Eric Fortson

Eric Fortson made The Usual to get people thinking about risks and comfort

Explore the Films Created by Seattle’s Next Generation of Talent

Through a creative partnership with Fujifilm, the Africatown Community Land Trust, and William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation, six young adults honed their hands-on filmmaking skills and strengthened their creative confidence as interns at All Is Well studios in Seattle. During their three-month paid internships, each wrote, directed, and produced a one-minute mock commercial for All Is Well.

The results were as unique and creative as the diverse roster of interns. In a largely white industry, this group of creatives included multiracial, Asian American, Black, Somali, Mexican-American, LGBTQ+, and refugee individuals with funny, silly, scary, sad, thoughtful, and heartfelt stories to tell.

Through this series, we hear from each intern as they reflect on their 60-second project and how the internship fueled their artistic ambitions.

The Usual

A lot of my scripts have come from exaggerating things I find frustrating until I find them funny. I’m a pretty shy person in my everyday life, so channeling my feelings into a story people can relate to is a powerful experience.

The folks at All Is Well quickly became some of my favorite people, and being welcomed in by them completely changed the trajectory of my career. The commercial side of the film industry wasn’t something I gave much thought to before the internship. My writing got stronger, I developed a way to speak with actors and get great performances, and the challenge of telling a story in 60 seconds showed me just how much a story can change in editing and still be cohesive.

The Usual is a comedic short about Ollie, a young diner cook who begins experimenting beyond the standard breakfast. He figures if he can get Gary, the diner’s most stubborn regular customer, to try something new and like it, he must have something special. But it’s not so easy to break Gary’s routine. Anyone from a small town can relate to growing up with a fascination with what else is out there; what you could achieve if you could just go somewhere certain opportunities are more plentiful. Ollie shares that fascination, and I thought it was fun to have him butt heads with someone who never felt the need to step outside their comfort zone, but is completely satisfied anyway. We all value seeking risk and comfort differently, so I’m interested to see which character people relate to most.

Watch The Usual in full on the All Is Well website.

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