MAKE YOUR SHOW: theCreators
A Transformative Journey
with Actor/Writer/Director Sebastian LaCause
In the first episode of season two of "Make Your Show: The Creators", we sat down with actor/writer/producer Sebastian LaCause. Sebastian got his start in the business as a Broadway dancer. Wanting to expand his opportunities and flex other creative muscles, he created the wildly popular indie series "Hustling", which found a huge audience for its three seasons and won him numerous Indie Series Awards. These days, Sebastian is still making film but his intentions have changed as has his approach to storytelling.
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John Cramer:
We’re so happy that you could join us and chat. Obviously, Jason and I are trying to help actors who want to make their own stuff. You've obviously done that and done it very well. So, we wanted to talk to you and hear about what your experience with making “Hustling” was and see if we could dive into the nitty gritty. Why don't we start at the beginning? Why did you come up with the idea for hustling? Why did you want to make your own show?
Sebastian LaCause:
It's interesting to actually look back at this and approach this from where I am now in my life and who I am now, because so much has changed. I've grown so much. I've had such a transformative life (these) past five or six years. So, looking back on the beginning of “Hustling” is really where so much of the journey that I'm on now and where it began. But I was in such a different place in my life. I was entrenched in my pursuits as an actor and I was very self-motivated and I had just come from spending some time in Los Angeles and I had been auditioning for shows and things that I was watching on TV, and I was just very inspired. I spent almost six months here, and so I went back to New York and my partner at the time, Todd, had been wanting me to do a web series. He was like, “you should do a web series you do web series.” But, you know, just like with anything with life, you sort of have to it have it come to you on your own. Yes, you can be guided, and you can hear things, but it has to really come from within. So even though he had opened sort of, my awareness to web series, I just wasn't ready to take it on it until I came back from L.A. And then I really started just sort of exploring that space and looking around. And I saw all these shows and I was like, “I should be doing something. And I want to be doing something.” And I was ready finally to create my own work because I think, too, I had been a dancer for so many years and I had had incredible success as a dancer and then now had transitioned into the acting world and was finding my way as an actor and then feeling that thing that so many actors feel like - everything is just out of their hands and you're just sort of reacting to everything and just sort at everyone else's whimsy, if that is even the right word. But you just have no control. So, it was born out of this desire to take the reins of my own career and to just create my own work. And I was inspired by what I was seeing already being done by these other actors who were doing it. And I was like, “Yeah, this is wow, look what they're doing. This is incredible.” So that's when I was like, okay, “I'm going to I'm going to do a I'm going to write a web series.”
Jason Cicci:
At that point, had you had any writing? Did you have any writing or directing experience at all or were you just jumping in?
SL:
I have always been a writer, not necessarily narrative storytelling. I wrote poetry when I was a kid. When I was in fifth grade, I completely plagiarized Nutcracker and Annie and created this musical in the fifth grade. And we performed it and I kind of directed it and I directed some show choir stuff which is more choreographic but still like directing people in high school. I was always in an avid journal (writer), so writing was always in my life, but never really in this format. I had never really written a screenplay. I think I had dabbled, writing plays, or writing things previously in my life. But this was the first time to write like a screenplay.
John:
So season one (of “Hustling”), you've come up with this idea, you're going to make this web series, you're writing it, you've done a lot of research in terms of reading other scripts. Are you getting any kind of help or at this point, do you have any kind of collaborators, anybody helping you?
SL:
(With) season one no, it was really just the writing. It was just me. I just wrote eight episodes. It was very linear. It was just told from my character's point of view, there was no B or C storyline. It was really just my character.
John:
So were you cognizant of what it was going to take to shoot it while you were writing? Were you thinking with your producer hat too?
SL:
Yeah, I was like, “okay, I can't write a scene about me jumping out a helicopter.” I was very aware of, “okay, it's got to be a couple of actors. It's got to be in these locations. I'm going to shoot in my apartment. It's got to be like places that I can get to for free.” Season one I was just paying out of pocket for whatever I needed.
"You are a creator of your own life.
You are so much more powerful than you know, than you have ever realized."
John Cramer:
So, you didn't raise any money for season one?
