Meet Hunter F. Burns

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hunter F. Burns.

Hi Hunter, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I don’t think that when people take the first step on a journey they realize they are on their way. But I can tell you that my story doesn’t start when I saw Psycho at three years old peeking through the rails of the steps in the house (though I think I’m still too scared to not have the shower door locked).

My story did start when I was locked in the dark. It was a cruel prank from an older sibling when I was still too short to reach the hanging lightbulb with the pull string. I was about four years old. I was the world’s worst kid to babysit. I cried and whined and I probably still hold the world record for time-outs. But one day with too many outbursts I was shoved into that cellar, the door locked from the outside, and the light was off.

If it was less than fifteen minutes I wouldn’t be surprised. But my mind couldn’t handle the silent darkness. Outside, footsteps sounded like the thudding of an angry giant. But inside the echo of that sound made all sorts of noises. Mice skittered against the plastic insulation, and every move I made as I whimpered and cried made me so entirely afraid of the dark, then when my mother got home and opened the door, I was convinced she was a monster too.

That moment stuck with me because I’m not just afraid of the dark but obsessed with it. Every passion I’ve had from movies in high school to the Colorado Film School to now making my first feature is mirrored against that thought. I am still a boy with short arms, who can’t jump high enough to get that string pulled down enough to make the lights flicker on. Even if I’m 24 years old now.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No one in Colorado will tell you that being a filmmaker is easy. We have a daunting set of challenges from brain-drain to bigger markets (from LA, Atlanta, New Mexico, and increasingly Utah) to state funding. But I’ve always been a person who needed to be hit over the head twice. My master’s from the school of hard knocks combined with my obsessive nature? Results may vary.

My passion is writing and directing, but I’ve had to learn some baseball skills to continue building. Not every idea is a home run. And to grow, you have to know how to hit a single or a triple and when to bunt and dash for first base. Though I will still get behind the bat and swing as hard as I can every time. My IMDB has a list of projects that were a swing and a miss. Projects that I was excited about, put everything into, and am still hoping for in one way or another.

Finding the right team to put around my company, FilmHound, helped turn that process around. People like Julia Y Stine, who not only is a wonderful actress in my new movie, Homecoming but has helped build Film Hound around some of my obsessions. Our podcast #supportlocalfilm isn’t just an outlet, but a chance for me to connect with people who also hustling to create what their brain fixates on. All in the best place in the world, Colorado.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I say that I am a writer and a director. But when I hear the word, specialize, I think of fixation. I am working on a horror movie now, but recently my film All the Student Council’s Men was touring film festivals. For that movie, I dived DEEP. To construct the world of Watergate in a high school, I had to construct the Nixon presidency as a whole in my mind.

Any book I could find I read. I binged in every podcast (Slow Burn was a real favorite). Notebooks and drafts of scripts could fill up DNC filing cabinets, and I still feel like I could’ve learned more. As a filmmaker, I think this might be the greatest curse of all time. Or it might be my best asset. I am very proud of ATSCM because I made a world in which people could have fun.

The production designers and I took every scene as a challenge and even made a playbook of national campaign trail tactics adapted for High Schoolers. If Jams Carville could see that he’d eat his heart out. But a year into my new movie will I still pick up the new Watergate tell-all from the editor of the Washington Post? Don’t look at my bookshelf, please, I beg you.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting?
My mom and I used to listen to Alice Cooper in the car, all the time. I think I know every album after Pretty’s for You up to Lace and Whiskey and can feed you the lyrics of any song from Hey Stoopid and Billion Dollar Baby. Why? Because Alice is a performer. We had to pay attention to him. He demanded it and STILL does. His live show has everything from him being chased by a twenty-foot Frankenstein Alice to him being guillotined live on stage.

Demand attention. What is it that makes you special? What do you think is different from everyone else? Strive for that. Do it. And don’t be apologetic about shouting it from the rooftops. If you are in Colorado and you make films? If you do anything creative– help us get Rocky Mountain High on your work. We deserve to see you shine. I wish I was more like Alice when I was seventeen and making my first film. You can be Alice, and you can do it today.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @_filmhound
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/filmhoundproductions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunter-f-burns-60a467167
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS7FbOdzut_7PhHF0B67emw

Image Credits
Ian Miller, Coby Nueman, Adrian Delatorre, and Julia Y Stine