“Unveiling the Secrets: How Shari Hamrick Grewal Transformed from Film Crew Member to Visionary Producer/Director”
Ashley
Yeah. Sound advice for sure. So, your dad was a pilot. You’re moving around the world. It sounds like, do you have any insight? Why were you so passionate about theater? It sounds like you love to perform. You’re doing the theater wherever you went. But just now with years of reflection, you’ve been in the entertainment business for awhile. Like what was it that really attracted you to it originally?
Shari Hamrick Grewal
I would have to say I came out that way if I was doing like little shows and little plays with my dolls and truck from the time I was two or three, four years old, I was doing fake radio shows and I just have always been doing that writing, writing short stories. My parents could not stop me from that path. They try to talk me several times, get a regular job. What are you doing? You can’t make a living this way. I just kept doing it. I finally got to the point where, you get old enough where you’re trying to get an apartment, you try to grow up, I didn’t want to like, as I was acting a lot, that was hard to make a living in theater as an actor, so I started working behind the scenes in the theater settings as well. So, if I wasn’t in the show, I was on the show regardless. And then I decided that I didn’t want to be a waiter necessarily and then try to do this part -time. So, I took any job on any show starting, you know, where I was even legally allowed to work at 18, whether it was a PA, whether it was in locations or costume or runner or a dress, I took any job in the, the deal. I’ve been doing that my whole life. So, I just transitioned from acting into the production side. You know, I started doing independent stuff, putting my own stuff together. Cause you know, I wasn’t getting enough jobs. So, I said, well, I’ll just make my own. And then what I would do as a, this is how I gravitated more to the producer side for a while was that I would fire myself as an actor. Cause I would get a bigger name in there. So, I would have a role thinking this is going to be my role. And then I would be like, okay, I’m not this person. They have this name and they’re going to make this sale. So, I would remove myself and put a bigger name in. I did that as for directing for a while too. I would, I’m going to direct this one. I have to make this one. And now I get a really great director who has a similar vision as me that would concentrate on that. And then I would fire myself as a director and bring it in a director. And then that way I could concentrate on producing and raising the money and selling. But did that for a really long time. Um, I started working for bonding companies for a while as a problem solver, the fixer to find out why we’re productions going over budget. Why were they running so many days? Like where was the problem? Was it the, you know, we say it’s the director, but sometimes it wasn’t the director, it could have been like logistically some, you know, maybe it rained for a week and they were flooded out or, and then I found that I started taking over productions that were in trouble when they would fire or remove a director and then I would have to finish them maybe for the bond cut. I never got credit. Like I was just, but at that point I was just working, making paychecks. And, and in that time, I also produced for human beings for children and a family and, you know, trying to juggle, you know, travel and go into hungry to make a movie. And I’ve got, you know, little ones at home. So that definitely slowed down the amount of production I would take on.
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