Follow Your Dream

I talk to humanitarian and filmmaker Michael Ien Cohen about how he had to go through debilitating depression to realize he was not living the life he wanted. He decided to live his dream and take the risk of making Documentaries on subjects of importance. He produced the film Humanity Stoked by overcoming his self-doubts and fear. His talk is very encouraging and inspiring.

Transcript

I'm thrilled to have Michael,

Michael Ian Cohen,

Who has lived,

Breathed,

And it's actually in his blood,

This film,

Humanity Stoked.

I'm gonna go live on Facebook,

By the way,

If you wanna see him talking on this.

It's truly inspiring,

And in ways that,

And I've seen a lot of different films produced.

Michael,

Welcome,

How are you?

Very well,

Thank you so much for having me.

Also,

Thanks to Barry and the whole team,

Naomi,

Everyone at the film festival.

It's a tremendous honor to be here,

And to get to talk to you,

And talk to everybody about the film.

And you know what,

I have to say,

We have to give a shout out to Stella.

Not only does she usually listen,

But she absolutely loves,

Loves,

Loves your film,

Humanity Stoked.

There's a couple of interesting things that make your film stand out.

Now,

All of the films shown at the film festival are inspiring,

But I think that is the basis of what your film,

Humanity Stoked,

Is really fed by.

I think the blood,

And the fire,

And the passion of that inspiration has brought this film to the world,

Because it took you five years,

And you absolutely are taking no money from this film,

And you did not pay anyone for doing it.

You're donating it to a charity,

And that's rather unusual.

Did people say,

Ah,

You're crazy,

Or did they just imply when they hung up,

When you told them there was no money involved about this film?

It has been both implied and said explicitly,

That it's unusual,

And I'm a little bit crazy,

But it's funny,

Because you talk about the inspiration being so central to the film,

And everything it's about.

It's the impetus for the film,

And it's the only reason that drives it,

And drives me forward,

Because as you said,

There's nothing else in it.

I made the film specifically to inspire people to think,

Not only more deeply about a lot of important issues that affect humanity's ability to move forward together,

But more deeply,

And maybe even more importantly,

More honestly,

With themselves,

And the people around them,

You know,

Their friends,

Their family,

But most importantly,

More honestly with themselves,

To question their perspectives on a lot of things that we talk about in the film,

That have to do with human issues,

Issues of inequality,

Issues of different forms of xenophobia,

Issues of depression,

Addiction,

Recovery,

Even environmental issues,

Because it's one of the only things in the film that's not internally human,

But it's something that affects humanity,

What we do with the environment affects all human beings on earth.

So,

But all of these issues,

You know,

In the film,

They're either caused directly or indirectly by,

Or at least exacerbated by fear,

Which is really the central issue of the film.

What it's really about is our understanding of fear,

And how people let fear,

How we let it guide our hands,

How we let it affect our perspectives,

How we let it affect our value systems,

How we let it affect the things that motivate us,

And make us do what we wanna do with our lives,

Whether that's trying to achieve something that seems insurmountable,

Which in this case was the actual production of this film,

Or help keep us in a very safe,

Comfortable space,

Where we don't allow ourselves the opportunity to grow and change and experience life in a way that is as full as it can be.

And I'm not one of these people that wanna preach to everyone,

You're not growing enough,

You're not living enough.

I'm like,

That's a lot of bullshit.

I mean,

That's not my place to do.

You can't say that on the air,

By the way.

Oh,

I'm so sorry.

It's a science.

I'm so sorry.

That's nonsense.

I'm so sorry.

It's okay.

But,

Yeah,

While it's not my place to tell people,

I don't wanna preach to people,

But I do know from my own personal experience and the people I've met all around the world,

I've traveled around the world with the film at various film festivals,

And my own life experience,

And I know for me personally,

There are a lot of us,

Myself included,

That aren't doing what we feel like we can be doing with our lives,

Or what we should be,

Or what we want to be.

And so,

Central to what's holding us back is fear.

And that's really what the film is about.

Well,

I have a lot of wonderful people on Facebook,

And one is a friend,

Jerry Pitot.

He's a firefighter.

And certainly you understand,

As many people would,

Firefighters have to overcome fear.

Of course.

To overcome fear,

Though,

Fear is a subtle,

Strange beast.

