For this month's Creator Spotlight, we're talking to Alice Roth - a writer/director who has produced a wide breadth of work for many of your favorite YouTube channels. Rather than write a lengthy intro, we'll let you hear it directly from her. Read below!
For those that don’t know you, how would you describe yourself?
I’m a writer/director with 10 years of experience in digital video, working for some of the biggest magazines in the world – The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, WIRED, and Architectural Digest primarily. I’ve worked across many topic areas, with a focus in politics, science, culture, and design. This year, I’m moving onto more independent work in documentary filmmaking and narrative.
Talk to us about the beginnings of your career and how you got started.
I went to NYU Tisch for dramatic writing, which brought me to New York in 2009 and made me a very pretentious Bushwick-dwelling 20-something in the 2010s. From there, I started PA-ing. I worked on an indie feature (exciting!) and then a little bit of reality TV (depressing!). And then I started landing full-time work primarily in media. I always wavered between being on the development side (because of my writing background) and on the production side. But, I’ve embraced production – I love making things.
Can you tell us about your earliest influences, and some of the people that inspire you today?
My earliest influences are probably Calvin & Hobbes, Digimon, and Shrek if I’m being completely honest. But, the early art student in me was drawn towards satire and absurdity in narrative and documentary films.
I think about a few films on almost a weekly basis: The Truman Show, Rear Window, and Dr. Strangelove. The ideas the films present – that we’re all living in our own TV shows, we never really know our neighbors, and the world is going to end at the hands of a few insane individuals – resonate with me. I’d love to be able to make movies that are both thought-provoking and funny. I don’t know what it says about my mental health, but I can only process these dark times through comedy. You gotta laugh.
My documentary influences have a tenderness towards their characters while showing a side of the world you’d never see. Lauren Greenfield’s Queen of Versailles shows wealth inequality. Errol Morris’s Vernon, Florida shows America. Grey Gardens shows the end of a dynasty.
For science documentaries, I think Carl Sagan’s Cosmos still stands to this day as a brilliant way to explain scientific concepts through their historic origins. I often watch Charles & Ray Eames’ Powers of 10 as an incredibly simple way of explaining our relationship to the galaxy.
For digital video, Vox set the standard for the explainer format. I’m also continually impressed with the NYTimes visual investigations team.
Filmmakers that inspire me today are mostly narrative directors. Sean Baker, Nicole Hofstadter, and Kelly Reichardt make indies that are quietly devastating. I could go on forever. I think I’m inspired by almost every movie I see in one way or another.
The docs I’ve found the most profound in the past few years are ones a bit out of my scope of reporting, like Navalny (a very tragic story) and 30 Days in Mariupol (unbelievably brave filmmakers.) In a completely other universe, I also caught this doc Cow by Andrea Arnold last year that’s the entire lifecycle of a dairy cow. I think about that a lot.
How has technology affected your career?
Technology is always changing the production process, both the gear we make videos/films and the platforms people watch videos/films.
I’ve only shot on digital and I honestly think it’s created a glut of footage. One of my biggest missteps as a director is overshooting. You watch old movies shot on film and there’s so much precision in the blocking, lighting, and practical sets & effects. They had to plan everything because they couldn’t simply “fix it in post.” I have this “fix it in pre” comic pinned up next to my desk as a reminder to do the work.
Smartphone cameras make everyone a photographer and shooter. Video platforms make everyone an editor. It’s democratizing, but it also leads to a collapsing of crew sizes and the idea that everything can be made on a low budget.
I’ve seen the full evolution of streaming: weird email flash videos, the rise of YouTube, Netflix, “cutting the cord,” Vine, Facebook video, Snapchat, Instagram video, and now TikTok. These platforms have fundamentally shifted the way people shoot and edit video, or, dare I say... “content.” There’s the move towards shorter attention spans and quantity over quality. I’ll stop myself here before I start ranting about algorithms.
Does anything in particular excite you about where technology's going right now?
Okay, now the positive! Mass media is a democratizing force. Niche audiences and online communities are always thriving. The rise of letterboxd, for example, shows a massive interest in classic and original films. Tiktok is testing 30 minute videos – that’s wild! It means that people are here for longer-form pieces.
On the technical side, VFX is creating new ways of showing the impossible and mitigating dangerous stunts/effects. We saw with the Rust incident bad safety practices on set. We have the tools to move effects like explosions to post as opposed to literal lead. While I love Tarkovsky’s Stalker, the toxic location likely contributed to his death. Hopefully we don’t lose a director to poison again! Though maybe there will be some carpal tunnel fatalities from James Cameron’s VFX army.
