Colin Hanks and Sean Stuart Discuss Filmmaking

 

Lorena Robelo

Chronicle Reporter

    Colin Hanks, Tom Hank’s son, and film partner, Sean Stuart, made a documentary on Tower Records, an iconic retail music chain. They did a session on filmmaking at A Taste of Tomorrow, a job and food fair that took place on Oct. 14. They had two sessions where guests came and informed people on a certain career. In this session, Hanks and Stuart spoke about filmmaking and did a Q-and-A on themselves and their upcoming documentary.

    Hanks and Stuart were interviewed by Bradley Rubin, a well-known chef, in Karen Cusolito’s classroom, room 424. Rubin began by speaking about different ways one can tell a story. Some ways to tell a story is through one’s clothing, social media, writing and much more. But the way Hanks and Stuart told a story was through documentary filmmaking.

    Hanks said that when he decided he wanted to make a documentary about Tower Records, he was in New York, acting in small roles, and was frustrated because he did not know what he wanted to do with his life. It was not until an acquaintance of his told him how Tower Records was based in a pharmacy. That interested Hanks because he grew up spending most of his time growing up at a Tower Records. He researched Tower Records for six months before contacting his childhood friend, Stuart, to help him with filming the documentary.

    Filming the documentary was a bit of a hassle for Hanks and Stuart. The filming of the whole documentary overall took seven years. Hanks and Stuart said there had been multiple times where they have considered putting the film down and they took some hiatuses but they always felt a need to finish it. Hanks said, “You can’t succeed without failure.” They stated that struggle is a crucial process in filmmaking but when one is passionate about something, it is worth the struggle.

    For the last minutes of the session, the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions to the document filmmakers. Student, Omar Fritz, asked Hanks and Stuart, “ What was it like to make a film involving two things you really love, music and filmmaking?” Stuart replied that the cross of the two worlds were amazing. Although they had a hard time, they enjoyed making the film and it was the most accomplishing and euphoric moment for them to see the finished product. They ended their session with that one question because they were running in a tight schedule. Later that day, Hanks guest starred in The Late Late Show with James Corden to speak about the same upcoming documentary.

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