Meet Tommy Petroskey | Short Film Director

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

Hi Tommy, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I find risk-taking to be one of my key motivators for wanting to direct short films at all. Expressing your creativity is a very personal display of who you are, how you view the world, and what you believe is a story worth sharing. It’s a risk you’re taking that others will view your work and understand it. It’s a risk that an audience will agree with it, follow it the way you intended, or most importantly, walk away at the end feeling something – good or bad.

A film director takes risks from the very beginning, right when they commit themselves to a new project. Because the only way that project will be understood is to first accomplish a technical feat of piecing together visuals that are coherent and then to share it with someone who will either love it or hate it. And that risk is exhilarating. It’s a crap shoot to see how people’s tastes in art have evolved over the years and where your work fits within their spectrum of quality.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The art I create is short-form cinema. I have a strong belief that as a writer and director, I can tell a more impactful story when it’s concise and in a more digestible format than a feature film. It’s a challenge I put on myself for an audience to understand the narrative while feeling the emotions of the characters in less than 20 minutes.

I think what sets my films apart from the rest is how I structure my stories. When I concept the idea for a script, I always start with an ending and work backward. How can I achieve this ending for the audience to feel it the way I feel it? What parts of the story are essential to tell this ending in its entirety? What am I trying to say with this ending, and how does that affect the audience’s reaction when we arrive there? I like to think of these endings almost like the punch line of a joke. Something unexpected that keeps the viewer wanting more from the story or from myself as a filmmaker.

Through this structure, I’ve learned that the final scenes of the film are really what encompasses the message I’m trying to convey. Just as well, if I am able to deliver the ending I’ve set out I achieve from the beginning, that is going to be the biggest takeaway from the entire film. Leave the audience with a good taste in their mouths and they’ll be anxious to see more of your work.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The person I’d like to dedicate my shoutout to is my Grampa, Fred Petroskey. My Grampa was a remarkable portrait artist of all different mediums. Growing up, he constantly showed me what it meant to create something out of nothing. Being around him I was always impressed by his approach to art and finding the beauty in something that I couldn’t quite see as well as he could. It was like he had a superpower, he could take something so simple and make it complex. He showed me that art didn’t always matter if it made sense, there is no written formula to get your end product, you just have to put your mind on canvas the way you see it. And that’s something I hold very close to me when writing and directing. I trust my gut and follow how the vision looks in my head and if I can achieve that in my final end product then I consider it a success. Furthermore, I know I can trust my artistic eye because that – I’ve inherited from my Grampa.

Website: petroskeyproductions.com

Instagram: @petroskeyproductions

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-petroskey-a7a6a2106/

Other: https://vimeo.com/tommypetroskey

Image Credits
Footnote Credits: Tommy Petroskey Director Tommy Petroskey Writer Luca Alessandrini Producer Tommy Petroskey Producer Robert McKeon Key Cast “Walter” Kaitlyn Lunardi Key Cast “Sarah” Lisa Angell Director of Photography Ryder Chasin Set Producer Johanna Cranitch Original Score Steve Collins Audio Recordist Mike Lynders Grip & Electric Tommy Petroskey Editor Lisa Angell Camera Operator Zach Herdman Camera Operator Tommy Petroskey Camera Operator Johnny Credits; Tommy Petroskey Director Tommy Petroskey Writer Tommy Petroskey Producer Luca Alessandrini Producer Ben Shaul Key Cast “Johnny” Rei Hayashi Key Cast “Tokala” Stan Grunder Director of Photography Whitetail Michael Darchi Editor Jacklyn Munck Art Director Steve Collins Audio Engineer Ashley Simmons Audio Mixer Johanna Cranitch Composer Whitetail Credits: Tobin Cleary Key Cast “Kyle” Dan Carberg Key Cast “Father” Steve Daugherty Key Cast “Hiker” Tommy Petroskey Director Tommy Petroskey Writer Tommy Petroskey Producer Stan Grunder Producer Stan Grunder Director of Photography Mike Darchi Editor