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1.) We’re very excited to have some time today with acclaimed and pioneering filmmaker and actor Danny Farber; greetings and salutations Danny and thanks for carving time from a super-busy schedule to chew the fat with us here at Vents Magazine! Before we dive down the celluloid-lined Q&A rabbit hole, how is the latter-half of ‘25 treating you and yours?
Hey Vents Magazine! Thanks so much for highlighting my little corner of the entertainment industry, it feels great to be here. The latter part of ‘25/ beginning of ‘26 is off to a pretty roaring start. I finished up my first ‘vertical series’ in the UK back in November, released a new single under my music called ‘Istanbul’, directed another LA vertical about basketball and currently prepping two back to back projects – one a parent trap-ish story for Goodshort and another a Cowboy Western romance for Shorticle! Oh!! And my brother is expecting his first kid so I’m going to be a Funcle!
2.) Major kudos and accolades on the massive inroads as a creative which you’ve made for creating television for the ever-elusive and mysterious TikTok generation! Starting at the tip-top, can you talk about how as a filmmaker you became aware that there was a need for the so-called ‘Micro-Drama’ which has gone on to become its own movement?
I’m not going to take too much credit for establishing the idea – the marketplace was already massively popular in China and beginning to grow in the US when I started. I am proud of my contributions to the space though! I think, like all generations, this audience yearns for stories! They want a little bit of romance and deceit and danger and humor and a bit of an escape from the nightmarish hellscape that can be the 21st century. There are a ton of inroads I want to make within this niche genre of filmmaking, programming for teens & tweens, horror stories, buddy comedies, classic retellings! It’s exciting to see how fast this industry is shifting and growing and I’m just happy to be apart of it.
3.) Backtracking just a wee bit – and for anyone who may not be in the know – what in your mind is the definition of the TikTok generation and (you’ll pardon the pun) what makes them tick?
“I don’t understand the question and I will not dignify it with a response.” – Lucielle Bluth (Arrested Development, FOX). No no – jk! I feel like the TikTok generation would appreciate that answer though because it’s a hyper online, albeit somewhat fragmented, coalition of internet users constantly looking for the inside joke to be a part of. I feel like the TikTok generation is so deeply craving culture *perhaps due to our lack of 3rd spaces here in the States, ahem!* that we’ll cobble any two pieces of media together to make a new segment of entertainment that only we can understand. DJ Earworms’ United States of Pop walked so TikTok could sprint head first into a brick wall on the side of a cliff (while all of TikTok’s buddies filmed it and gave Jackass style commentary off camera).
4.) The excitement for the Micro-Drama Movement is quite real and feels as if it’s here to stay. Does the embrace of this new style of moviemaking suggest that audience’s taste for narrative storytelling has become more fast-paced? And, if so, what does this ultimately mean for any future David Lean’s or Anthony Minghella’s who have a three plus hour nuanced epic that they want to share with the world? Do you feel that there is room for both models?
I think there’ll always be an audience for most things as long as you market it accordingly. I thought The Irishman was an hour and a half too long and that was from one of the greatest filmmakers with an insane cast. I do think we’ve all been exposed to too much short form content and have obtained some sort of neurological ADHD by proxy and so we must continually feed that beast by endlessly creating more and more and more and more. But it’s a consumer’s playground! If you want to watch a 3 hour, nuanced, slow burn about societies unravelling or finding the courage to overcome your childhood trauma you can certainly seek those out. Didn’t Ari Aster make Beau is Afraid for that purpose alone? Is it going to be as popular as films like My Dinner with Andre, when that film came out? Was My Dinner with Andre even that popular upon its initial release? Or did it find its audience slowly through word of mouth because only certain people ever were going to see that movie in the first place. 1000s of Beavers is a weird, wonderful, nearly silent film made entirely in black and white in 2023. It’s absolutely brilliant! I think people will find the things that they connect with, as long as it’s good.
5.) You have no less than five new Micro-Drama projects which will be unveiled through the end of the year – Major congratulations! Can you give our ever-inquisitive reading audience a hint or three as to what they can expect and look forward to with these new films?
Sex. Drama. Mystery. Violence. Romance. Mishaps. – That’s all in one drama.
The other 4 or so you can reorder those words and get a pretty similar look into what we’re making.
Occasionally I’ll do something really fun and sweet and charming and genuinely funny! What’s the old saying, 14 for them, 1 for me?
6.) Is securing funding and/or investors easier with a Micro-Drama than if you were to approach them with (hypothetically) Titanic Part 2?
Most of my projects come with built in funding and distribution because they’re not really my projects. I just get the chance to direct them and have a ton of creative input because these apps (or studios) trust my vision with their work. It’s kind of an indie filmmaker’s dream as long as your dream is to tell stories you’re not writing.
7.) You were born in Chicago and are now based in Los Angeles, California! How do those seemingly disparate roots inform your vision as a filmmaker?
I learned soooo much about indie filmmaking in Chicago. We used to call it “indie feature season” every summer when 1-3 $200k-$500k features would spring up from local teams. It was the perfect bootcamp to see how to move a team quickly and tell a story effectively. I learned a ton about being below the line and what it means to work incredibly hard for somebody else’s vision. I also learned what not to do and how to approach scenes from a place of compassion and empathy for your cast and crew – so when the occasional overbearing client request comes in, it’s been filtered through my Chicago sensibilities.
8.) As someone who has directed both feature-length vertical dramas as well as Micro-Dramas, do you have a preference between the two, or is it a vase of apples and oranges?
It’s not quite a vase of apples to oranges as it is Fuji Apples to Pink Lady Apples. Or an entire Macintosh to just one slice from that same Macintosh. It’s the same thing. All of my Micro-Dramas are feature length narrative stories that range from an hour and a half to sometimes a bit longer than two hours. By any metric you’d call that a feature film. The dopamine trick here is we break it up into a new ‘episode’ every 90 seconds or so. Hence the micro in micro-dramas!
9.) What projects await your questing eye in the future? Does 2026 promise to be an even busier year for you as both a director and actor?
Fingers crossed I’ll continue to direct a bunch, act in projects that I direct along with other people’s projects on big and small screens, I’ll continue to make music, drink more water, stretch more, and find love in a hopeless place (Rihanna 2011).
10.) Final – SILLY! – Question: Favorite movie about the making of movies – Living in Oblivion, The Player, Hollywood Shuffle, Swimming with Sharks, Barton Fink, or Ed Wood?
Living in Oblivion is a classic and The Player is just full of mind breaking oners but can I say Heart of Darkness or even The Disaster Artist? Who doesn’t love a peak into what it looks like to make a movie?
Website: www.sirdannyfarber.com