SL:
No, I just paid for everything. I mean, nobody made money. I didn't pay any actors. We had deal memos and things, but nobody made any money. I didn't make any money. I just spent money. And then I did reach out. I had a friend who had a camera, who had a Canon 7D and some clip lights and some gels. He's a really talented hairdresser and artist now and he’s also a filmmaker in his own right now. This is before he kind of dove into all of that. I was like, “hey, do you want to shoot this? Do you want to be the director of photography?” He was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” And so, I was like “great.” So, we were going to work together. We shot the teaser together. He kind of directed me on that. There’s no dialogue, it’s sort like a character development of the introduction to the character. And that was the teaser. And, and then we started. For casting I didn't have auditions. I just reached out to people that I knew. Luckily, having worked on Broadway, I still had all those connections to those people. So, I was able to get people I'd worked with on Broadway into the show. So that was helpful. But once we started shooting, my friend Andreas, I don't think he really knew what director of photography was. I think he heard director. The first day we’re shooting, you know you have to do things a bunch of times. And I don't think he was really up for that. And so, he was like, “I can't do this. I wish you well. Here's my camera. You can use it.”
Jason:
Oh, well, that's great. That’s fantastic.
SL:
But I have other things that I need to focus on. So, I was like, what am I going to do? This is dead. It's just me. But I did have my friend Gary, who I'd worked with in a couple of plays. He was kind of helping me produce it, but I didn't have anyone to shoot it. I didn't know what to do.
Jason:
What was your relationship with a camera at that point?
SL:
I didn't know how to do anything. I knew nothing about making a series. I knew about being the talent. But I didn’t know anything about what it takes to make it. I literally just kind of like jumped into it and was learning as I went. I really like didn't know how I was going to proceed. I was using YouTube a lot and researching, ‘how do you light a scene’? I found these videos by this guy called The Lone Filmmaker and it was just this guy who made films on his own. It was like the universe telling me it's going to be okay. Just keep going, you can do this. You're not the first person to try to do this on your own. That was a sign. And I listened to it. I did cast one other one actor who I didn't know. He actually said he had a camera so he ended up kind of coming on and also like being the DP. And then I shot a lot of stuff. I did a lot of reshooting of things because I didn't know what I was doing. A lot of lighting and stuff. But that first season, a lot of the stuff when it's just me, it's just me. Like I set the camera up on the lights and when it's just solo stuff, it's just it's just me.
John:
That’s incredible.
SL:
There were times where we actually had a crew, but very few times. Mostly it was just myself and the other actor and a very bad Zoom microphone. I knew nothing about sound at the time. We were like, “I hope this sounds good.”
Jason:
That is incredible.
John:
Yeah, that is. How long do you think it took you to actually shoot season one?
SL:
It was mostly shot on the weekends with the other actors, and it was over a couple of months. My partner Todd was a lawyer so he would be out during the day. So, a lot of that stuff in the apartment with Ryan, I could shoot during the day and sometimes even in, there are hallway scenes with Rosa that I would reshoot myself.
Jason:
And you're becoming more and more confident as you as you do this, I would imagine.
SL:
Absolutely. And honestly, when Andrea pulled out and I was actually able to get behind the lens a little bit, that's really when the series, as gritty and as very independent as season one is, that's when the aesthetic visually really came into place. When I took over it was my vision then, as opposed to his. And everything happens for a reason. I'm really happy that all transpired and Andrea and I are still friends. There was there's no bad blood between us at all for that. But it was interesting how things play out. And we think it's a challenge and an obstacle, but really, it's an opportunity and it's showing you the way. I mean, that's really a big take away from all of this is like and my own personal journey is learning that obstacles and challenges are really there, guiding you and moving towards the way, towards the things that you want. It's really about shifting your mindset and realizing that it's not an obstacle. It's an opportunity.
Sebastian at the Season Two premiere
of "Hustling" at Tribeca Cinemas
John:
So you're you wrote it, you're starring in it, you're directing it. You're filming it.
SL:
Yes. And lighting it.
John:
You’re producing it.
SL:
Producing yeah.
John:
You’re literally doing every single thing. You've got a couple other actors, you know, and that's it.
SL:
Andre actually edited season one but I would be like “this moment, to this moment, to this”, like every little thing.
John:
Were you there looking over his shoulder the whole time he was doing editing?
SL:
Kind of, yeah. He didn't really do a pass. He would, like, sync everything up and get everything ready. And then I would come over I went through every shot, everything. I was telling him how to piece everything together. And then he would say, “what about this and that?” And we would finesse and move things, you know, timing. “Let's cut this here.” But as far as the shots and everything, I painstakingly chose every angle and I was also obsessed with my own performance and everything.
John Cramer:
So you make season one-just absolutely incredible. I mean, I knew that you did a lot to make season one. I guess I did not realize the extent to which you really did everything. What did you do once you had the finished episodes? How do you go about actually finishing them? Because you got to come up with music, you got to come up with graphics and like a logo and how do you do all that stuff?
