IDAHO — Dylan Hamar has been making short-films in Idaho for years and thinks the Gem State is the perfect place for a huge movie scene.
- Dylan Hamar has been making movies in Idaho for about a decade
- He finds the geography to be perfect and the people to always be helpful
- To see his work, click here.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
Dylan Hamar was a filmmaker before he even knew the in's and out's of the business.
"My friends and I would just go film stuff all the time, you know, I would come home and I would put it together on like Windows Movie Maker and show it to my mom. I mean, this was like pre-YouTube era," said Idaho Filmmaker Dylan Hamar.
Despite the passion he had, he joined a band for a few years, only to realize much later that the passion for film never left.
"My friends and I wore once again filming stuff together and it had no real like mission or direction. It was just having fun and then I think that's what good filmmaking is. It's like, it should be a hobby," said Hamar.
They'd eventually start taking the craft seriously, putting together locally shot short-films, primarily in the horror genre. The early reception was unexpected.
"We would show them at festivals and stuff and these challenges and like I heard people laughing and I was like, 'Hey, this isn't supposed to be funny!' or whatever and I've had people come up to me and say, 'Hey that movie was really funny,' and I'm just thinking like OK," laughed Hamar.
But over time, the Idaho filmmaker and his team started gathering up the accolades, including a huge one at the 307 International Film Festival in Wyoming.
"There was like a Universal movie there and it starred one of the Marvel Eternals. Tt was just like, you just had some like cool high caliber stuff there and we somehow took home Best USA Film! I was in shock. It's like little team took down Universal in a festival. That was kind of neat," smiled Hamar.
And with experience now under his belt and various awards in his hands, Dylan is able to reflect on the advantages of making movies here in the Gem State, starting with geography.
"The amount of like exterior locations you have that are varied and beautiful here in Idaho is unbelievable. I mean, you can shoot in the forest, you could shoot like in desert, you can shoot in the mountains," said Hamar.
Nice places, and even nicer people.
"There are people around that just want to be involved in what you're doing, and I'd say the advantage to Idaho is that we have a really strong community of people that want to work together, and really admire one another, and respect one another," said Hamar.
And call it speculation, but something tells me he'd rather be making his films here instead of Tinseltown.
"The amount of money you need to spend just to get the ball rolling and the amount of rules that you have to follow, like I said fees, It's like, it's astronomically stupid," said Hamar.
Today, Dylan thinks fondly on how it all started for him many years ago, and always encourages others to never forget the wonderful things we create as children.
"Going back to when I was a kid with my friends and showing my mom our films, it's like, we would all get giddy and we're like look at this! And we would all look at each other and smile and be like oh my gosh, I can't believe we did that! I don't know, you just feel proud of yourself. That's the best part of creativity," said Hamar.
