Meet Catherine Deptuch | Writer, Director, Producer & Founder of Vulcat Studio

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

Hi Catherine, what do you attribute your success to?
The most important factor behind the success of my brand as a filmmaker “Catherine Deptuch” and under the umbrella of my production company, Vulcat Studio, is being classy and remaining true to myself while also being as specific as possible with the core values in my work. Classic. Multi-Lingual. Coming of Age “At Any Age”. International. Music-Driven. Those are core elements that not only shine in my work but also in what I wear and how I genuinely express myself, almost without thinking. Putting words to my brand early on has helped with moments in creating and writing where I am meandering, lost in the woods of experimentation, and need to come back to my center as an artist. I know I am succeeding when I hear comments on my films and scripts like “this is so part of the Vulcat Cinematic Universe,” or “I can hear your voice in these characters,” or “there is a unity to all your pieces”. That being said, I love to dabble with different genres, mediums, and forms of transmedia storytelling to enhance my films. The key factor is having my brand in mind and coming back to what makes me uniquely special to tell this story in this way.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Vulcat Studio and www.vulcat.com are my production company and film website that encompass my brand and filmography. “Vulcat” is a combination of two words: Vulture and Catherine. Turkey vultures are my favorite birds. They embody my way of thought for making art: they circle around and get the “the big picture” before zeroing in on their prey, much like how I look at the “big picture” before zeroing in on the details and specifics of a story, film, poem, or piece of content I choose to create. The turkey vulture with a beret is also a symbol for my love of travel and incorporating multi-lingual stories into my filmmaking. I started Vulcat Studio back in 2014 when I started wanting to make my own content to put out into the world and develop my style. It has gone through many color schemes and design choices and web content moments but stayed true to myself and my classic brand.

On there, one can find my films, music videos, and web content as well as hear about all the happenings of our upcoming screenings, awards, and more — like our most recent achievement in winning the Hollywood Eagle Audience Award for Best Film of 2021 at the Polish Film Festival Los Angeles for our latest Polish-English short film, “Rzezbiarz [The Sculptor]”.

It definitely took many years of hard work and dedication to get to the place where the company is today, and I know there is still so much to hone in and develop. Along the way, I have learned self-confidence and patience. As an artist, it is easy to fall into pitfalls of doubt. One can’t help but look around and on social media and feel like everyone is running ahead of you. When I get in that perfectionist, doubtful mindset even for a second, I look at my wall in my office and look at the quote pinned to my corkboard near my computer monitor from Dr. Albert Einstein that reads, “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” I’ve learned to be confident in my identity and my decisions as a filmmaker and entrepreneur, which goes hand-in-hand with being patient. In 2018, I got to meet one of my Polish cinema heroes, the legendary Andrzej Seweryn, at the Polish Film Festival Los Angeles. And when asking him for advice, he reminded me to be patient and be aware that it takes time to develop true success. For an eager, stubborn, impatient 20-something-year-old, that was not something I wanted to hear, however, in practice, patience gave me the time to live and experience relationships around me that fueled my storytelling and let it mature as my knowledge of the world grew with it. It is important to work hard and try to win and succeed in your own right but to enjoy the journey of discovery and imagination growth as well. After all, like the other iconic Einstein quote goes, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
You have come to the right place! Outside of film and music and art, I find a passion and artform in traveling and travel planning/itinerary-making. So this question makes me really excited.

I am big into hiking and getting outside, and the beautiful part about the Great Los Angeles area is that you can hike and simultaneously see the ocean and have a “beach day.” The ideal day plan would be to get up relatively early to beat the PCH traffic and head down to Solstice Canyon for a nice hike with views of the surrounding Santa Monica mountains while having a great workout and pay off of the views of the ocean in between the mountains. Plus, if my best friend is visiting, the best way to catch up is to chat and connect in nature over snacks like my favorite hiking snack: kabanosy. Then – after about an hour or so, we’d drive to Malibu Seafood Café and get some AMAZING fish n’ chips while sitting on their terrace and look off at the ocean. Fingers crossed we get a glimpse of some dolphins. After lunch, we either cross the street and relax or drive even farther down to Point Dume and grab some towels to sit on the beach or even pull out the old badminton racquets and hit the birdie back and forth.

If you’re really in my area (which currently is Culver City area), Kenneth Hahn State Area is my recent favorite find. Going during the week after work just before sunset to bolt up one of their many trails to the top and finding a nice lookout bench to sit at gives one of LA’s best 360 views by far. Once the sun goes down and the stomachs start to grumble, it’s time to eat. I’m still making my way through the foodie scene in Culver City but right now my favorites are Sara The Wine Bar (get the Bucatini Amatriciana), The Doughroom (get the Spicy Bear pizza), and Carasau Ristorante (for dessert, get the Seadas, a traditional Sardinian treat). And you cannot forget to stop at Salt N Straw to get their unique and scrumptious ice cream. The perfect day…

I can go on and on about what this eclectic city has to offer and as being an original out-of-stater, I’ve allowed myself to be as much of a tourist as possible for the last five years. And you should too. I keep trying all sorts of different things here in LA and discover more and more of what I love about different pockets of life in my own backyard.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people to thank in my life and career from family to friends to supporters all around me for getting me to this point. However, for this shout out, I have two special professors from my BFA Film and TV Production education at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts: Katz (yes, just “Katz”) and Suhail Kafity, my editing and sound professors, respectively.

Katz: the French editing icon of USC in famous curly moustache and Ted Baker always. In between good laughs, me practicing my French, and cookie breaks during editing breakouts for our junior thesis films, Katz pushed me to understand the foundations of storytelling and how important editing is in revising the story one last time. Before we even touched a computer, Katz laid photos on the floor and had the class tell a cohesive story with them, a way of basic “picture editing”. And when it came time to edit, he required all of us in directing-editing pairs to spend one hour every day with him until picture lock drawing story graphs, watching cut after cut, and sweating in the labs until we finessed each 5-minute film to the bone. He was never easy on me, and I thank him for that. He never accepted mediocre work from me, and I thank him for that. Not only did he teach me the technical aspects of AVID and proper workflow, but most importantly story structure, conflict, drama. Now, I call him about every film I direct after I write my “almost final draft” and before I greenlight myself to receive the most thoughtful gift a collaborator can give: their time, attention, and wisdom.

Suhail: the funny, talented, iconic sound professor with a Stitch sticker on his laptop and as large a love for puppets as I do (and that’s saying something). When I was about to embark on directing my junior thesis film, You Can Call Me Ollie, while I finessing the script with Katz, I was visiting Suhail to discuss how to execute a puppeteering film from an artistic and technical perspective. Then, when it was my turn to boom and sound edit for a peer’s aurally ambitious short, he meticulously taught me to appreciate the medium of sound that I was so afraid of tackling at the time, and he helped me at my first crack of ADR that I was so nervous to take on – I never worked harder than in those labs in the SCA basements. He made me more confident in myself as a sound editor as I solely sound designed my non-dialogue short, Candles from scratch and as a director who is now so aware of sound’s vital place in this storytelling medium.

If I can give any advice to up-and-coming filmmakers is this: talk to your editing and sound professor before you start any kind of pre-production and production – it will save your movie. And if find yourself professors half as talented and giving as these two, you will find your foggy perspective of filmmaking so much clearer and open to unique storytelling that engages your audience and puts you on track to being as successful as you’re meant to be.

Website: www.vulcat.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vulcatstudio/ https://www.instagram.com/cdeptuch/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinedeptuch/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vulcatstudio

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VulcatStudio https://www.facebook.com/catherine.deptuch/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/VulcatStudio

Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/vulcatstudio IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9886326/