-Who is Austin Galante?

I’m a guy who likes doing a wide variety of things. I’m a dad and a husband who likes acting, directing, playing with lighting, growing flowers, watching movies. I’m a music producer and vocalist. I’m a photographer. I’ve shot and directed over 25 music videos and just this last year I wrote, produced, directed, scored, and acted in the Movie “Suite Killing Machines” Having spent the last several decades learning how to do a wide variety of arts gave me the ability to take on the process of creating a movie all under my own direction. I was able to do almost every aspect of the creation of the film by myself. It was a neat experience.

-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

I lived in L.A. for 8 years and I got to act in a number of films, commercials, and music videos. It was a great experience getting to see how multi million dollar production worked. I ended up getting married, having kids and moving around the country a couple times. But once my kids started getting a little older I started shooting music videos and working with people in film around the Milwaukee/Chicago area. One of my friends asked if I wanted to shoot a short or something and I said, sure let me write something: but that something ended up being a 50 page script. I felt confident I could cover all the bases besides on set sound; so my friend Doug Montoya (who also acts in the film), lined up a sound guy and we shot a movie with only 2 crew members (a sound guy and me), plus 5 actors. It was a strenuous experience, but we got it done. I’ve been a part of a number of productions that bit off more than they could chew and were never able to finish the production. With that in mind, I wrote the film in a way I thought I could make it work for a couple thousand dollars and 3 days of shooting.

-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

Cinema does bring change to society. For better or worse. It has and does steer the course of popular opinions, ideas, fashion trends, and cultural norms. Think about smoking trend, think about how abusive relationships have been portrayed or how minorities are treated. How women are portrayed in films has effected how women are perceived to be able to behave in society. Nudity used to be extremely taboo in America. Film have slowly made nudity a bit more acceptable. We watch stylists influence what the generations wear for clothing choices. We watch new ideas become pivotal thought provoking moments that invade our pop cultures.

-What would you change in the world?

I would make critical thinking and rhetoric required classes for all grade and High school children. Teaching children not to be incredulous is a task we are failing miserably at. Teaching them how to recognize fallacies and their own ethnocentric biases would help create a future world where adults aren’t so easily manipulated. If we taught young people to recognize how to weed out claims that don’t have well established evidence we could avoid a world that is run and steered by people who let unfounded beliefs be their guide.

-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

Unfortunately I think A.I. will have a horribly heavy involvement in film creation. The technology isn’t wide spread enough for indie film makers to all be using it a lot yet, but once it is, it will be just like typing in the image you want for your graphic novel. Laws need to be created for how people can use a persons likeness with A.I. or we will see random actors just inserted with A.I. and used in nefarious ways. As we are currently just starting to see in a few instances.

I personally would prefer a world where the humans make art and robots do the labor, but I fear we are going to see more and more art interwoven in with human art. Many people take the path of least resistance and don’t really care about learning the skill or the craft that goes along with creating art. They just want the monetary reward and the finished product with the least effort.

We will definitely get to see more and more perspectives on the world with film making becoming more achievable for indie film makers. Good and Bad. In some ways this will be neat. In other ways it could be like when the lowest parts of the internet get a wider audience. Sometimes bad ideas get to many legs.