Meet David Krouse | Film Festival Producer/Manager/Screener

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Krouse and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
I love the definition of art that Ayn Rand gives in The Romantic Manifesto, “Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. Man’s profound need of art lies in the fact that his cognitive faculty is conceptual, i.e., that he acquires knowledge by means of abstractions, and needs the power to bring his widest metaphysical abstractions into his immediate, perceptual awareness. Art fulfills this need: by means of a selective re-creation, it concretizes man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence.”

And that selective recreation carries a lot of universals’. When I Co-Produced The Valley Film Festival, I described our theme ‘United By Film’ as “basically, we all have the same experiences, the same emotions, and we’re united by film in that regard.” Camille Paglia used to talk about media and that the real complaint many people had wasn’t so much what was being shown, but that it was becoming so splintered that people missed the common, collective experience and sense of community people had in the past from media experience. Art is about giving expression and form to psychographics. Successful narrative storytellers tap into that part of the audiences’ psyche.

As a teenager, I saw Dr. Zhivago (2002) and was blown away by the love scenes in it – a synthesis of porn, poetry and romance worthy of D.H. Lawrence. During an interview Andrew Davies (the screenwriter) said he wanted audiences to say “ah yes, that’s what love feels like.”

Successful movies (and media in general) are anchored by real feelings that media can evoke in audiences. When I was 19, I went through a manga phase and one thing that definitely left an impression on me was the farewell message Rumiko Takahashi wrote at the end of Ranma 1/2, “Some may think I’m being melodramatic, that they are only fictional characters. But I’ve always felt that the emotions they instill in us make them every bit as real as you or I.”

This is why I think that Top Gun: Maverick didn’t just do well, it shattered records including beating Titanic (it’s unusual for a movie to be at the top of the box office for both Memorial Day and Labor Day). The majority of the audience was Tom Cruise’s age or younger, (in other words not Boomers), and the storyline tapped into Generational resentment of being hamstrung by our parents for their own personal gain. More and more Millennials and Gen Z are going no contact on the past generations and some studies have placed this as high as 25%. You see it all over social media. Probably one of the biggest things that I noticed was that, when compared to the original Top Gun, all the young pilots in this are entirely alone – they don’t have families, spouses or kids at the same age that their parents characters did. In 1979, Christopher Latsch wrote about Silent and Boomer Generation’s Narcissism epidemic. Sociologist Mike A. Males has written for years about the War on Youth and how its harmed Millennials and now Gen Z with laws, policies and expectations that previous generations did not have. One example I specifically remember and still resent was the Silent/Boomer led government demanding I register for Selective Services at 18-years-old during the middle of two wars, but there being a 21-drinking-age. I haven’t forgotten the tv clip of Candace Lightner smugly putting down 18-year-old men as not having ‘developed brains’ and snarking “That’s why they are in the military, because they are not adults,” or Barack Obama telling a service member that he knew it would “kill him” but he [Obama] wasn’t “going to repeal the drinking age” (that didn’t exist when Obama or Lightner were under 21-years-old). Not to mention that even those over twenty-one still can’t purchase alcohol without an ID, and the policies keep raising the age that no ID check is required so that Boomers never have to obey the laws they made (AMC Theatres places it at 65-years-old). Another example is a friend who is younger than I am moved cross-country last year – he couldn’t get a rental car because he was 24-years-old. Many Millennials and Gen Z were deprived of driver’s licenses as teenagers by cumbersome regulations that previous generations weren’t subjected too. It’s all examples of narcissistic abuse and bullying by the Baby Boomers and enablement by Gen Xers and Top Gun: Maverick tapped into the resentment psyche among Millennials and Gen Z, finally giving a voice to this situation that has gone on for far too long. It’s also why I think ‘The Boys’ has been a smash success – it deals with this social situation as well.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Most of my film career has been in exhibition and has involved screening movie submissions and for film festival programming. This past year, I watched movies for the Denver Film Festival 46, and currently features for The Valley Film Festival 24 submission season. Having worked in all aspects of film exhibition – Producer, Screener, Programmer, Staff, Crew, Management, Auditing, Theater Checking, etc . . . I have a global perspective on this part of the industry and how it operates that I generally find many people don’t.

Recently, I had a conversation with someone who didn’t understand the impact of film exhibition, or that film careers involve more than just the director/actor and production phase of a movie’s life. It makes me think of the ‘Cerulean Top/Blue Sweater’ scene in The Devil Wears Prada, where ‘Andy’, is dismissive of the choices about accessories until Miranda Priestly succinctly gave a global perspective and history of the blue sweater Andy is wearing, concluding, “It’s sorta comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

In 2015, The Valley Film Festival programmed ‘7 Days in Syria’ a feature documentary about war crimes in Syria committed by Assad’s regime – the movie was very well received on it’s festival run. As a result, we were flooded with documentary submissions about genocide, the holocaust, etc . . . (that year we decided to against traumatizing audiences and programmed a documentary about Robert Shaw’s music career). More recently, I reviewed a feature length narrative submission that was developed from a short movie VFF programmed in 2017.

