session. So he did it. The first year was 1978. Second and final year was 1979.
He accepted 100 participants each summer: 50 in June and 50 in July. June of 1979 was when my then-boyfriend, now-husband Dave and I were accepted to participate. We were the only duo. Other than the fact that it wasn’t televised and it wasn’t an elimination-type competition, the program was actually quite similar to The Voice. We had celebrity mentors who came each week to coach the participants, along with John.
We each worked individually with a coach (a musical director who had worked professionally in the business) to prepare a performance for each weekend at the Avalon Bowl. We lived in a secluded boys’ school on Toyon Bay where we received guidance on stage presence, audience interaction, how to compile a set, arranging, etc. It was awesome and I’ll never forget it! Oh, and I’m still friends with John.
I believe the whole experience would’ve been instrumental in launching our singing career had the music business not been going through a significant change throughout the 80s. My husband and I were the principal singers for Peggy Fleming’s show An Evening on Ice which ran for two months in the main showroom at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe and then went on as Hot Ice to Reno and Radio City Music Hall.
I also opened for both Roy Clark at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe and Harrah’s in Reno. My husband and I also worked at various rooms in Vegas before recognizing there was no future there and coming back to L.A. for good. Oh, and my costumes for all those shows were designed/created by Bob Mackie.
Shortly after letting go of my singing career aspirations and turning my attentions, once again, to my acting career, I started working with a manager/mentor who was also a filmmaker. It was he who ultimately suggested that I become a filmmaker.
Initially, I balked. Both because I wanted to focus on my acting but also because I wasn’t really sure I could write, produce and direct. But he saw something in me and continued to nudge me (perhaps push would be a better word) in that direction and my filmmaking career was born.
Who were your mentors?
As I said, my primary mentor was the filmmaker/manager Stephen Mitchell. He founded a company called Cine Paris while he was making movies and TV shows in Paris (although he’s from Southern California) and kept the name when he came back to L.A. An indie filmmaker, a brilliant man and an out-of-the-box thinker he pushed the envelope in every way you could think of which was in direct opposition to the conservative upbringing I had.
However, working with him felt like a breath of fresh air. Under the auspices of his company, and before the days of streaming video, I wrote and directed, as well as created hundreds of episodes that were broadcast weekly on public access cable throughout the Southern California television market. Our shows had fans.
The director Mike Figgis called on one of our first productions about an undercover detective and requested a VHS copy of what he had just seen as he was developing Internal Affairs with Richard Gere. Marlon Brando was a fan.
Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows were avid fans of a SciFi show I created called Diary 0049. I was able to develop ideas for web series, and television shows (which were ultimately marketed at NATPE) co-author a book with Stephen, co-create a private film school and shadow him on a number of film projects, which gave me “on the job” training I would’ve never gotten in any film school.
The other thing that drew me to him was his high ethical standards. At this point in my career, like many pretty, young actresses, I had been the victim of many “me-too” type “casting couch” scenarios and it was refreshing to work with someone who didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior and called it out when he 0bserved it. I worked with him and his company for many years until it was disbanded it 2005.
While there will be others, what do you consider your biggest achievement to date?
I am going to mention two here if that’s all right. The first one was my film Reflections of a Life. It was my first budgeted directorial project, and I was able to secure Linda Gray (from Dallas) and Fred Lehne (from Lost and Hurt Locker) as my co-leads, as well as playing the lead myself. Collaboration with my team accomplished three things. First, the makeup team did an excellent job of creating the illusion of a woman who had recently undergone breast cancer surgery.
So good, in fact, that a breast cancer surgeon at one of the screenings was convinced that the actress (me) was, herself, a survivor. Second, in my role as director, subliminally I wanted to evoke the feeling of the “fly on the wall” to establish an intimacy between the audience and the protagonist without sacrificing the look, feel and rhythm of a traditional film. This was accomplished by positioning the camera in one spot and never moving it throughout the entire film and yet using all the conventional shots available to any filmmaker—master, medium, closeup, tracking shot, two-shot, over-the-shoulder. Apparently, I was too successful. Even cinematographers missed the subtlety that the camera was never moved and indicated “I need to watch it again because it was so seamless.”
Festival Directors, upon learning about that directorial choice, maintained I would’ve won every directing award if I had just let them know what I had done. Third, by crafting the subliminal feeling of the “fly on the wall” and thereby invoking that intimate connection with our heroine, I created the emotional response I was hoping for, evidenced by comments such as: “…an emotional, believable portrait of a woman brought to the edge by losses of more than one kind, but who struggles valiantly through her treatment, and comes to embrace life in the face of possible death… Every woman (and any man who loves women) should see the film”—Carolyn Bray, Rhode Island, Providence Journal.
All this and more taught me two lessons: that collaboration is key and that, going forward, my “fingerprints” as a director need to be invisible, goals I strive to accomplish with all my work.
Second, is my film Worth. It was my second budgeted directorial project and I shot it in one day. That little film went out on the festival circuit and was accepted at 35 festivals, won 35 awards and was, eventually, in the small pool of films eligible for inclusion for nomination for an Academy Award for the year 2011. One of only 65 films that were eligible that year. As a comparison, approximately 90,000-100,000 short films enter the festival circuit each year in competition.
What drives you to create?
