How a Brain Tumor Diagnosis Lead To Amy Barrett’s Career as a Filmmaker
How a Brain Tumor Diagnosis Lead To Amy Barrett’s Career as a Filmmaker
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Amy Barrett is an LA-based filmmaker whose professional career as a director began in 2019 when she was 48. Amy and I caught up on Zoom to talk about the long (and winding) path that lead to her dream career - and what it’s like to make Christmas movies!
When Amy graduated from high school, she did not have a firm plan for her career or life…
“My fantasy was writing novels. I didn’t imagine being married and having kids or having a career. I wasn’t that person. I do remember saying to someone: I know how I want to feel when I’m doing the thing I want to do. But at the time, I didn’t know what that was.”
In her early 30s, Amy found that feeling, when, after working as a financial journalist and actor, she said yes to an acquaintance who asked her to direct a short film.
“I realized I loved it. Directing took everything I love: acting, writing, and being on set, and put it all together.”
But life got in the way…
“Not long after I made that first short film in my early 30s, I got married and quickly had my first son. My second son followed soon after, and then we moved from Brooklyn to the West Coast - we wanted a house with a yard!
I really wanted to direct again, so I made another short film and was lucky enough to have the money to fund it myself. I wrote it and made it without any goal. And then in 2014, our family moved to Berlin, and I made another short film there.
At that point, I thought to myself: I’ll be a quirky interesting housewife who makes one short film each year. Maybe I’ll submit them to festivals. It was well before Me Too, so I just didn’t see a route into the film industry for me.
And then, we came back from Berlin and I felt really off. I lost my balance and couldn’t hear well.
And I ended up finding out that I had a brain tumor.”
On how she coped with a terrifying diagnosis.
“The tumor was a Meningioma. It was benign, but 5 cm and growing when it was found. My brain had adapted by sending functions like listening to music to other regions, which fascinated the neurologists.
I needed to have surgery to remove the tumor, but it was the end of the year, and it was going to be a 14–16-hour thing and I didn’t want my sons to be home from school over the holidays while I was recovering. So, I decided to have the surgery in January.
I then had months ahead of me, knowing I was going to have major brain surgery. I wished I had a job to fill the time.
And then, a friend told me about the Directing Workshop for Women program at the American Film Institute. It was a year-long program to train women to be directors, and the application just happened to be due the day before my surgery. It was a lengthy application – I had to write a script and an essay – and it was the thing that kept me busy in those months.
I ended up getting in and the program started at the end of April, so I had just over three months to recover after the surgery.
One unique thing about the course was that Lifetime offered one woman from each class the opportunity to shadow a director on a film, and then their own feature to direct. I had never watched a Lifetime movie, but having the chance to direct my own feature was very interesting.”
And…action!
“I shadowed a director who was making a Christmas movie for Lifetime. It was August and the set was in Utah, which is where a lot of Christmas movies are made.
My youngest son was 8 at the time and he didn’t want me to go. It was really hard to leave my kids for two weeks, but I met a bunch of people and learned a lot. The director I followed was great to me. Watching him work helped me hone skills like blocking and making shot lists and other things that I had approached more intuitively on my short films.”
The AFI course was amazing. It made me realize that people actually do this – directing – for a living. I decided that I wanted to direct professionally, and I got an agent.
On what it’s like to make a Christmas movie.
“I had never watched a Christmas movie before. I barely even knew Christmas movies existed!
They’re fast: the whole thing takes around 2.5 months. We spend a few weeks finding the locations and casting. Then we shoot for 12-14 days. And then there’s editing and post-production, which takes another month or so.
Christmas movies are typically filmed in the summer – because after the holidays, the networks take viewing data to figure out what was popular that season. They then crunch those numbers to determine what to film for the upcoming holidays.
They’re really romcoms dressed up for Christmas: and Lifetime wants “Christmas” in every shot, so I’m always having the art department move a wreath or put a garland in the background. And there’s always a thwarted kiss: the two main characters can’t simply like each other, get together, and kiss; something or someone always gets in the way.”
It can get really goofy on the set of a Christmas movie! All film sets are fun – even serious movies - but Christmas movies are especially silly.
Amy’s favorite part of the filmmaking process.
“I love being on set. I love the collaboration: having done my homework, thinking about how I’d like to shoot, and then getting to set and seeing what the others bring to it. For example, I’ll say: this is the feeling I want, the tension I want, this is what I imagine; and the Director of Photography will say: I can make it better by shooting this way. And then the actors will chime in with: what about if I do it like this?
We all keep building and adding to it and it’s fun. The days are super long and it’s a lot of hard work and juggling all the time. It takes a lot of energy, but I am in my element, my happy place.”
A part of me feels like I shouldn’t be happy making Christmas movies and thrillers for TV - that they’re fluffy and less prestigious. But what I’ve found is that the whole picture is more important: working with good people; creative collaboration, and enjoying the work.
On her dream directing job.
“I love to take genres and bend them, like putting love stories in genres you wouldn’t expect them to be in.
When I make movies for Lifetime, they have a specific way they want it done and how it should look – while I get a certain amount of say, I don’t get to bend the genre. It would be fun to do my own thing. I’m taking some time this summer to spend with my boys and do some writing: I have a couple of ideas I’m working on.”
Are you now a big fan of Christmas movies?!
“I find them very sweet and cute and fun to make but I don’t watch them in my spare time. When I’m not making Christmas movies and thrillers for Lifetime, I’m at home watching Kurosawa and art house movies!
My kids are both really interested in film, so we’re watching all different eras and genres, from Orson Welles, and Brian de Palma, to Stanley Kubrick.”
What Amy’s Reading, Watching, and Listening To!
Last great book read: Foster by Claire Keegan
Last great movie watched: The Rules Of The Game
Current favorite TV shows: Station Eleven and PEN15 (got to balance out the serious with comedy!)
Favorite playlist: Spotify All Out 70s
Favorite meal: I love Vietnamese food. My regular order is the the Banh Mi Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps from Pho Ha in Pomona.