The work done in film exhibition – film festivals, marketing, film PR, movie theater chains, platform builders, etc., impacts so much more than audiences realize. For most movies, festivals, exhibitors, and buzz generators determine the viability of their movie’s trajectory. Anyone doubting that should remember Hollywood (foolishly) turned down Taylor Swift’s ‘Era’s Tour Movie’. Without AMC making a direct deal with Swift’s team, the ‘Eras Concert’ might have never been seen. It also resulted in a deal with Beyoncé for ‘Renaissance’, and Disney+ buying the exclusive streaming rights for ‘The Era’s Concert’ to rebuild their shrinking subscriber base. Audiences probably don’t know the name Jodi Reamer, but that was the agent/attorney who took a chance on Stephanie Meyer, resulting in not only the Twilight Saga but also creating a market demand for shows like ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and the fan fiction that ultimately became ’50 Shades of Grey’ (another major franchise).” When I was a manager at Cinelounge, Christian Meoli impressed many times that we weren’t just running a business, it was a platform of discovery for audiences to find new movies.

One of the proudest moments of my career was securing the U.S. Premiere for an obscure Canadian documentary titled ‘That Never Happened: Canada’s First National Internment Operations’ by Ryan Boyko and Diana Cofini (both wonderful people). The subject matter involved the wrongful imprisonment of Ukrainian immigrants during WWI as slave labor despite being from a friendly allied nation. At the time, I was co-producing The Valley Film Festival, where we screened the U.S. Premiere, the second time it was ever shown globally. I was also able to get coverage in The Los Angeles Daily News, at the time the second largest paid-circulated paper in Los Angeles. A year later, it was the official selection of the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations and screened on September 20th, 2018, in Geneva, Switzerland, during the 70th Anniversary of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Ryan, in turn, has gone on to be involved in the media campaign about the war in Ukraine and has even been banned from entering Russia. (I couldn’t be more proud).

Being a Film Festival Producer or Manager looks like Han Solo in the Empire Strikes Back – so many moving parts, tight deadlines, things not working (DCP’s not unlocking is worse than a faulty hyperdrive), and having to innovate in the face of these challenges.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Venice Beach – just the beach bum artist vibe there and not too far from Abbot Kinney and all the cool shops along there.

In the Valley, Tarzana City Walk is a special favorite. My best friend lived in Reseda and I lived over there for the last couple years I was in the Valley. During the day we’d head to Whole Foods Market’s cafe and use it as our ‘virtual office’ and in the evenings we’d grab drinks and play pool at Maui Sugar Mill Saloon during their live band nights. I loved practicing Yoga at the YogaWorks on the Corner. There are some great sushi spots in in this area too. Cafe Carolina in Encino was a great spot. I stumbled across this place meeting a classmate for dinner one time and later took a girl there for a great date (Thanks to the Italian food, we discovered we’d both lived in Italy as teenagers). Studio City was also somewhere I enjoyed living. I started practicing yoga at Yoga Shelter/Electric Soul Yoga and Mexicali Cocina Cantina used to be a great place to hang-out.

For entertainment, definitely Ameoba Music in Hollywood – I loved getting lost in this record palace. For movies, obviously both Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre are a must. But my favorite movie experience hands down was Rooftop Movies at The Montalban Theatre. The freedom of watching the movie, having the headphones on ensuring you have perfect sound while being able to walk-around, and grab drinks and food was just fantastic.

One thing I’d definitely recommend would be MyValleyPass’s Movie Tour. I loved getting on the bus and going all over The Valley to see where movies were filmed, especially the street where the boys take off on their bikes E.T. That was really cool.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Tracey Adlai and The Valley Film Festival. I met Tracey a decade ago when she was driving a lecturer to a film class I was taking. I later cold emailed her and got involved with The Valley Film Festival, moving up to House Manager and then Co-Producer for several years. There are alot of self-described festivals in Los Angeles, but VFF definitely stands out and definitely is a thriving community. At the time I was also a Valley boy and I loved that there was a dedicated festival to movies made in the 818.

Nick Pernisco at Santa Monica College. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was supposed to attend LA. City College, but they never bothered to pick-up their phone to confirm my financial aid. Then I looked at Santa Monica College, but enrolling in classes was next to impossible because they were all full months in advance. I cold emailed several professors teaching media classes, pitching myself as a student after my Freshman year at Defiance College. Nick Pernisco replied and told me he could add me to two classes, which gave me half the credits I needed to be full-time and receive the financial aid that I needed to move to Los Angeles. The following semester he invited me to take his Advanced Radio class, which was a blast. Unfortunately he retired for a while due to health issues, but I’ve heard he is now back teaching again at SMC. I recommend taking his classes if available.

Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5011036/