Ever since Everett Barton was a kid, he has created short films. He grew up in a family of photographers and was always surrounded by cameras. One day in elementary school, he picked up a camcorder and along with his friend, Maggie Herr, and they started creating stories.
“Making films and music has always been something fun and doing it with other friends is just a fun way to spend time with people you enjoy being around,” Barton said. “You can make something interesting.”
Since high school, Barton has been working for the production company, Lago Productions. He mainly works on the show, “Alive & Well,” where he films photo-shoots and edits footage.
Barton also does freelance work for FINIEN in Long Beach, where he edits the podcast “Hitting The Mark” and works on marketing projects for clients.
His family has been supportive of his decision to pursue film. After seeing his work and watching him make money doing what he loves, they became confident in his future.
Like most students, Barton isn’t sure what he wants to do. Although his major has a focus on screenwriting, that’s not all he enjoys doing.
“There’s a part of me that would like to do cinematography, I like directing and most of my work is editing,” Barton said. “I don’t think I’d ever like to stick to one lane and just do that with the same genre of films forever. I like the idea of dipping my toes into different things.”
In the past two years, Barton has released two films that are part of a trilogy he is making. The first film, “Talent Wanted,” was released in January 2018 and was a finalist at the LA Cinefest film festival. His second film, “Loner,” released in November 2018 and was a semifinalist in the same film festival.
Barton is currently in the process of creating the final film of the trilogy. According to Barton, he creates stories that are able to stand on their own but still connect in certain aspects, like recurring characters or similar themes in each film.
“Talent Wanted” follows the theme of being alone and eventually finding comfort in a friend. “Loner” follows a similar theme in which the main character starts out alone but finds comfort in family. The final film will follow a similar theme of loneliness, where the subject eventually finds comfort in oneself.
“Finding comfort in yourself is a very internal thing,” Barton said. “So finding a way to translate that to film has been a bit of a struggle.”
Barton also produced an album in 2018 titled, “Little One” with his close friends, Maggie Herr and Nick Jennings. According to Barton, It was a difficult process because no one in the band, Sheep Creek, had any experience with producing an album.
Herr has been friends with Barton for 16 years and grew up creating short films and music with Barton.
“Making each film and creating music together within our little group, has really done nothing but bring us closer together over the years,” Herr said. “Barton is the most creatively plentiful and hardest driven person I know when it comes to studying and working in film and music. It’s really inspiring to work with somebody like that who has amazing ideas and works insanely hard to make them come to life, every single day.”
Sheep Creek is currently in the process of creating an EP.
“The number one thing is to just go out and make something,” Barton said. “We’re at the point where anyone has the tools to make anything, you can make a short film all on your iPhone in your pocket. You learn the most from going out there and doing it.”