SL:
Again, I reached out to some friends. I have a really talented friend who is a graphic designer who created the logo for “Hustling”, Eddie Trotter. Again, he worked for free. He just did it as a favor. And then Andreas had a really good friend, Sir Paul. His name is Paul and he's an independent music artist who goes under the name Sir Paul. And his music just really worked well. And so he gave me access to use whatever music I wanted. This was 2011, and so much has changed with how people can create. Now everybody has a camera in their pockets and there's just so much more accessibility than we had back in, like almost the dark ages, it seems like. There are so many music subscription platforms now. I actually belong to one, which is how I use music for some of my current projects. But if I didn't use a Sir Paul song, I used royalty free (music where) I had to buy a license to use that music. So that's how I scored all the music. I did all the music design. I didn't create the scores, but I placed all the music. Eddie did the graphics and we created that little opening. So, we had the opening, we had the music and we just did the color correction and that kind of stuff ourselves. Just on Final Cut. So, then we have all our episodes I kind of followed the model of a regular television show where you do a teaser and then you roll out an episode per week and you do a little promotion each week. Because I had a history of working on Broadway, and I had Broadway actors in the series like Daphne Vega and Brent Barrett, I was able to get the attention of some Broadway blogs and stuff. So, they picked up the teaser - which was me in my underwear. So, that helped, right? I was able to get a bunch of eyes on the show right from the very beginning and get some press going, which was helpful. A couple of gay blogs picked it up and were showcasing it and that's kind of how it started. And then I did all the marketing and released everything. This was kind of even before Instagram, I was just using Facebook. I was then the marketing person because I was taking stills and then like going in Photoshop and putting the “Hustling” logo on there and saying, “every Wednesday”, just like looking at like how HBO would do their marketing for their shows. I literally just did that. People were excited about the next episode because it came out every week. So, we were on a schedule every week. We were editing and marketing and releasing and the next week editing for the eight episodes that aired for season one. I only did the teaser the very first time. I couldn't do like recaps like “Previously on ‘Hustling’”. It was just too much. Prior to launching, a friend gave me an idea: “you should do a screening, you should do a party so you can get pictures and post it online”. It was like just creating buzz. I was like “that's great.” Again, there was no money. This is all out of my pocket. So, I found, which doesn't even exist anymore from what I heard, the Tribeca Cinemas. I rented out one of the smaller theaters and had a screening there. And again, the universe just like opened up and provided so much because the guy knew we were on a budget, and we had one of the smaller screening rooms. And then right before there was supposed to be another screening in the larger room, and they were going to have a party and they pulled out. And so, the guy was like, “Hey, do you want to do you a post party? We'll have the people there. Just guarantee this much money that the bar will bring.” And so, I screened the teaser and the first three episodes at Tribeca Cinemas. We had a step and repeat and we had a great audience. Robin Roberts showed up because I was friends with her girlfriend at the time and she was super impressed. We created a really cool event, and it was really fun. And even Tribeca was like, “Are you coming back next year?” I ended up doing season two and season three there, and they always gave me space to do a party because they loved the event and it was always good for their bar.
John:
That's incredible.
SL:
Yeah, it really just elevated it and made it feel like something special. And it was a great way to showcase it and made us feel like we were doing something special. It was really a fun way to kick off the season.
“Now, my art is really about guiding others to examine their own lives..for them to reach beyond their own personal limitations or limiting beliefs…I want it to inspire and uplift and impact people in a profound way."
John:
This is something that we find ourselves talking about over and over. A lot of people go into making their own work with this end result in mind: they're going to have this product that's going to allow them to get more and better acting gigs. And they don't realize what it's really going to do for them or to them. And just the ability to focus on process over outcome I think is such a valuable perspective on life.
Jason:
Whatever your intention is with it may not come true at all. So, you may be setting yourself up for such a disaster in your mind when you'll discover other things that you never knew were going to be there.
John:
Because it sounds like your outcomes were really good.
Jason:
Your outcomes were pretty damn good.
SL:
Yeah, they were. But they also weren't really what I thought they were going to be either. You know, letting go of expectation is really hard, but at the same time that's kind of a journey that everybody goes on. So, it's also valid to have the experience of being focused on an outcome and then realizing that that's not what it's about. That is a valid journey that a lot of people will learn from. If you can have the awareness beyond that, that's great. But at the same time, if you have to go through the journey that I went through, that's also a beautiful journey to experience yourself, too. You will ultimately realize that it's more about intention. What is my intention? Not saying that I want A, B and C to happen. My intention is more like what kind of impact do I want to have? How do I want to affect people? How do I want people to feel? What's the legacy that I want my artistry to have? Those are the kind of intentions that I'm having. Yeah, “Hustling” never got on HBO, it never got on Showtime. Everybody kept saying, “Oh my God, it should be on HBO and Showtime.” I'm like, “Yeah, I agree.” That never happened. Like so many things didn't happen. You know, I'm not a huge star right now. What this has really taught me in a much bigger way is that you are a creator of your own life and you really should set the tone. You are so much more powerful than you know, than you have ever realized, because you place these limitations. Even though you think they're amazing goals in many ways, they’re limitations that are holding you back because they're not letting you flourish in ways that you can't even imagine, because you're not letting yourself.
