Film Courage: In viewing your website for RED REEL Video production, you have a bio saying
“It was founded in 2009” and “It was born out of the recession – because if you
can get a job out of college, you might as well do exactly what you want to do.”
Even though we’re supposedly in a robust recovery, I know a lot of people are still
feeling the effects of the recession. Can you talk about creating your own job essentially?
Alexandria Bombach, Director, Cinematographer, Editor of ON HER SHOULDERS DOCUMENTARY film: I
graduated in 2008 and I went to business school because I was filming since I was a kid and
I bought my first camera when I was 13. I don’t think it ever really occurred to me
that filmmaking could be a possibility, it was just a way too cool for me. It didn’t
even occur to me that it was ever going to happen. That didn’t even cross my mind.
I ran away from home when I was about 16 and so there was kind of a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps
kind of a big recognition of Oh, I need to have stability in my life. So when I did
go to college it was for business and focused on that.
I went to a liberal arts school called Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. We had
amazing professors that let me do whatever I wanted with projects and turn in videos
and it was a great atmosphere to learn about who I was and what I wanted to be. After graduating,
there were not a lot of jobs. It was the peak of everyone getting fired from places and
so I decided I would do video production and that started with wedding videos or tutorials.
I was really connected with the outdoor industry at that time and so Osprey backpacks and things
like that where they needed me to do 4 by 3 videos on DV tapes. Youtube had barely
even started so it was just a different time period and slowly gained confidence enough
to make my first film and it just kind of took off from there.
Film Courage: I think you had made some short films about inspiring people in the environmental
space?
Alexandria: Yes, I had made a film before that called 23 FEET. It was about people living
simply to do what they loved in the outdoors and took that on kind of an unorthodox tour
where the film is called 23 FEET because that was the size of my Airstream. I created
a screen that came down from the Airstream and had an outdoor city theater tour where
in 30 different places around the West showed the film outside. Places like Tuolumne Meadows
outside of Yosemite to like 30 climbers, to a blocked off street in Portland, Oregon with
300 people. So it was an amazing, very unique distribution strategy, but I had no idea about
film festivals or anything like that.
What I did find was that people would come up to me after the screenings or write me
letters later about how they had decided quit their day jobs and empty their rentals out
and move into a van and just live the life that they have always wanted to live. It was
really jolting to get these letters from people who had decided to change their life after
seeing a film I’d made and it really spoke to how powerful films could be.
Film Courage: Do you think if it hadn’t been during the time of the recession, you
would have been less apt to try that? Just because you saw so many things that were falling
apart that we didn’t think were going to fall apart?
Alexandria: Yes…it’s probably not good to say but I might be the only person who’s
thankful for the recession. Because I think I could have very easily just gotten a marketing
job somewhere if it would have been a different time. It really forced me to think Okay,
I could do a job I really don’t want to do and make okay money or I could do exactly
what I want to do and push myself. And that was a scary, scary risk and leap to take but
I’m glad it turned out that way obviously.