Meet Marc Tarczali | writer/director

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

Hi Marc, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
On a macro-level, you should never stop pursuing your dreams. But in terms of day to day challenges, its important to choose your battles wisely so you aren’t dumping your bandwidth into a futile endeavor. In the film industry, the most important element to this process, in my estimation, is getting a read on your collaborators. Having the wrong collaborators can spell disaster for any project, and usually you won’t know someone’s the right fit until the project is already underway and you’re in too deep. It usually takes a couple years of knowing someone for them to show their true colors. First impressions are usually good, but you want to see your collaborators under pressure to know how they’ll perform, and see if they’re the type that will run for the hills at the first sign of trouble. Are they in it for themselves? Do they truly love the project, or are they just trying to get something out of it like money or networking? These are questions that are difficult to answer off just a couple meetings. The same logic goes for working with municipalities, location owners, and gear rental companies- – if the vibe is off and it’s causing you stress, maybe you should reconsider working with that entity.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Most of my filmmaking peers were taught to idolize indie filmmakers who largely operate in the festival circuit; there’s a certain condescending attitude toward the filmmakers who created traditional American blockbusters, like Steven Spielberg or John Hughes. We were trained on a diet of small indie slice-of-life films with complex psychological dilemmas and plenty of subtext underpinning muted production value. Loud and bombastic films were viewed as lesser-than, unless done out of a sense of on-screen masochism or irony. Nobody is taught to use “Gremlins” or “Beetlejuice” as reference material/comps as an indie filmmaker, it just doesn’t happen. Those films are considered tone deaf and overly cutesy for the modern audience, yet those types of films continuously populate Netflix’s Top 10 list, and when Hollywood produces a movie with similar tonality, they usually do really well in the box office. There’s a parity between what the audience wants and what we are training our filmmakers to deliver. At best, it’s over-production of agenda based indie dramas and thrillers, at worst, it’s flat out disdain for the very audience Hollywood relies on for income. While it’s not artistically popular to do this, I choose to make films for a mass audience. American cinema isn’t supposed to be quiet and subtle, it’s supposed to be weird, over-the-top, and naively giddy in the face of certain death. We have to recapture the American audience if we want the industry to survive, rather than continuously alienating them with dogma.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Stop 1: Cheesecake Factory in the Glendale Galleria. Order two eggroll samplers. Stop 2: the former site of Sears at the Glendale Galleria. Stand outside the former Sears anchor store, take in the energy, feel the power. Stop 3: Big Square Market in Glendale, buy bread. Stop 4: Go back to Cheesecake Factory, order 7 inch celebration cheesecake. Repeat for 7 days.

Glendale is perhaps the most undervalued and underappreciated asset in Los Angeles. It is also the former home of Nestle’s American headquarters for the Nestle-heads out there. I’m not much of a travel-head or tour guide, I would probably just walk around Glendale with this hypothetical friend and go to the Glendale Galleria for a couple hours, then call it a day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Without naming any of my filmmaking collaborators, I think that would have to be Rick, Lynn, Eric Z and his team, and Chip and his guys at SWAT. Without them, my directorial debut feature, “Clownspiracy”, would not exist. Belief in the project was at a depressing low after we had initial development completely fall apart. The project seemed like it would never happen, and it would take a miracle for “Clownspiracy” to see the light of day. But after watching “Baby Reindeer”, I was impressed with the filmmakers ability to tell such a gripping story on such a low budget, and decided to take the leap of faith with “Clownspiracy”. We started shooting and with the help of some very kind guardian angels, we were able to complete the project over the course of five months of principal photography. The project couldn’t have happened without them, they never expected anything in return, and for that they are truly superheroes. They flat out allowed me to continue directing when nobody else saw value in standing behind me.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Glitch.TV.official

Image Credits
Tum Tum Speedboat
Photos taken from “CLOWNSPIRACY”