{"id":8430,"date":"2020-03-28T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T09:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=8430"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:07:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:07:03","slug":"the-key-for-me-has-been-guidance-and-support-from-both-family-friends-morgan-shmidt-feng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=8430","title":{"rendered":"“The key for me has been guidance and support from both family & friends”-Morgan Schmidt-Feng"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exclusive Interview with <\/strong>Morgan Schmidt-Feng –<\/strong> co-director, co-producer and cinematographer<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Morgan Schmidt-Feng is the founder of Filmsight Productions, and an award-winning director, producer and cinematographer for TV, documentaries, and independent feature films. His feature documentary, On Her Own<\/em>, premiered at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival and had its international premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto. Morgan won the 2011 regional Emmy\u00ae for Best Documentary for The Next Frontier<\/em>, a TV documentary about solutions for climate change. Morgan\u2019s feature film experience began as an actor and associate producer on Morgan\u2019s Cake<\/em>, a collaboration with his father and the film\u2019s director, Rick Schmidt. Morgan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from CCA in Oakland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> How long have you been making films and videos?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first screen credit\nwas as an assistant editor when I was still in high school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What film was your directorial debut? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first documentary as a director was GRIP ON HIP-HOP <\/strong>about the politics of rap music and hip-hop culture during the 90s in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What is your recent film about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>I\u2019m currently in post-production on a feature documentary about NYC artist Anton van Dalen.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> How did you go about casting for the film? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My co-director, Dennis Mohr, was the one who set up most of the interviews in the film, but one of the most interesting moments I had in the casting of THE RAVENITE was when I was scouting places to shoot in Little Italy and spotted a guy sitting on his stoop in a mad game of fetch with his dog.  He lived across the street from Old St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral. Something told me he might have some first hand stories to tell about the neighborhood. I mentioned how funny it was that his dog was so obsessed with his toy. Turned out the guy on the stoop was Frank Andrews, a famous psychic. He told me some great stories that fit right into our film and luckily he agreed to be interviewed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What was the most important lesson you had\nto learn that has had a positive effect on your film<\/strong>? How did that\nlesson happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of\nthe most important things I had to learn was how to collaborate with my friends\nfrom Toronto who all had strong artistic ideas on both process and\nstorytelling.  We had to learn how to\nwork together under challenging shooting conditions and then later how to blend\nour artistic sensibilities to craft the story. I think it pushed the film to a\nbetter place. Dennis and I first met eighteen years ago while I worked at\nSkywalker Ranch as a documentary filmmaker for George Lucas. Dennis was doing\nan interview with Lucas for a short documentary project of his own. Dennis Emailed\nme sometime later telling me about a potential project about Alec Wilkinson a\nwriter for the New Yorker and his stories of the Ravenite Social Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> Tell<\/strong> us a bit about the other films you\u2019ve made and your other projects. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been both cursed and blessed when I caught the filmmaking bug from my father, writer and film director, \u00a0Rick Schmidt. I say cursed because working as a filmmaker while supporting a family is never easy but it\u2019s been the greatest creative privilege of my life. Since I was a teen I knew that filmmaking is what I wanted to do.\u00a0 Haven\u2019t lost the desire to keep going, even when I had to hold down 3 other jobs. The first feature film that I worked on was in collaboration with my father for his film, MORGAN\u2019S CAKE, a low-budget feature shot in black and white which was shot in my dad\u2019s unique DIY style.\u00a0 I played the lead character who\u2019s about to turn eighteen and about to get drafted. A bunch of our friends became the rest of the cast and crew and the entire film was heavily improvised. The film premiered at Sundance in competition against Steven Soderbergh\u2019s movie,\u00a0 SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE. For an 18 year old guy who had never acted in a movie before it was quite a ride. The highlight of that experience was having a sold-out screening on a Saturday night in NYC at the New Director\u2019s New Films festival.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t hurt that Janet Maslin of the NY Times gave the film a great review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What role have film festivals played in\nyour life so far? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Film\nfestivals have played a pretty big role in my life from an early age since my\ndad would take me along with him whenever he was a part of a festival. And then\nof course more important to my artistic life festivals gave me a chance to see\nhow viewers reacted to the work in real time. Audiences help me understand how\nthe work relates to so many different people, and often in ways I hadn\u2019t\nimagined it would. It\u2019s a privilege to learn something meaningful about their\nlives in the process of talking about how the work has touched them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> Is it harder to get started or to keep going?\nWhat was the particular thing that you had to conquer to do either? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would say in the case of The Ravenite it was an easy decision to get started. Co-director Dennis Mohr came to me with his idea to do this film and I immediately felt inspired to collaborate with him on the project especially after seeing his documentary MUGSHOT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Alec Wilkinson by Suzanna Aguayo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> How has your style evolved? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My style has really evolved from doing fictional narrative projects to doing more documentary work. But what consistently draws me into a story is the emotional connection that I develop with my subjects over the course of making a film. It\u2019s this emotional connection that I feel brings a degree of authenticity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What has been your personal key to success?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>The key for me has been guidance and support from both family & friends. A finished film is the reflection of your greater community not just the act of a single person or  group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> What are you thinking about doing next? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After finishing the post\non Anton I would like to finish shooting a doc about my father and his 50 years\nof no-budget indie filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong> Where does your studio want to go from here<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  I would love the opportunity to continue to share unique stories that might be right in front of everyone but no one\u2019s had a chance to see and hear yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Interview with Morgan Schmidt-Feng – co-director, co-producer and cinematographer Morgan Schmidt-Feng is the founder of Filmsight Productions, and an award-winning director, producer and cinematographer for TV, documentaries, and independent feature films. His feature documentary, On Her Own, premiered at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival and had its international premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19284,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430\/revisions\/19284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}