Dear Reader,
I think it is important that you know who is writing to you. My name is Cassidy, I am first and foremost in love with Levi Mac Teare and second a creative consultant with him. Although, he needs very little consulting because he has a brilliant mind. I want to share with you what I have learned about Levi and help you to understand how multifaceted and talented he is. This is the story of how he got involved in filmmaking.
Before I knew Levi, he was a boy with a spark of creativity in his soul. He grew up creating, and naturally excelled in the arts. People wanted him to respond to the age-old question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Because he was such a wise little boy – to satisfy the asker – he would respond, “an artist,” even though he himself did not know the answer.
He drew a lot, but didn’t believe in his heart that he would grow up to be an artist, creating just made him happy. Growing up in a (teeny-tiny) picturesque town called Palouse, Washington, he didn’t see art as a career worth pursuing. The possibility of art and creating as a feasible source of income began to move steadily off his radar.
In high school, Levi enjoyed acting in school plays. He wasn’t involved in film until his friend, Dash Estes approached Levi about acting in a short film called “Private Eye II,” a spy thriller that rocked the student body. He was hesitant because his acting career had never moved off the stage. However, he chose to be a part of the movie and that’s when he fell in love with film.
Levi worked in tandem with Dash on the “Private Eye II” film, while simultaneously working on his own projects in his Audio Visual elective classes. After finishing “Private Eye II” he and Dash said “we should make more of these!” Together they wrote another and finished the “Private Eye” trilogy. Their friends adored these movies. Garfield-Palouse High School had never seen anything like it and there was no end to the encouragement to make more films. Dash even sold a box full of DVDs around town and earned about 150 dollars.
After Dash graduated, Levi made a 45 minute film in the A/V class. He cast himself as the main character for simplicity’s sake. He had two class periods to write, film and edit. An hour and a half each day dedicated just to filmmaking. Besides the two A/V class periods Levi spent many hours staying after school to edit and work on the films he was creating. He said “filmmaking had its hooks in me, and I could not escape it.”
Levi credits his Audio Visual teacher, Mr. John Gehring with providing him a place to pursue film and allowing him to express his creativity. Mr. Gehring was instrumental in helping Levi find his passion for film. When Levi began to blow off school (tortured genius), Mr. Gehring incentivized him by allowing him to write, film and edit anything he wanted (within reason). After that his attendance began to go up.
After graduation, away from the school resources, Levi stopped making films. Once again, he didn’t see it as a career path, he just loved doing it. Without a plan, he expected he would just figure it out as he went along. Often people would encourage him to pursue film but he simply didn’t believe it was a viable option.
Levi had been saving up money along his way to be able to spend 2 years volunteering as a missionary for his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While he was on his mission, he told people he would be a filmmaker or an institute of religion teacher when they asked about his post-mission pursuits.
When he got home, he made plans to pursue being an institute teacher. COVID-19 was lingering, he couldn’t get a job near his small town and was praying to know what to do in his life. Nothing was working out as he wanted. He prayed and asked God for guidance and council. After many attempts that felt unheard Levi sought further guidance through a priesthood blessing. Travis Schmidt-Wagner, a close friend, gave him a blessing stating that God had an answer for him, he just had to ask. Levi thought, “I’ve been asking!” and decided to pray again. The next morning he had the distinct thought that he had been so concerned with what God wanted for his life, he wasn’t even considering what he wanted for his own life.
Levi wanted to make movies and realized that God wanted him to choose his own path. So he decided to pursue his passion.
That very same day, he was informed about a local 48 hour filmmaking competition. It would take place on Saturday and Sunday, all work had to be completed those days. Levi didn’t want to work on Sunday. He went forward with the competition but finished all the work on Saturday. He wrote, filmed and edited a 3 minute short film titled “Beat Down” in one day. It went on to win best in the Action Adventure category at the festival. Although it was a great moment for Levi, he was deeply disappointed with seeing it on the big screen. The hiss of the audio made his heart sink into his stomach. He decided that even though he’d won an award, he needed to improve his film skills dramatically for his work to be the quality he wanted.
He decided to start the foundations of a production company. The original name of it was “Old Light Productions”, now “Indie Film Productions.” He wrote out a film slate for the year 2023 and mapped out all the projects he wanted to accomplish that year.
He went on to create one for 2024 with lofty goals and aspirations which all got swallowed up in the making of FEBRIS, originally titled “Snickers.” He’d written a short script and intended its runtime to be 30 minutes. The film took much more time and energy than he thought; more actors kept being added, music scores were needed. He realized all the resources he lacked. However, he decided to give the project all he had and commit to filmmaking. God provided: an entire cast, a small crew, and composer for the film. Levi finished writing, filming, and editing FEBRIS in 6 months.
After the film was finished, Levi’s expectations were so high that he was disappointed with the end result. The effort required to make the film was not reflected in the product itself. He says that it was his own writing and the audio quality that disappointed him the most. He decided he was going to be done with making movies and hung up his cape.
During filming, he had remained unemployed to focus wholly on the film. Upon “retiring from film” he got a job at a bistro in Palouse. He looked into formal schooling and decided to go to BYU-Idaho and study psychology. Levi still harbored filmmaking as a hobby and would occasionally try to work on scripts. After FEBRIS, the script that fully sent him over the edge was a project called “Charlie and Eve.” He was writing it and, in his own words; “it was just bad.” He got part way through and realized he just didn’t want to even try to make this film and therefore there was no point in finishing the script.
The summer before school started, Levi’s friend Orion Green wanted to make a sit-com called “Young Single Barely Adults.” Since Levi had given up on film professionally, he and Orion worked on the project as a summer hobby. All his friends (actors) were on a summer schedule which made scheduling shoots difficult. Levi and his friends had a lot of fun making the series because there were no real stakes. “Young Single Barely Adults” was not intended as a portfolio piece and Levi enjoyed it so much because there was no fear of failure due to the fact that he had already given up on his dream of being a filmmaker.
When summer was over, everyone came back and he did another showing of FEBRIS at his church building. It rekindled the spark that had died. Levi began to wonder again if giving up filmmaking was really the right choice for him. Before he left for BYU-Idaho he decided to work on one last project.
Reminder to you, none of his films have professional actors in them. They are all his friends that he compensates. Brilliant isn’t it? He thought of these friends and began working on a script specifically tailored to their strengths and personalities. He came up with the working title of “Lucky Jack Penny” and mined the “Charlie and Eve’ script for resources and characters. Levi realized that his friend Joseph Malan (star of “Lucky Jack Penny”) would be perfect as the main character of his project. He told all of his friends that “Lucky Jack Penny” was completely hypothetical and asked if they would hypothetically be available to act in it. They were all on board. He finished about half the script and he started filming after winter break.
Levi filmed almost every Saturday for 3 months. He would write the next scene, shoot, and edit all in the same day. By the skin of his teeth, he finished “Lucky Jack Penny” and had it put together (well enough) to show it the day before he left to move to Provo, Utah. The showing was a success and upon arriving in Utah he has had more opportunities in film. However, the question still looms, why did Levi move to Utah? Because of me. That’s right; this is really just a great love story.
Levi intends to pursue his passion of storytelling and return to filmmaking roots with me by his side.
Mr. Teare’s biggest fan,
Cassidy