From boardroom to big screen: meet filmmaker Melissa Davey

We’re talking with filmmaker Melissa Davey whose documentaries focus on the adventures of women over 60 including Beyond Sixty and her newest film, Climbing into Life. But like the women she features in her films, Melissa is unexpected. Find out more in our The Dareful Project conversation. Transcript: Debra Hotaling (00:05): Hello and welcome to The Dareful Project, a podcast series where we explore how cultural disruptors are re-imagining the second arc of our lives. If you like this episode, a gentle reminder to please review and share with your Dareful tribe. Today we're talking with filmmaker Melissa Davey, whose documentaries focus on women over 60 having great adventures and the women she features, Melissa is also having a great adventure and is really unexpected in all sorts of ways. We're going to find out how. Melissa, welcome! Melissa Davey (00:42): Thank you. It's so good to be here. Debra (00:45): So ground us. You did not start out as a filmmaker. How did you get here? Melissa (00:52): Oh boy. It's a long circuitous route. I will tell you, because I'm almost 74. So look at all of those years. I started out in nonprofits and maybe for 12 to 15 years, and then moved into the for-profit world and was a corporate executive for more than two decades, building and running a division of a large national company. And it was not my dream to do all of that, but it was where my route took me and things came before me and I grabbed them and I tried them and I did them and I enjoyed them. But honestly, when I was in the corporate world, I almost felt like an actor. I never would've chosen that for myself. But I just walked into it one day and it was a wonderful experience. But what happened was turned 65 while I was there, and I will tell you I was lucky that I was not in an ageist company. Melissa (01:59): There was no reason for me to leave at all. I could still be there today. There are many people, especially women in the company that are well over 65. But I hit that magic number 65, and I was reviewing my life and looking at the work that I was doing, and a bunch of things came together all at the same time. That kind of hit me in the head and I sat there saying, geez, is this it? Am I just going to die at this desk or what else I done? Good lord, I'm 65. I ought to take a look at that. So at the same time that I was thinking about my age and what else I wanted to do, the company was fought out again by venture capital. And I had been that through that rodeo a few times, and I knew that, oh my gosh, as one of the executives, I'm going to be required to sign up for another five years with this new sale. Melissa (03:01): And the CEO who I reported to said, think about it. What do you want to do? And it didn't take me long. I went to a meeting that week in DC, a congressional meeting for testifying about Social Security disability, which was a part of my job. And I remember sitting there thinking, my God, this is like deja vu, like Groundhog Day. I've been coming here for 20 years. The meeting isn't changing. What am I doing? Am I really making a change here? And so that was happening and work was happening, and I was getting older, and I was like, oh. So I left that day and I left early from DC I did not go back to work. I went and hung out with a friend when I got back here and she said, you need to come with me to pick up my daughter from school and then we'll go have some fun. Melissa (03:52): So driving up to pick up her daughter and take her to her horse barn after school, my friend said, I come here every day and I think they're making a movie over there. And I looked and there were lights and screens, and I was like, yeah. Oh my God, I love film and I've always loved film, and I am just so curious about it, how people made films, what it was like and what would it take and could I do it? I thought about that many times from the time I was a child. So there we are sitting on the side of the road and I said, I bet I know who it is, and she's looking at me, how the hell this could possibly be? And I said, well, it's a spooky looking setup, and it's an old creepy farmhouse, and it's Pennsylvania. It must be M. Night Shyamalan, it's got to be him. Melissa (04:46): And so he lives here and he does as scary movies and it looked like something he might do. So I pulled out my iPhone and I looked up his name and his website came up and on his website was a picture of where we were sitting. It was weird. It was this long driveway leading to a scary looking old farmhouse with all these crackly trees down the drive. And I'm looking at it and looking at his website and it says, M Night Shyamalan is making a micro budget film in Chester County, Pennsylvania. So I said, well, definitely it's him. And so there was a button on his website that said Charity Buzz, and I had never heard of that. So I hit it and it said, win a day on the set with M. Night Shyamalan. No. And so my friend is, yeah. Melissa (05:41): So my friend is like, well, obviously you have do this. So all of the proceeds from the bidding would go to the Milan Education Foundation, which I was reading about while I was sitting on the side of the road by the crackly trees. And the foundation was phenomenal. It's worldwide and they do great work. So I said, okay, so I can justify betting money to try to win a day on the set with him. Short story, I won the bet, and after putting in a lot of money against a dentist in New Jersey, they picked me and I was sitting at work at my desk and I knew they were going to call it. So I had my iPhone up and I was doing my work and meetings and my iPhones up and Bing, it came through Melissa, Davey, you have won a day on the set with M. Night Shyamalan . Melissa (06:32): And from there, within the month, I was with him for an eight to 10 hour day when he was filming his film, The Visit. And it was an amazing experience. I went there with absolutely no idea of what would happen. I figured he'd sit me in a seat and I'd get to watch. Well, he had me behind the camera asking me questions, telling me what he was doing. I was communicating with the crew. It was the most exhilarating experience I'd had in decades. I mean, it was amazing, so at lunch, yeah, Night and I were sitting together at lunch night. And he said, what do you do for work? And here I am trying to explain risk management insurance, social security, disability, blah, blah, blah, to this young guy, probably young enough to be my son if I'd had him very early. Melissa (07:38): And he had only been in film his whole life. So he kind of glazed over when I told him what I did. And he said, immediately, what do you really want to do? And I said, oh, I want your job. And he said, well, you better hurry up. And it was a silly conversation that today he would never remember, but it was when he said that, do you ever get that feeling in the pit of your stomach? Somebody just threw a brick at you. And I sat there and I thought, this is very odd that all of these circumstances have happened in this month with me thinking about work with me, going to DC with me, taking that afternoon off and going up the dirt road, and then sitting with him and him saying, well, what do you really want to do? And I just knew at that moment, I want to try to make a film. Melissa (08:34): And I went home late that night and my husband knew I was excited, and he was like, well, how did it go? And I said, John, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to be a filmmaker. And he is known me for a long time. So he kind of just looked at me curiously and said, oh, okay. And then the next day I went to the CEO and I said, look, I'm going to give you a very long notice, but I am going to leave the company and I'm going to make a film. So I did. I gave a year's notice because I needed to mentor somebody to take over something that I had created for the company. And during that time, I had the ability and the time to figure out how am I going to start this process of filmmaking that I've never had any connection to other than a love of film and a curiosity about how they're made. Debra (09:32): As you're describing this, I'm thinking that this is a romcom with your own life as the love interest. Melissa (09:40): Could be. I mean, it could be, I mean, is a pretty curious story. And it's funny how it all happened, but I also, I tell you all this because things like this happen to people every day. It does. People are thinking about what they want to do and something might stop them, or people meet somebody and they challenge them to think about something a little bit differently and they might ignore it. So to me, the signs are already there all the time, but are we really connecting to them and are we curious about them and do we see them and do we follow through? Yeah. Debra (10:21): Can we talk a little bit more about that? Because it makes sense when you tell the story. It's cinema, it's cinematic, and it's obvious that you had to do this thing. But I think in real life, many of us have those aha moments, but they're so tiny or there's so much noise, noise to info ratio going on in our lives that it's super easy to miss that or to be afraid of it or to go, I can't already, that weird roommate that's in our head all the time starts talking it down. Can you talk a little bit more? Did you feel any of that? How did you kind of work through it? Melissa (11:00): Yeah, I really didn't. It was almost like a gut reaction. And I think that because I was older, maybe if I had, honestly, if I was 50, I probably would've said, oh my God, I can't do that. I have all these responsibilities and I have this, and I have that and my job and making money and saving money for the future. I think that if I had been younger, I would've let those voices stop me. But because I was older and because I was already thinking about change, I was more open to it. So seeing the signs, I see signs all the time, and I've s