“If you come out of film school and jump right into getting that first job and having a career, often you end up making films based on other films rather than on profound experiences you’ve had,” says Alan Poul. “I spent my 20s living and having experiences, and didn’t focus myopically on work until I got into my 30s, so I had a wealth of experience and opinions and, most importantly, references. And that’s how you’re going to create mature work.”
Poul, an executive producer and director on Netflix’s new musical drama “The Eddy,” is himself a strong case for that argument, having completed a degree at Yale in Japanese language and literature. Factor in his early-career years spent working in theater, and his background was seemingly in everything but film studies—which is exactly why, he insists, he was able to find his voice as a filmmaker.
There’s “film school,” the proper noun affixed to institutions and offering curated curriculum. But there is also the unofficial film school, the one that isn’t taught but is instead the collection of experiences from which perspective is derived. Only one, as Poul describes it, is nonnegotiable in order to be a truly effective filmmaker.
How to Become a Producer “Have the richest, fullest life experiences that you can, take some time when you’re not just centered on directing but you’re actually exploring the world at large,” says Poul, who previously helped helm small-screen giants “Six Feet Under” and “The Newsroom” and has seven Emmy nods to show for it. However, he also acknowledges that just because you’ve figured out what you want to say in your work doesn’t mean you’ll know how. That’s why his advice is twofold: If you can, find a mentor; if you’re lucky, find several.
“I’m a huge advocate of mentorship. I think we have a film school–industrial complex—when I was young, there were not many film schools in America and now, there’s this gigantic moneymaking operation,” he says. “But I feel that still, making films and making television is a field of artisans. It’s a trade you have to learn by doing, and you will do best if you can spend time under the guidance of someone more experienced than you. You learn by apprenticing.”
That’s precisely how Poul learned, having been scouted and later mentored by writer-director Paul Schrader, who recruited the then-up-and-comer to work on his 1985 film “Mishima.” That it was set in Japan made Poul the best candidate for the job, exemplifying again that what makes you singular is what makes you valuable.
While Poul is a case study for circuitous roads in filmmaking, so, too, is “The Eddy,” now streaming. The series—created by Jack Thorne and directed by Damien Chazelle, with original music by Glen Ballard and Randy Kerber—is set around a jazz bar in modern-day Paris; it not only draws on Poul’s days in theater, but transpired via a similarly roundabout route.
“The script was the last piece to come together. It’s the exact opposite way you normally make a show,” says Poul. “Everything was always meant to be inspired by the rhythms of jazz; the way characters switch between French and English, the way the camera is following the actors, the fact that all of the music is performed and recorded live so the musicians can improvise, they can riff, they can fuck up. The idea was to keep the sense of spontaneity, the ‘anything could happen’ feeling that you should get when you’re watching live jazz.”
Not coincidentally, for “The Eddy”—which stars André Holland—and in general, Poul approaches casting similarly unmoored. “If you have a picture of a character in your mind and you try to cast the person closest to that picture, you will stultify,” he says. “You will put a clamp on creativity. In the audition process, you want the actors to show you something of the character that you had not imagined. You’re always looking for the actor who can do something with it, because then it becomes a true collaboration.”
This story originally appeared in the May 14 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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