Meet Tim Shechmeister | Filmmaker & Educator

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

Hi Tim, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area, and as someone obsessed with movies, it was an incredible place to grow up.

There were multiple small art house theaters a short bike ride away from my home, including the Guild, the Park, the Aquarius, and the Palo Alto Square. I’m forever grateful that they gave me the opportunity to discover incredible indie movies, wonderful foreign films, and documentaries all on the big screen. I’ll never forget seeing HOOP DREAMS (1994) at the Palo Alto Square and realizing how cinematic a documentary could be. Or what a privilege it was to see beautiful foreign films like KOLJA (1996) or LA VITA E BELLA (1997) with a crowd of people at the Guild or the Park, the same year they were nominated for Oscars.

Outside of the modern art houses, the two poles of my existence were a pair of 1920s movie palaces that focused on classic cinema: the Castro Theater in San Francisco, and the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. Both theaters are jewels of the movie-watching experience, and have been lovingly restored to their full glory. The first of many silent movies I ever saw was Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece THE GOLD RUSH (1925) at the Stanford Theatre when I was ten. Silent movies at the Stanford are accompanied by music from the mighty Wurlitzer Organ, and the entire experience is pure magic.

Lastly, there was no shortage of killer video stores with friendly, thoughtful staff in the South Bay Area. My home base was the Movie Groove on El Camino Real in Redwood City, CA. I dearly miss the video store, above all my chats with the brilliant Scott who ran the Movie Groove for many years.

Together, all these amazing Bay Area institutions cast the spell of cinema over me. Movies have been my life’s passion ever since.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m a filmmaker primarily working in the horror and thriller genres. I love creating experiences that thrill audiences, while also telling them a story that makes them shiver. That of course is a lot to ask of one movie, so it’s been a complex process to weave all those elements together. I’m excited to keep taking on the challenge!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
First I’d take them to the Velaslavasay Panorama on 24th Street, it’s a delightful little curiosity that is unlike any other place in the city. I’d then take them around to the Museum of Jurassic Technology on Venice Boulevard in Culver City. Both places feel like traveling to another dimension. You can go back to the Museum of Jurassic Technology as many times as you want and always find new and tantalizing mysteries to investigate.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Ronen Landa is a gifted film composer whom I’ve worked with a couple times now, and hope to collaborate with on several movies to come. He composed the scores for some amazing independent horror movies, including THE PACT (2012), AT THE DEVIL’S DOOR (2014), and the Netflix hit 1 BR (2019). Most recently he composed the score for the jaw-dropping series PAUL T. GOLDMAN (2023). It’s an ingenious blend of documentary, reenactment, and all around zaniness that has to be seen to be believed.

Ronen can compose melodies of all kinds, but above all he’s a brilliant experimenter with sound. He loves to find ways to play instruments in novel, out-of-the-box ways. He even enjoys using random objects that no one would consider instruments to make musical sounds you’ve never heard before. You can find examples of his work on Spotify and Instagram. Highly recommended!

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

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6PEfXM0agK3IGrV8li_3Rw

Image Credits
Photo by Ben Peyser https://www.instagram.com/benpeyser/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2545999/