You know,

It's a trickster of sorts,

And you don't even know sometimes that you're not doing things because you're afraid.

It has a way of trying to fool itself as your hidden mind trying to talk sense to you,

Right?

So how do you confront that fear,

And how did that fear confront you?

Because obviously you had to somewhere to make this realization that there was fear going on.

Sure,

Well,

My entire life,

I was one of these kids that was fortunate enough to have a clear understanding of what they wanted to do with their life since I was 12 or 13 years old.

I knew what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be a filmmaker.

I wanted to be in front of the camera,

Behind the camera.

I was in love with the art of storytelling through film,

And I wanted to be a humanitarian.

I didn't know what that term was necessarily at that age,

But I knew I wanted to help try and make a difference in the world.

And I let fear kind of keep me in my own safe space where I got to the point where I was in my late 40s coming to terms with the fact that I had not spent really even a day of my life trying to do any of these things that I knew was very important to me,

To become a filmmaker,

To become a humanitarian.

It was always tomorrow.

It was always next month,

Next year,

Next,

You know,

I'll go to film school.

I'll do this,

I'll do that.

And I ended up for a number of reasons in a very bad depression at like 48,

49,

And debilitating depression for two years.

Just the God awful,

Just this dread where you would just,

You'd get in my car,

I'd head home,

You know,

And I'd just be in tears.

You know,

Why?

And when I got to a point when I started emerging from that depression,

I had to decide.

I could kill myself,

And I couldn't really consider that because I had two daughters,

And I could never push that kind of pain onto them.

And so I'm like,

I'm either gonna die,

And that's off the table,

Or I'm gonna live.

But I can't stay in the middle and do nothing anymore.

So I said,

If I come out of this depression,

I am no longer going to let fear guide my hand.

I'm not going to let it affect my perception of issues.

I'm just going to become unbridled from that.

And yeah,

I'm a human being,

Of course,

Within reason.

I mean,

I'm still a human being.

Everyone still has to deal with fear.

But for the most part,

You're to change.

And so when I came out of that,

I said,

That's it.

I'm gonna do everything that I wanna do,

That I've always wanted to do,

Which is to become a filmmaker and to start my children's foundation,

My nonprofit,

Which by the way,

If you're listening,

Whatstopsyou.

Org.

And as you might guess from the title,

That's really the crux of the foundation,

To help children especially,

But young adults,

Understand fear and how not to let that stop us from living our full and complete lives.

That's what that foundation does.

And works with schools and youth groups,

Especially Title I schools that could never afford to have say like a high caliber speaker come in to talk to the kids and talk to the staff about this understanding.

That's what the foundation does.

But in any event,

Yeah,

So I came out of that depression,

Conceived of this film,

Which is called Humanity Stoked.

And I set out to make it as was quoted in a recent Movie Maker Magazine review of the film,

Which was a wonderful review.

He was at another festival in Florida and I was talking to him and I said,

I'm the ultimate 50 year old nobody from nowhere that decided to become a filmmaker.

And then this happened,

The film exploded.

It's been accepted into 35 plus film festivals,

The latest,

This prestigious Maui Film Festival,

Given the opening night.

So it's a huge honor.

And we just found out yesterday morning,

It just won its 14th film festival,

Best feature documentary.

So it's already way beyond my wildest and most optimistic expectations about what can happen.

Affirmation from the cosmos.

It's like,

Yeah,

You got it.

Well,

Okay,

So you get past your fear,

But who would have guessed that would have been about,

That,

Well,

Generally it's about life,

But about skateboarding.

So where did the skateboarding in 100 interviews about skateboarding come in?

Yeah,

That's a great question.

And that was hard when I first started in production,

Explained to people what this,

So it's a skateboarding doc.

And I'm like,

No,

But everyone in it loves skateboarding.

Yes,

Why?

You'll see.

But basically,

So this is cast of 70 plus people.

So the cast is a world famous,

Just really iconic,

Not only professional skateboarders and some professional surfers,

But iconic scientists,

Musicians,

Artists,

Educators,

Activists,

All of whom happen to share a love of skateboarding.

Now,

Neil deGrasse Tyson,

A skateboarder?