John:
That's incredible. Again, I know that we're speaking from the point of view of years later and having gone through multiple seasons and other projects as well. But I'd love to hear a little bit about what you did next. You've got season two. How did you get to season two?
SL:
So, we finished season one and I was nominated for, at the time it was called the Indie Soap Awards-now it's the Indie Series Awards. I received an email: You've been nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series. And I was like, “Oh my God, what?” I've never been nominated.
John Cramer:
You didn’t submit?
SL:
No I didn't submit anything. And so, a couple of us went to New World Stages and we were this little show and we walked in. It had been going on for a couple of years, the ISAs, and that was eye opening to see all these other people who had been working in this space and creating their own work. And it was super inspiring. And everyone was also kind of wacky and crazy and I ended up winning and they mispronounced my name. But it was also perfect, it was such a beautiful moment to be there after everything that I went through just to create season one with all the stuff that we just talked about. And then they recognized the show, they recognized me. To be honored in that way was just a beautiful moment. That's how season one ended. So obviously we have to keep going. So I started writing the second season and was like, “we're going to have to do a Kickstarter because I can't fund the money.” So I dove into crowdfunding and with a goal of like $14,000 or something. And through Kickstarter, a cinematographer saw the campaign and he reached out to me. “I think your show is really great. I want to shoot it.” I was like, “Okay.” He said, “I have two Red cameras and lighting.” I was like, “All right.” And he said, “I'll shoot it for free.” I was like, “Okay.” He's like, “You just have to pay my assistants.” I was like, “Okay, that's great.”
John:
Assistants?
SL:
Yeah, camera assistants. So many things started falling into place. And then, as far as the script goes, I expanded the world I created (to) multiple story lines. I started working with (someone to) make sure there were no holes and I was connecting all the dots because I was expanding the world and opening it up. I just wanted to make sure I had all my ducks in a row.
John Cramer:
So, like a story consultant.
SL:
Yeah, that was really, really helpful. Kickstarter was super intense, but we ended up raising 18,000 from a $14,000 goal, which was helpful. And then season three we got 30,000. Kickstarter - crowdfunding is another full time job.
Jason:
It's hard.
SL:
It’s really intense. It's like every day you have to work at it, but I think I was fortunate in the sense that I had done season one, I had created an audience and they wanted more. So once we put the Kickstarter out there, there was so much support for the show already. Again, I was just like doing whatever I needed to do. It ended up being a good thing because I was able to create that audience before asking them for money. I know it can be challenging with storytellers or creators or filmmakers who want to do crowdfunding, which they should, when they don't have an audience. It can be really hard to generate the outcome. A successful crowdfunding campaign can be challenging because your circle of friends and their circle of friends can be so small. So, in many ways, being able to generate an audience first was very helpful in the success of the two Kickstarters for season two and season three.
Jason:
And you have a proof of concept. You've shown people exactly where their money is going to go, what story they're continuing to tell.
SL:
Yeah, exactly.
John:
A couple of questions about that. One: how did you set your budget?
SL:
Oh, good question. I don't know. At that point, I was do like “ummm…?”
Jason:
That much!
SL:
14,000. Sure. I didn't really know I was learning. We were asking for season three based on the knowledge that I gained from season two. I think I collaborated with Gary on that. We were just trying to figure out the budget based on the expenses that we were going to have. And again, calling in favors, we shot a lot of the locations in the cinematographer’s amazing Upper East Side apartment. He obviously didn't need to be paid because he was doing okay financially, and he just loved the show and wanted to do more narrative work. So, he offered so much of his time and his equipment and his home for us to shoot in. So yeah, I was just really kind of figuring it out honestly. It was guesswork, frankly.
John:
You mentioned that doing a crowdfunding campaign is like another full-time job. What were some of the things that you did, even though you had this massive audience and support already? What were some of the things that you did that you learned about crowdfunding?