Lightweight cameras allow for people to shoot in locations that were previously too difficult. Free Solo shows the world of mountain climbing in an entirely new visual language. We’ve effectively replaced crane and helicopter shots with drones.
I don’t care about VR or Apple Vision, but I’m happy for people that do. Again, I loved Digimon as a kid.
Can you tell us about a time having a data storage strategy prevented you from losing important work?
I’m currently editing my reel and I’m grateful that Past Me backed up my projects on hard drives. Backing up work and organizing it is like sending a message to your future self. In the moment, it feels unfulfilling… but one day, you open it, and you’re like “wow I was so wise.”
Can you walk us through a typical day of work?
Production tends to lack typical days. But a good shoot day is magical.
I arrive to set with a solid shot list, schedule, and interview questions. I meet with my crew and we go over the run of the show. My producer is already on top of twenty things I haven’t thought of, including making sure I get my lunch order in.
For the Arch Digest celebrity home tours, we have a small crew - 1 DP, 1 cam op, sound, producer, associate producer, and PA. We use natural light so, if we can, we plan when to shoot certain rooms according to the best time of day for light.
Then, the fun part – I meet with the celebrity and their team. If we’re given time, we walk through the home as a dry run for the shoot. We discuss general talking points and I explain the flow and tone of the piece. Then, we roll! We start at the entrance (the titular Open Door) and shoot in a linear order, for the sake of the edit. I like to make sure the celebrity is interacting with their home as much as possible. If there’s an instrument, I’ll always see if they’re comfortable playing it. I think the two most common things I say when I’m directing are “can’t hurt to ask” and “perfect is the enemy of the good.”
At the end of the hosted portion of the shoot, I pick up a few lines as voiceover. Some of these are scripted beforehand if I have a particularly good idea. Most of the time, though, I keep a mental note of special moments during the shoot that I know I’ll want clean and succinct in the edit.
And then we shoot a ton of b-roll. I focus on the detail shots on the tighter lens. Our AP has made notes of specific designs mentioned, so we check everything off the list.
Production is a team sport. I love my crews and would be nothing without them. At the end of a great day on set, you walk away feeling like you just made something special. There’s an eagerness to get to the edit. There’s nothing else like it.
How do you stay inspired and motivated creatively?
I go to the movies at least once a week, if not twice. I live walking distance from BAM and they’re always playing films that I wouldn’t seek out on my own. Museums are a huge source of inspiration for me. I haven’t stopped thinking about the Manet/Degas show at the MET last year. We think of these historic artists in a void but they were always copying each other and painting the same subjects.
And then PEOPLE motivate and inspire me. All of my friends and collaborators are funny and smart. Whenever I hit a wall, I can count on a friend to work through a creative block. Everyone wants to make good stuff so we just gotta keep encouraging each other until we do.
Can you touch on some of your more recent career highlights? What were some of the most gratifying moments of your career?
In 2021, I went back to production and directing full-time after being in a more desk job creative director position. That year, I filmed the deepest underground lab in America for WIRED and the highest residence in the world for AD. When I took a step back from the year, I felt so lucky to have those experiences.
Last year, I made a short documentary with the architect Christian Wassmann about his family’s house built around a boulder. I think it shows my growth as a director, combining an artist’s philosophy with, for lack of a better term, shots that are sick as hell. The Architecture & Design Film Fest screened it in Chicago, which was gratifying.
Mostly, though, since I’ve been making internet video for a decade now – it’s very satisfying when people have seen my work. The “accent guy” videos on WIRED and Michael Imperioli’s home tour are probably the most well-known.
Can you tell us about a project that was particularly challenging? How did you overcome those obstacles?
I shot the Perelman Center for Performing Arts a couple weeks before it opened and it was still under construction. The interiors weren’t ideal to shoot, to put it lightly.
The solution was to do timelapses to show the proximity to the 9/11 memorial fountains and the oculus. My DP, Ben Dewey, had the brilliant idea of creating hyperlapses that came out better than I imagined. I was very relieved when the fantastic Condé production management team secured permits to from the 9/11 memorial, which felt important for the piece. We were approached by a security guard every 15 or so minutes asking if we had a permit and could smugly say “yes!”
What are three products you couldn’t work without?
Can I say a camera, lights, and a mic? Lol. I’m afraid I don’t have a particularly techy answer to this.
If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice when you were first starting out your career, what would you say?
Mistakes are just learning experiences. I think learning how to roll with the punches is the biggest lesson I’ve learned on set. Production is chaotic. You can plan for days and weeks and months, but you never know what’s going to happen the day of a shoot. Embrace the chaos and trust your instincts. If you mess something up, you know for next time. The most important thing in the world is to continue to create.