So,

Yeah,

I expected to get called out on that one,

And I'm happy to report Neil is one of three people in the film that no longer skates actively,

But Neil was a skateboarder.

And Neil,

Interesting,

We did a social media post,

And in the credits of the film,

You will see Neil talk to me specifically about why he has so much love and respect for skateboarders and for skateboarding.

And Neil was a skater when he was younger,

Yeah.

So yes,

Including Neil deGrasse Tyson,

Famous astrophysicist,

Has a love and respect of skating and skateboarders.

And yeah,

If you come to the festival,

And I hope you all do,

You stick around for the credits because it's loaded with all these gems and outtakes and things and interesting segments from interviews that didn't make it into the final film,

You'll hear Neil talk about that.

That's pretty cool.

For me,

I'm a lifelong skateboarder.

And so the- When did you start skateboarding?

I started skateboarding,

I was probably,

It's hard to say,

Six or seven years old.

So weren't you confronting your fears when you were skateboarding?

I mean,

Most great skateboarders are doing things that are pretty risky.

No,

As a matter of fact,

I wasn't because I started skateboarding in 75,

Maybe.

I was maybe seven years old,

Give or take.

And,

But I didn't really progress.

I wanted to become a vert skater.

I wanted to skate up the walls of ramps and poles.

And when I was 10,

We moved from New York to California,

Southern California for a couple of years.

And then they had skate parks.

I didn't even know that existed.

And I was afraid.

I was afraid to go to the skate park.

Not only because I'm like,

These guys are just bad.

I can't say what they are,

But they were tough.

Super cool,

Way cooler than I perceived myself.

And I was embarrassed or afraid to go to skate parks,

Which is still something that happens today.

Even for some skaters that are good,

You go to a skate park and guys are ripping in there.

But I let those fears stop me from telling my mom,

You got to take me to the skate park.

And so while I've been a skateboarder my whole life,

I wasn't really focused on progression.

I never pushed myself to those points.

But when I came out of my depression at 50,

I'm like,

At this,

I'm doing that.

And I learned to skate vert at 50.

I literally built a 40 foot by 16 foot by eight foot half pipe in my backyard.

And I started skating transition and vert at 51 or 52.

It's when I started.

So when you got a chance,

You talked to some amazing people in this documentary.

And again,

You mentioned that you did this all for free.

So you had your camera people and everyone involved and you were doing this and getting these interviews and you weren't paying them or anything.

How did you relate to them to talk to you on this documentary?

That's another good question,

But real quick,

I should just do a quick shout out.

The first year and a half or so of production of Humanity Stoked,

My DP,

My director of photography,

Nick Lang,

Nick Lang aerials,

He also does a lot of drone stuff and amazing cinematographer and drone pilot.

And then about a year and a half or two years into the film,

Ian Gibson became the director of photography,

Who also,

As I mentioned before the interview started,

The colorist and he begrudgingly agreed to be my editor.

Because there was a lot of footage.

Yeah,

It's kind of funny.

Hours and hours of footage.

Hundreds,

Many hundreds of hours.

Ian said to me,

You know,

Cause he wouldn't do it.

He's like,

I've never edited a film before.

No.

There's no way I can't do this.

And I'm like,

Dude,

I've never done anything in film before.

I've never directed,

I've never produced,

I never interviewed anyone before.

So I'm like,

It's a valid argument why you shouldn't be an editor.

But if it's an argument that's gonna work with me,

You better go back to the drawing board because,

You know,

I haven't done anything.

So it's almost like a- Well,

The good editors wouldn't have touched it for free.

Yeah.

I'll just say that.

It's not easy work.

It's hard work.

Well,

People said that I would have trouble getting a director of photography to work on a volunteer basis.

But I think that the biggest one for me,

When the film was at,

You know,

Near picture lock and we were ready to score it.

And I said,

Now I have to get a really talented musician or a series of musicians and composers to work on the score.

So the score is absolutely critical.

It costs a lot if you're gonna get the copyrights to do that in a film.

It's a fortune.

So,

Right.

That's to get like published music on the soundtrack.

But this is just to get a composer to create the original music for the score.

And people had said to me,

Well,

You're,

Look,

You're gonna get someone maybe fresh out of college or a musician just getting started and it'll be okay,

But it's not gonna be that just heart pounding type of score that just really resonates with people on an emotional level,

Which it had to be.

