Greg Eliason of Graphic Films has been a producer and a production manager for nine years. He has produced feature films, commercials, and music videos.

For the past six years, Eliason, 34, has worked in large-format film, including ALASKA: SPIRIT OF THE WILD, AMAZING JOURNEYS, and ALL ACCESS.

He is in production with FORCES OF NATURE, co-produced by National Geographic.

Born in Santa Rosa, Calif, he has worked in theatre as an actor, director, and set builder.

He has written and directed short films, including GRIND, which has been seen at 21 film festivals in six countries, and is being distributed internationally to TV and airline audiences. GRIND is on the Internet at atomfilms.com.

Eliason took time from his busy schedule for an interview with Screenplayers.

WHAT AWARD DID GRIND WIN? WHEN?

GRIND has won a few awards: Best Dramatic Short at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival; Best Independent Entry from the Canadian International Film Festival; the Lagniappe Award from the New Orleans Film Festival; and Honorable Mention at WorldFest Flagstaff. All those awards were from 1999.

MARRIED? SINGLE? CHILDREN? I'm single, but I live with my girlfriend, Jackie. She is also a director, actor, and acting teacher. We are planning to produce a play together soon, hopefully in the summer. We also have a dog, whom we enjoy calling "Test Baby," though his name is actually Jasper.

WHAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE INFORMATION YOU LEARNED AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA FILM SCHOOL?

A tough one. To be honest, that's where I learned the mechanics of filmmaking, and that has been obviously very important. Once you are actually making films the process is demystified and doesn't seem so daunting.

The other invaluable thing I learned in school is much more difficult to define. UC-Santa Barbara is not primarily a production-oriented film department. We watched a lot of films, and we wrote a lot about them.

And the ability to think about films--about what makes them succeed or fail, about how the medium is being used by a given director--that has been at least as important as knowing how to thread a magazine or set an f-stop.

WHY DID YOU SWITCH YOUR ATTENTION TO LARGE FORMAT FILM? I had a friend who I had worked with and who had been working at Graphic Films. The position of PM, was open and I interviewed for it. I got the job, and I ended up getting along with the other people on the crew, which is not to be underestimated when living and working together on location for four months at a time.

ARE YOU A DIRECTOR WHO WRITES, A WRITER WHO DIRECTS, A PRODUCER WHO WRITES AND DIRECTS?

My main ambitions are as a director. I mainly write and produce my own films out of necessity.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRODUCER AND A PRODUCTION MANAGER?

The short answer is that the Producer is the Production Manager's boss.

The long answer is, the Production Manager (on features or commercials) is one member of a large Production Department. The Producer is in charge of that department, and is usually in charge of the whole project because that person controls how the money is spent.

At Graphic Films, the Producer is Paul Novros, and he oversees the films from start to finish, along with the Director, George Casey. Because Paul does not normally go on location, I act as a sort of field producer, and there is no one else in the Production Department.

Also, since we work with a very small crew, the lines between the jobs are blurry. We all work to move the gear around. I will load magazines for the camera, push the dolly, record sound, whatever needs doing when we are on location.

In essence, the way we work is that he deals with the big picture, and I look after the nuts and bolts.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR A PRODUCTION MANAGER?

That depends entirely on the shoot. On most films, the biggest challenge is keeping the production on budget. But for me, it can be deciding when the best time is to go to a location for a certain kind of event (think crab migration) or getting permits from foreign governments, or getting a tremendous amount of gear through customs so I don't miss the big event we are trying to film because the wrong paper got the wrong stamp. It just depends.

HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT FINDING WRITERS FOR LARGE-FORMAT FILMS?

Our company has a very good relationship with Mose Richards, who has written many documentary films for Discovery, the Cousteaus, and many of our IMAX films. He is our first call. Sometimes people will pitch an idea to Paul or George for a project they want to get made, and sometimes writers come from within our company. Tim Huntley who edits many of our films, often writes a good deal of material and he will sometimes get a writing credit.

Recently, Paul asked me to write a treatment for a project for which we are now trying to secure financing.

DO YOU THINK LARGE-FORMAT FILMS BESIDES DOCUMENTARIES WILL BE MADE?

Many already have. Most of those are "ride films" or simulations that play in places like Universal Studios or Disneyland and have moving seats and create a kind of ride simulation.

But there have been several other IMAX films that were fiction films. Rodney Taylor, who shot ALASKA and AMAZING JOURNEYS (as well as my short film GRIND), recently shot a film called LOCH LOMEN: LEGEND OF THE LOCH," which is a fiction film that takes place in Scotland and is based on an old Scottish legend.

ARE YOU WORRIED FOR THE FUTURE OF FILM, WITH ALL THE DIGITAL VIDEO AND COMPUTER GENERATION POSSIBLE NOW?

No, I don't worry about film. I think that people are always going to use the tools at hand to make interesting "films" even if they are originated or projected on video. And in the end, who cares? Audiences are not going to pay to see video films if the ones shot on film look better. Once video is better looking, or just as good, for comparable costs, then things will probably change quickly. But I still like seeing black-and-white movies as well as color. I just think it's going to be another kind of film product.

PLEASE TELL OUR READERS ABOUT FINDING FUNDING AND DISTRIBUTION FOR INDEPENDENT FILMS.

A book in itself. Two.

Independent films are financed and distributed in so many ways it is impossible to give a complete answer here, but I give my quick version.

Usually the process begins with a good script. In IMAX that often means a concept for a script or a short treatment. A producer gets hold of it, decides to try to get that film made and goes about trying to raise the funds. That can mean getting money from his folks, putting together a pool of investors in a limited partnership, selling off foreign distribution rights, getting money from a studio, or any of a myriad other possibilities.

A producer is like any entrepreneur who is starting a business. He will try to borrow money to make a product which he believes he can sell for a profit.

It is highly advisable to have a distributor in place before producing any film, but of course that often does not happen in the world of the independent film.

So you produce your film and you try to get in to one of the major film festivals like Sundance, Berlin, Toronto. There are not many festivals at which distributors actually attend screenings, so you have to be careful where you choose to premiere your film.

The perfect version is, you make a fantastic film, then get into Sundance (or one of the others), the screening goes great, the crowds love the film, and you are approached by a distributor like Lions Gate who gives you a big cash advance and distributes your film.

However, that scenario is a bit like hitting the jack pot in Vegas. There are many, many, many, small independent films competing for very few spots at the distributors.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE OUR READERS TO KNOW ABOUT PRODUCTION WORK THAT YOU THINK THEY MIGHT NOT REALIZE?

It's very hard to make a good movie. If it were easy, they'd all be good.

THANK YOU, AND CONTINUED SUCCESS WITH YOUR WORK.

Eliason's AMAZING JOURNEYS is now showing at the St. Louis Science Center and other locations.