Creating a Conduit Between Filmmakers and Causes for Good Through Impactful Storytelling
Q&A with Stebs Schinnerer, Maker of Films and Co-founder @ Crews for a Cause
The Freelancers: How has your life shaped your style and career as a filmmaker?
Stebs: My whole life I've generally been a pretty curious and friendly person. I've really leaned into that curiosity to better understand people in the world around me. I also have ADD so I'm a bit all over the place and honestly this combined with curiosity has led me in part to where I am. I've sort of made a living off of asking people questions about themselves and what they do. Then transforming that into some sort of artistic representation of who they are and their craft. Same thing goes with storytelling for organizations, brands, or just commercials and projects in general. Leading with that curiosity, having empathy for people has definitely done a lot for my career and my artistry. I also am very extroverted and willing to put myself out there to meet people, shake hands, and generally collaborate on projects with people. To me, this industry and to be honest, a lot of other industries are all about relationships. Of course you need to be good at what you do, but at the same time it holds a lot of weight to be a good person to work with and collaborate with. I feel like I am generally both of those things
The Freelancers: How did you go about building your network (as well as trust with those individuals) to become a reliable and go-to director, DP and all around creative?
Stebs: As I mentioned, it's all about relationships for me. I really lean into getting to know people and understanding their story, and when I'm working with someone I try to understand who they are as a person, as a creative, or what their needs are as a client. I lead with that sort of thing and allow my artistic expression of that stuff to follow. I feel like that's a good way to build relationships with people so that you are keeping their needs front and center when crafting your artistic vision. As I also mentioned, being good at what you do and working hard to achieve a higher level of artistry is always needed when building professional relationships, but again, those relationships are fostered by working hand in hand with people, being collaborative, and listening. I think it's also really important for me to make sure I bring my experience and sensibilities to the table when being hired. Most of the time I'm being hired for a vision or to put my creative mark on something. So communicating my ideas clearly while respecting the needs of the people I'm working with goes a long way to building lasting relationships.
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The Freelancers: If three projects could tell the story of your career and growth, what would they be?
Stebs: I would say the first project that really sent me off was my first demo reel. I tried to make it stand out from the crowd by giving a little bit of a narrative as well as being incredibly personal to myself and the people in my life. I think that resonated with pretty much everyone who watched it, and really made it something that at the time caught people's attention in a way that other things hadn't. This film got me in the door in a lot of places because it was unlike a lot of stuff that was out there. I stuck true to myself and what I wanted to do and that seemed to be really enticing to people. '
The second project was something that I also did very early on in my career and went on to be something that I ended up getting hired for all the time. It was a project for Highsnobiety, filming the process of a good friend hand-crafting some custom letterpress costers. At the time there really wasn't much out there like this and it really caught people's attention in a way that I think communicated something new and fresh to people. I think it was also impressive to people that I met that I had done it entirely by myself with really very little equipment and no team. It was something that got me in the door at a lot of places to create films like it (like this film for Jack Daniels).
Aside from these two films, I don't think there's really another film in particular that I could point to to say that it changed the trajectory of my career. I've created over 200 films of all shapes and sizes, covering all sorts of subject matters and styles that I can't really pinpoint one that really stands out. I think the ones that tend to stand out for me are ones that I was able to accomplish something different than what I normally do in a way that I and my client were very very happy with. I think this commercial for Lifespan Hospital in Rhode Island was one that I felt really proud of and was very different from the style of what I normally did. Again, I can't say that this was a defining film for me, but projects like these are ones that I like to step out of my comfort zone with and try something new. It's always fun to do that and I'm always open for a challenge.
The Freelancers: How did you get to the point in your career to build Crews for a Cause and why did you start it?
Stebs: Funny enough, I actually started doing non-profit work. When I first started my professional career, I always had a desire to give back using my storytelling skills for non-profits that need their story to be told. I had the idea along with a couple of friends who were in the entertainment industry as well and we all had a passion for giving back to communities in need. We also were speaking with a lot of people on shoots that we were on who were curious about how we got into doing work for non-profits. The funny thing was that there was no special way that we did it, we usually just reached out to them directly and offered our services. That was about it. But we realized that there was a disconnect between creatives wanting to help and causes who needed their help. So we decided to create an organization that is the conduit for impactful storytelling for organizations in need. We want to give people the opportunity to use their skills for something that they're really proud of, especially for people who typically do work that they're not super excited about. It's been really rewarding and is really something that people who get involved with this are really excited about too.
The Freelancers: What types of projects do you work on and how do you go about building a crew for them?
Stebs: We try to work on all sorts of different projects, but one of the main things that we try to stick to is that we work on projects that are - for lack of a better way of putting it - not controversial. We try to work on projects that aren't actively fighting groups of people and instead are raising awareness for diseases, climate issues, or simply helping groups of people. We also try to not have any overlap in the types of organizations that we help out. We're always trying to bring new opportunities to the table for our volunteers and want to keep the projects that we offer up interesting to the people who are on our volunteer list.
We really focus on film first, but we also do fully animation projects as well. We start by sending out the bat signal so to speak and see if we can find a creative lead for the project. Once that creative lead takes it on and decides what they want to do, we then reach out to our volunteers at large and seek out the specific crew needed to help support the creative lead. It's really critical that we allow whoever decides to be the lead of the project to steer what the creative is for it. We don't want to force their hand on anything and want to make sure that they feel supported in creating something that they'll be excited about. Our job is to support them in whatever they decide to do, making sure the organization gets something that they're going to truly benefit from.
The Freelancers: How have you been able to expand and tell stories outside of the US and around the world?
Stebs: I've done some work internationally but not an enormous amount. I really like working with international groups or people who are helping support international causes. One of my favorite projects that I was a part of was for an organization called Project Hello World that brings computers, loaded with tools and educational platforms to rural communities. That otherwise wouldn't have access to the Internet or these tools. These computer hubs are then built and maintained by the community so they feel a sense of ownership of it and its presence in the community becomes sustainable. It was a really amazing project to be a part of, being embedded within the community for about 2 weeks to see how it was all established and welcomed by the community. Community. I created this short film for it that helped explain what they do. It was a really fun project and it meant a lot to me to be a part of it because I believe that supporting projects like these can not just better the communities that they're a part of, but also inspire other movements around the world to help communities in this way.
The Freelancers: What one project from Crews for a Cause do you hold near and dear to your heart that felt like it had a profound impact on the community?
Stebs: I actually just completed a project for Crews for a Cause as the director/dp telling the story for SCRAP, a creative reuse facility in San Francisco that supports the art community here by selling or donating goods and materials to schools and artists in need. It's a really amazing place. It's been around since the '70s and I was really excited to help tell their story.
Stebs is a freelance creative, director & filmmaker and co-founder of Crews for a Cause. You can view his work at stebs.co and crewsforacause.org
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