SL:
The biggest thing that I learned on both was that it's really about the project, but it's more about the creative. It's more about the artist that is doing the crowdfunding. It's really important to connect because yes, they're excited about your project, but it's really about you. They're really funding the person. And so the more that you connect - when I started doing videos and updating people and talking to them as opposed to just posting. It was personal and they were really getting to know me. And it's also extremely important to encourage people and have excitement around the campaign as opposed to sort of begging them for money. You want to excite them and be like, “you want to be on this ride with us. You know, this is going to be really exciting. Join this campaign.” Not “please, we can't do this without your money.” If people feel bad for you, they may donate because you’re desperate but that can definitely turn off a lot of people. You have to forget the desperation of it and just know that you're going to achieve your goal even though you're biting your nails the entire time. It's just about inspiring people about you and wanting to be on the ride with you.
John:
We’ve heard so much about what you've learned and gained from the experience of making three seasons of “Hustling”. But is there anything else that you wanted to share about what you think that experience did for you?
SL:
It definitely was life changing, for sure. That that was really the beginning of my transformation. But the big part of my transformation really came after that, when sometimes it didn't work out, like the expectations I had and where I thought I would be and what would happen to the show. That was also really important because that's what really moved my own personal transformation to the next level and,, moved me into doing my next project, which was my short film “Disciple”, and then just my own personal healing and journey that happened after that.
John:
So “Disciple” and you are also working on a podcast, right?
SL:
Right. The lockdown was a very creative time. I had started working on “Disciple” prior to the pandemic.
John:
And “Disciple” is a feature film?
SL:
“Disciple” is a short film. I call it another kind of coming out story. And it's about someone coming to terms with their own HIV status and they're kind of stepping into who they are authentically, sort of finding their own voice and speaking their truth and standing in their own truth. “Disciple” is, again, me infusing my own story through the lens of this closeted priest. I did another crowdfunding for that, raised the money and then shot two days and then got the lockdown happened. They finally started to lift all the restrictions and we were able to pick up our final day of shooting, but what was really cool about that is I had saved all my character’s like hefty dialogue scenes till that last day of shooting, which I thought was going to be right after the first two days of shooting, not several months later. But it was really great because I changed so much in those few months in the lockdown that I rewrote a lot of the script and changed the story and just made it a little more clear. Again, infusing my own life into my art. Like what I was saying earlier about “Hustling”, where I was very self-motivated and it was about me searching for success in my career as an actor. Now, my art is really about guiding others to examine their own lives. And a lot of what I've been talking about today and for them to reach beyond their own personal limitations or beyond their own limiting beliefs, that's really what I want my art to be about. I want it to inspire and uplift and impact people in a in a profound way. I don't necessarily care about my performance per se or “this short film is going to do something for me as an actor.” It's so not that anymore. It's about affecting people and just having them start to ask themselves questions because we don't ask ourselves questions. We just sort of like fall into these templates, all the beliefs that we have are basically ideas from other people. We were told when we were young, and we just agreed to them and their ideas. But they become our belief system. And for and for many of us, we don't ever question those. And so, we're just sort of like regurgitating history. A big part of my mission now with my art is to help people with their own healing. I want my healing to also be the footprints for others to find their own healing because it's really about that. It's really about healing collectively as a species. And when we heal ourselves, we do heal the world. You do become that light. That's really how you affect change. We've heard it a million times, but now I really get it because I'm experiencing it. You become the change. And that's what is so important about the work that I'm doing now is like really having, you know, an impact on, on just people's lives and helping them sort of like reach beyond just their own limitations.
John:
Well, I just keep imagining you today having a chance to talk to you right before you made “Hustling” and say you think that this is what you're doing right now.
SL:
That’s right. No idea.
John:
Just wait, just wait. Sebastian, thank you so much for taking all this time.
SL:
Of course.
John:
And telling us this incredible story.
Jason:
It’s going to inspire so many storytellers.
SL:
Well, thanks for giving me the platform to tell the story. Like I said, this is so what I'm about. I love this and what gives me life now is being able to share that story and hoping that it does inspire someone.
John:
Well, we're going to give it a shot and see if we can do that and help you do that. It was great talking to you again.
Jason:
Good luck, with everything Seb.
SL:
Thank you so much, guys. It was great to see and talk to you guys.
Jason:
Great to see you, too.
John:
Thanks again, Sebastian.
SL:
Bye, guys.
John:
Take care.
A multi-faceted artist, Sebastian LaCause began his career as a professional dancer, working on Broadway, then as an actor in television and film.
In 2011, Sebastian began to expand his artistry into storytelling with his provocative digital series "Hustling", which ran for three seasons and racked up over 6M views, a number of Indie Series Awards and a Webby Award Nomination in the long-form drama category. Subsequently, Sebastian directed the indie comedy series "He’s With Me" for two seasons and then the dramedy "Life’s A Drag". His recent project include the narrative short "Disciple", and his podcast "Chasing Happy".