Cole Haddon describes living and working in the film industry in Hollywood as a daily life of believing that you are on the verge of winning a sort of lottery. At any moment a script that you’ve written might be greenlighted into a multi-million dollar project. The next big break always feels just one lunch, one meeting, one sympathetic producer away. It is intoxicating, but it can be crushing.
Before he ran off to Hollywood to chase a dream, Cole Haddon grew up in Metro Detroit the son of hard working but practical parents who failed to see the economic potential of their son’s ability to tell stories. Early on, Haddon began to realize that even though Michigan was home, it was not a place where he fit in, or felt at home.
Haddon spent his early twenties jumping around to a variety of opportunities before bullshitting his way into a job writing about film for the Detroit cultural weekly, Metro Times. With a made up name, a single unpublished film review and some serious resumé padding, he charmed his way into a paying gig writing about film and music. After a year at the Metro Times, he then stuffed his meager belongings into a beaten up Kia and headed west.
In the intervening decades, Haddon has written novels, sold scripts and even created a network TV show that he wound up loathing. While we don’t dive deep his ten episode Dracula series that appeared on network TV in the States and the UK, Cole does confess that he sees almost no revenue even when viewers stream his old show.
This topic sets off a lengthy discussion about the state of filmmaking for creators and the shrinking economic spaces in which they must continue to try and find work. Haddon talks at length about how the film industry has destabilized itself - at least in part - by not investing in younger writers and creators. As such, there is now seemingly a dearth of seasoned talent available to produce new and interesting works with any knowledge of how the actual machinations of productions operate.
In the age of streaming, whether it’s film, tv, music, or ebooks, the average consumer has been conditioned to believe that content should be ubiquitous, filled with an overwhelming number of titles - and most of all - it should be incredibly cheap. Haddon points out that this system removes the humanity and ingenuity of the people who bring these works of art to life.
We hit upon the unending clash of art versus commerce, and how it might be hitting its lowest point ever. Haddon explains the bottle neck of distribution for indie filmmakers, and this story helps to illustrate just how incredibly difficult it is for new, original work to get made and to be seen.
This is a fascinating look at film and culture in the 21st century with a man who has been making and writing about these artforms for more than twenty years. It’s a wide ranging discussion that is realistic about the current state of visual storytelling in the digital age, and somehow still hopeful about what the artform is capable of accomplishing.
Cheers,
Matty C
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