And I might would smile and say,

Okay,

I'm gonna put you on the back of the line with all the people that the naysayers,

You can't do this and you can't do that.

And of course,

We got a very talented composer who actually teaches film scoring,

Renee Gonzalez.

And,

Um.

And you knew what you wanted from the,

Used for the music on this,

Obviously.

It had to be something that fit,

You know,

Some high powered energy that fits with skateboarding,

Right?

Well,

Not so much skateboarding.

No,

It just had to,

It had to just work on an emotional level.

And for me,

It was a great opportunity and a privilege to,

To,

To work with him because while I have a great love for music,

Especially music that could connect with people on an emotional level,

Which is,

Which a score has to do,

Someone that doesn't,

It's not a musician,

I'm not a trained musician,

I can't write music.

So for me to be able to work with Renee and say,

And speak in really just the language of human emotion or even instrumentation,

Strings versus piano or jangly guitar here,

Or,

You know,

Whatever it is.

So you're just saying what you want in a feeling.

I'm like,

Yeah,

I need,

I need,

The film has to,

It has to slow down here.

It has to grab people in this way and,

You know,

And be able to speak to him in,

In,

In English and in terms of describing the way the music has to affect someone emotionally.

And then Renee is a very talented musician,

And then go out and then create that music.

And then you'd listen to it.

And sometimes it was like,

Okay,

It's not exactly right.

This is why,

And then he would nail it or he would nail it right out of the gate.

Or,

And then it was just a matter of just a couple of tweaks here and there,

But I've been fortunate as I was with Ian or as I was with,

With Nick or any of the other people that I've worked with that you shared a similar value system and you shared a similar vision for what the film could be and what it should be.

And,

And so when you're lucky enough to have someone that,

That could share that vision with you,

You're,

You're so close to being on the same page right out of the gate.

And so we were pretty lucky in that,

In that respect.

So we got some,

The next filmmakers coming in here.

Hey,

Our watermen,

Our lifeguard film,

Big wave guardians are gonna be up next.

I gosh,

We gotta get you more chairs.

I think we need more chairs in here,

But I have to say,

Michael,

I think it's inspiration in many levels.

And I haven't seen the film.

I think just to realize that you could do this,

You know,

For those people out there that,

That have a couple of seats,

We'll play musical chairs here in a minute,

But to just say that you can do this,

You know,

To be able to say that's gotta inspire someone out there who has wanted,

But thought it was impossible.

The fact that you were able in some very difficult situations,

Let alone no money,

No background,

No credits in filmmaking to come out with a film that got accepted and embraced by so many people is really great.

And like I said,

Stella Rivers just said,

Oh my God,

I watched it like three or four times.

And I just watched it over and over.

So tomorrow night,

People can go to the Mac and get tickets at the door,

The box office there.

And it's gonna be something that will inspire you.

And are you gonna,

You probably,

And no,

Barry,

He's probably gonna have you say a couple of words before the film as well,

Right?

I don't know if we will before,

I'm always happy to talk about it,

But we will be doing a Q and A with the audience at the film's conclusion.

Oh good.

And also I promised them I'd remind everyone,

Children 12 and under,

Get into the festival free and definitely bring,

It's a beautiful outdoor festival.

Yes it is.

Bring like some low back,

Beach chairs,

Blankets,

Whatever,

Make yourself comfortable and come early to stay for both of our films.

They're both fantastic films.

Big Wave Guardians,

I saw the trailer.

I haven't been fortunate enough to see the full film,

But I will be there watching it tonight.

It looks beautiful.

Tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night,

Right,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Tomorrow night.

And then stay,

Come for that film,

Stay for our film,

For Humanity Stoked,

To be a great double feature.

I think there's a short in between too.

Yes,

It looks like a beautiful short.

I checked that trailer out.

You can see this if you go to mauifilmfestival.

Com,

You can see those trailers.

I watched them a few times actually.

But I'm so glad you were able to make it in,

Michael.

Thank you for having me.

Very inspiring,

Really.

I'm very pleased to have done an honor.

Reviews

This was a very inspiring talk. I’m right now in the process of producing my first two feature films and this was just what I needed! Thank you Michael and Cindy. Sending loving kindness to all.