I don’t know. I just know that I can’t not create. My mother used to talk about how I would watch morning TV before I was old enough to even go to kindergarten and I would see some sort of crafts project being done and I would ask her for all the necessary elements so I could do it, too. I wrote little books and illustrated them when I was a child.
My parents discovered I was gifted in music because I listened to my older brother practice his piano lessons and then I would go in and play what he had been trying to play only, apparently, I did it better than he did. I was 4 years old and didn’t yet read music. I saw pictures in a magazine that said “Draw this” so I did and sent it in. I didn’t give it a second thought. But then, surprise!
Two men in suits came to the house and wanted my parents to send me to art school in New York. My husband thinks I was more than gifted, creatively, and my parents just didn’t know what to do with that and were overwhelmed.
I just know that I have an urge to be creative. In almost every way. Currently, I find that the most challenging thing, creatively, I have ever been involved with is filmmaking. It encompasses all the arts: writing, producing, working with actors, envisioning the whole world and bringing it to life. That “whole world” of filmmaking consists of: colors, costuming, framing, lighting, music, timing, sound, sound design, art and PR.
So, really, it combines all the arts the I love – writing, acting (creating characters and their worlds), art (color and how color influences us emotionally), music – and puts them all into one art form. It’s all part and parcel of taking an idea and bringing it, ultimately, to an audience in the form of a film. Then the job of the film, or my job as the filmmaker, is to make sure that all those elements combine to create an emotional impact for the audience. It’s knowing what it takes to do that—how to put it all together for maximum emotional impact—that’s the key. I’m not sure I always get it right. But when I do… it’s the best feeling in the world.
REELated:
What shows are doing the best job of portraying strong women on TV?
First of all, I’m not particularly keen on using the term “strong” women. I’m more interested in “authentic” women being portrayed on television – women who are a depiction of the women I see around me in real life: sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes struggling with life, sometimes overcoming those struggles, facing their fears, being beaten down and sometimes giving up but more often fighting back and rising up to face another day. Those are the women who are fascinating to me.
The shows that I find that write and portray women well and authentically are The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Handmaid’s Tale (although it has been a long time since seasons), Hacks, The Last Thing He Told Me, Dead to Me. These shows, to me, show women in the full spectrum of what it is to be a woman.
Coffee, Lunch or Happy Hour. Which famous woman is going with you?
What a fascinating question… and not one easily answered. Yes, I thought about many, many of the famous and well-known female directors in my industry that I would love to sit and chat with and “pick their brains.” However, if I can only choose one I’m going to go with Jane Campion. We’re somewhat close in age and she has written most of the films that she has directed, as have I.
I think it’s a different kind of director who chooses to tell the stories that they, themselves, originate and write the screenplays for. It implies that the themes are closer to your heart and are deeply important to you.
Obviously directors choose material that resonates with them, whether they write it or not. However, it can take months to write a screenplay… coming up with the story in the first place and then structuring it, deciding on the world and the characters through which you will tell that story. Then there’s the actual writing and rewriting process which, depending on how close you are to the material and how emotionally entangled it is, can be quite time-consuming.
All this to say it’s a big commitment to decide you’re going to be a filmmaker – to primarily make movies of the stories YOU want to tell by choosing to film predominantly narratives that are generated by you. So, I would love to sit and chat with her for a while and see just how she chose to embark on this career, what challenges she’s had to face and how she overcame them. Perhaps even get some advice from her.
What is the biggest challenge to women in your industry?
Being truly seen, appreciated and considered. As a whole person. In an industry that has yet to recognize the creative capability and profitability of women artists both in front of and behind the camera it’s tough because this is still very much a man’s world.
However, with organizations like the Alliance of Women’s Directors and with leaders like Leslie Linka Glatter, currently the head of the DGA, I hope the day is soon when we aren’t hoping for change… it is already here.
When you’re not creating, what do you do in your off time?
My hobbies are music and painting. I still play the piano and I write and arrange music. I also love to paint. But I guess those are both still creative, aren’t they? And I’m currently publishing a coloring book that teaches the Christmas story to children, which began as a song that my husband and I wrote together.
I do love to read. That does “fill the well.” I just finished a memoir from a colleague who I had the pleasure of working with, even if only very briefly. She had an amazing career.
Predict your future! Where are you in 5 years?
I’m doing what I do now, only more of it, on a bigger scale and for more money. As of right now I feel a little like I’m still “pushing the boulder up the hill” with regard to getting films made. Meaning, every time I have a feature I want to get made I have to do the “song and dance” of trying to raise money. I know that the indie film world is often a precarious one, but it would be nice to be in a position where my name and reputation at least guarantees meetings and interest from both distribution and money people so that I can pitch the projects I want to make. Whether they want to make those films is, obviously, another story.
Second, I subscribe to Jack Lemmon’s philosophy of “No matter how successful you get, send the elevator back down” and I am currently, in a small way, able to impart the knowledge and experience that I have gained over the years in the trenches to my peers as well as to young students as a mentor and judge for the Streets ART Safe program where high school students produce PSAs about street safety. I just hope that as I expand my own reach I will have more opportunities to give back.
Third, I mentioned one of my hobbies is writing and arranging music. I hope to be able to put together a website in order to make my music available to the people who are interested.
Be sure to learn more about Kathi here.
Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on Twitter at @colinthewriter1
