Interview with Kevin Cowan
Kevin is an award-winning independent filmmaker, novelist, patent holder, and musician based in Buena Vista, Colorado. He earned a film theory minor at the University of Nebraska, worked Alaskan canneries, sailed to Key West, and wandered Europe before landing in a Colorado mountain cabin to make history.
You’ve worked Alaskan canneries, sailed to Key West, wandered Europe, and settled in a Colorado mountain cabin — how did those experiences shape the stories you tell as a filmmaker and novelist?
These experiences have been integral to shaping my worldview. If I had stayed in Nebraska all my life instead of leaving to travel, I would be a very different person today. A lesser person, in my opinion. Traveling taught me resourcefulness, taught me that people all over the world are pretty much the same. It honed my problem solving and gave me an endless amount of storytelling fodder. It also satisfied my wanderlust, so that I never had to deal with a mid-life crisis. I'm in my 60's now, and looking back on a life well-lived.
Was there a specific moment during your travels when you realized storytelling would become your life’s work?
I was writing and telling stories before I left college to travel. To be able to tell good stories was a primary motivation.
As someone who’s both a filmmaker and a novelist, how does your creative process differ between writing for the page and writing for the screen?
I've written far more fiction than screenplays, so my method for short story writing is more refined than my methodology for screenplay writing, but they both have one thing in common: I generally have the story completely worked out in my head before I start writing. Coffee with Claude was different in that aspect, because I didn't know where it would end up.
You’re also a patent holder and musician. Do invention and music influence your filmmaking in unexpected ways?
One of the reasons I love making films is that it combines so many aspects of the creative process: writing, music, visual art... it's all in there.
Independent filmmaking often requires persistence and resourcefulness. What was the toughest challenge you faced early on, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge was overcoming my reticence since I had never attempted a full-feature length film before, only shorts.
Living in Buena Vista, Colorado, seems worlds away from Hollywood. How does mountain life affect your creativity and perspective as an artist?
I live in the middle-of-nowhere because it keeps me sane and -- counter-intuitively -- gives me great perspective on world events because of that arm's length remove. It also allows me to have one foot in the tech world and one foot in the 1800s, as it were. I like the quiet, I like being able to stand on my porch and listen to the wind, not traffic. It allows my creative process to work without city-life distractions.
Your life sounds almost cinematic on its own. Have any of your real-life adventures directly inspired characters or scenes in your work?
Absolutely. My characters are often derived from my own personality or life experiences. I'm very much about "write what you know" but I'm also about "knowing as much as possible" which gives me good options for storytelling.
After a lifetime of travel, experimentation, and artistic exploration, what still excites you most about creating something new?
I still get goosebumps and the "secret" smile when I feel like I'm on the right track in any given creative project. Having the idea, having the idea persist (is how I gauge how good an idea is), and then really the exhilaration of the creative process. When I'm in that mode of creating, I tend to be absorbed by it completely. I've often said that novel writing is as close as a man can come to being pregnant. You have an idea and you have to protect it while it is in the process of becoming, as it were. It's an amazing feeling I still appreciate so many years later.
https://coffeewithclaude.film/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmcowan
https://endertalon.blogspot.com/2024/12/interviews-with-clinton-r.html