1KHO 865: The Art of Telling Stories | Chris Dowling, Bad Counselors Movie Director

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Welcome to 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have just watched a phenomenally good movie.
Funny, it's funny. All these like church culture references. It's actually about getting kids outside. It's about summer camp. And the movie is called Bad Counselors. And wouldn't you know, what an honor. The director, Chris Dowling is here. Chris, welcome.

**Chris Dowling** (1:26)
Hey, thank you, Ginny. I appreciate it.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:28)
Okay, can you give us the Chris Dowling background story? Am I saying your name right?

**Chris Dowling** (1:32)
You are saying it absolutely correctly.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:34)
All right.

**Chris Dowling** (1:35)
The background of the film?

**Ginny Yurich** (1:37)
Well, I want the background of Chris. I want the background of you. So you get a degree in radio, television, and film. This is 15 or so years ago, right? So you have been pounding the pavement with a ton of films plus things on television.
And I'm not sure if there's anything in radio, but you started off with Rock Slide. Where did the interest in general begin?

**Chris Dowling** (1:58)
Yeah. When I was in high school, we were making, it's funny, I love that you said probably 15 years ago or whatever very kind number you said about when I graduated. So thank you for that.
This will date me a little more though. When we were in high school, I was taking like my dad's big VHS, Sony camera, and with VHS tapes, and we were making little movies. And so me and my best friend in Richardson, Texas, decided we were going to go to Hollywood and be the next two Corys. And I was a big Corey Heyman, Corey Feldman fan, and we're like, let's do it. And we graduated and he did it and I did not. And then I went to go visit him for the first time. And then I said, you know what, call my parents and I said, I'm going. So then I ended up out in LA, got a little bit of acting, which was kind of fun, finished up school and started writing. And then that led to the directing.
And then, you know, it was interesting because I have been fortunate. A lot of people kind of get boxed in. It's like, you only write, you know, movies, or you only write television. And then you inside that box, we get you in a smaller box. You only write comedy movies on tele or, you know, comedies in film or comedies on TV. And so I've got to kind of do it all, done reality shows, documentary, docu-series, television, narrative film. So it's been a good, it's been a good run so far. It's been fun.

**Ginny Yurich** (3:16)
What's your thoughts on staying creative, and staying creative?

**Chris Dowling** (3:20)
Yeah, I mean, I'm super fortunate because I mean I'm married, I've got kids, so I have a lot of time that's going to all that. And so the fact that I get to do my creativity for my job is super helpful. I don't know how you can, if you're working full time, having the family, doing all that, and still having to find that creative output, I think man, that's so tough. But it's so important. For me, it's just about like honestly, it's kind of funny, it kind of sounds like the anti-creativity. It's like scheduling creative time, like just waking up, getting a cup of coffee and knowing like for five hours, I'm just going to bust this thing out and either write or if we're doing some building out pitch decks or whatever we're doing. But it's always flexing that creative muscle.