Meet Charlie Herndon | Writer, Filmmaker, and Photographer

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

Hi Charlie, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?

Much of my work stems from the critical voice inside my head. At first I turned this critical lens that I had towards art and media, thinking extensively about the meaning and quality of movies. This led to writing filmic essays, which got me into my dream school. There, I studied screenwriting, which is an art form where words are married with images. A sentence evokes an image. A series of images triggers an emotional or intellectual reaction. What I’m able to write with the visual language of cinema is akin to writing with the light itself, which is so cool! I love conjuring images with words, but I place a tremendous emphasis on the meaning of those words. My writing calls upon a mode of societal critique. We’re living in an age where words are becoming increasingly meaningless and media itself is being weaponized. Therefore, education, literacy, and advocacy for critical thought becomes tantamount to success in my work.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I grew up in North Carolina. It remains a very beautiful place in my mind. Ivy wrapped around greek-columned porches. Darkness co-exists with the sunlight of the South. Elegance with blood-soaked centuries of oppression and violence. I developed an acute awareness of these societal forces. I felt othered by them. I longed to transcend them.

My whole life I’ve straddled the line between light and dark in my writing, and this contrast is exemplified in the images constructed henceforth on celluloid film. I frequent spaces of dual natures. Cheery elementary school classrooms as a teacher over this last year. Dark nightclubs where the castoffs of society are relegated. The latter are the places we have conditionally “allowed” queerness.

This duality is not lost on me; my narrative work so far has that quality of both juvenile gleefulness, childlike logic, and ageless awe. Juxtapose that with society’s flaws and frank acknowledgement of human abjection. My current scripts take us from the bedroom of a stuck-up teenage valley girl in dystopia not far from our own, to a wintry brothel in Moscow, to dance-floors painted with strobing beams in L.A.’s gay nightlife scene.

Projects like these excite me the most. Getting to work on any creative endeavour, especially ones where I have as much freedom to express my anxieties and observations as explicitly as I do here in America, is a privilege that I do not hold lightly. I’ve got to go for the jugular when it comes to themes. The current waves of anti-intellectualism and a disdain for the arts are high on the mind these days.

It would be another privilege entirely to get to make something that enters the mainstream – I hope to get to do so when the opportunity arises!

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?
In the morning, rack up pastries from Porto’s, Paradise Cafe, Papillon and Sipan Bakery in Glendale. Head to the Brand Art Park and Library at the base of the Verdugo Mountains to hike and check out their incredible art collections. Go check out the painting of the Crucifixion on the Mount in Forest Lawn Cemetery. For lunch, go to Little Tokyo and try a little bit of everything there. Go to Wi Spa in Koreatown and lose yourself for hours. For dinner, go to Kalinka Russian Cuisine and eat so you’re ready for the night of drinking and dancing to come.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have to shout out to my family, they stressed the importance of education and giving back from a young age. If something I create doesn’t educate or articulate an idea, or a question, I have to ask myself, what is the point?

Secondarily, I would like to shout out the book “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. She stresses two ideas for young writers to follow through on. The first is to break your dream projects and lofty ideas up in to short assignments, The second is to always push through and get a crappy first draft.

Website: charlieherndon.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlieherndon/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-herndon-1b954a200/