Have you ever found yourself trapped in an elevator next to someone, what would you do or say? An example of such occurrence was found in the SXSW world premiere of John Venable’s Elevator Ride. This Texas Short depicts how two men, one white, one black, are trapped in an elevator. In the meantime, they engage in a discussion regarding race.
The Bridge had the opportunity to chat with John Venable, director, producer and actor of Elevator Ride who expressed how the beginning and the ending of the short are scripted; yet, everything in between was improvised. He states how the short commences with a conversation with the question of when a black and white person gets into an argument. The argument reaches a certain level where the black person calls the white person a racist, who then defends himself by saying he has black friends, yet why does this statement get automatically dismissed. It is with this question that both men continue to shape their discussion.
When Venable was asked how the filmmaking process was put into action, he expressed how the short was filmed in a matter of four hours, although at times some shorts take a weekend to film.
An interesting fact about Venable was how he did not attend film school. He stated that being a movie reviewer for seven years was a great film school. Indeed, Venable is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Associationand recently retired his film review website Supercala.com which was syndicated by Rotten Tomatoes. He gave us an insight on how he would base his reviews by asking, “Did they effectively entertain what they believe their target audience was?”
Ultimately, Venable words of advice towards aspiring filmmakers included, “trying to stay away from working with people that you don’t know, at least a little,” as well as, “it is important that if you’re a writer or a director to get tied in the local acting scene… find the local thespians and start building relationships with them.”