Filmmaker of the Month: Tanner Christensen - Breck Film

Interview Questions

Tell us your backstory. How and why did you get into filmmaking?

My father, T.C. Christensen, has been a cinematographer for most of his career, so I was exposed to filmmaking at a very early age. He also was one of the few people in Utah who owned an Avid. (At the time, Avid was the Hollywood standard for non-linear editing). This was back when they cost more than a house. So as I kid, I was able to play around editing my own terrible short films at night when Avid wasn’t being used. Having Avid editing experience helped me land my first post production internship when I was in college, and I was off to the races.

What films have been the most inspiring or influential to you and why?

When I was in high school, I watched the Coen brother’s O Brother, Where Art Thou in my hometown theater, and my mind was absolutely blown. Not only was it so well done in every aspect, including incredible music and amazing characters, but I was absolutely gobsmacked by their writing. I had recently read Homer’s The Odyssey in English class, and had been bored out of my mind. These guys had read the same book I did, and somehow adapted it in such clever and unexpected way. Never have I felt more intimidated and inspired at the same time.

What’s harder? Getting started or being able to keep going? And what drives you to continue making films?

Both can be difficult, but even harder for me has been making the career change from editor to director after 20 years of working on other people’s films. It has been a sometimes nauseating, sometimes thrilling journey, where each day I waffle between feelings of “what have I done” to “I can’t believe I get to do this!” The whole thing has been an incredible amount of hard work and perseverance, but it’s also been some of the most personally rewarding work I’ve ever done.

What is your favorite aspect of film production?

For many reasons, I have and always will love being in the edit. It’s where I’m most confident and probably the most capable. The other aspects of film production are great and rewarding in their own ways, but for me, nothing even comes close to post.

Why did you choose to submit to the Breckenridge Film Festival? What do you look for in a festival where you hope to show your film?

My father had submitted one of his films to Breckenridge in the 90s (and won a festival award). He loved the festival, and recommended it as a good fit for our film Standout.

We were careful in our festival run to only submit to festivals that had a good reputation, had showcased similar films as our own, and that we could likely travel to and attend. We were so impressed with Breck Fest, they took care of filmmakers in such a personal way. We sincerely hope we can get back soon!

Can you describe the business behind independent filmmaking and how you are trying to get your film seen?

Independent film is a tough business and, in many ways, every project is a gamble. We are competing with established studios with big budgets, and a ticket to our movie costs the same as theirs.

We do our best to keep our budget as small as possible to give us a chance to compete financially, and at the same time, we try to make the film look as “big” as we can with our limited resources. We also are very selective with the stories we choose to tell, usually picking true stories.

For Standout, we did a limited theatrical run with a regional distributor we’ve worked with many times. Our typical strategy is to try to start small, and grow region to region. It gives us time and energy to focus on different markets, since most of our marketing is grassroots thanks to our limited marketing budget.
We ended up getting into about 120 theaters in about 20 states. After that we have a few distributors we’ve worked with that help us get on streaming and digital platforms. Ben Kjar, the subject of the film, speaks all over the world, and that has been a tremendous help in getting the word out about Standout.

Director’s Bio

After spending nearly two decades building a career as a film editor, Tanner Christensen made the jump to the director’s chair with his debut feature documentary, Standout: The Ben Kjar Story.

As an editor, Christensen contributed to a variety of films and television series, including The Cokeville Miracle, Studio C, Raising the Bar: The Alma Richards Story and the hit Netflix documentary series Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators.