Interview with ISA award-winning Cam McHarg, director of “Deer Season”

ISA award-winning Cameron McHarg talks about his latest film, “Deer Season”, double awarded in the July season.

Cameron McHarg is an award-winning actor turned director whose latest film, “Deer Season”, has been recently garnering attention on the international film festival circuit, including the Actors Awards Best of Festival, the Best Actor winner of the IndieFest Award of Excellence, and now the Independent Short Awards for Best Actor and Best Director in 2018.

ISA: What made you decide to make “Deer Season”?

CM: My friend Hus Miller and I had been developing a feature that we’d written for us to act in and for me to direct, and we’ve gone through hell over the last few years to get it made. It’s had a lot of really high and low ups and downs, and I just started to get the itch to make something again in the meantime that would hopefully help to prove us as a creative team and sort of hit two birds with one stone. As far as the idea of it goes, I just had an image of two old friends going deer hunting together. It sort of cooked in the back of my head for a few months, and one day I just decided to sit down and write whatever comes out about it, and “Deer Season” was the result.

ISA: Do you prefer acting or directing?

CM: I get asked that a lot, and to me, it’s a tough question to isolate into just one or the other. They’re both about making movies and telling stories, and they both satisfy things within my need to do that in two completely different ways. I love to do both.

ISA: What’s next for you?

CM: I have another feature script that I’ve written that’s sort of a coming up age drama/thriller set in 1990 based in the same region and culture and class in the Pacific Northwest that “Deer Season” was set in. It’s called “Monroe Log”. It’s a sort of “Stand by Me” meets “Deliverance”. if I had to put it in that cliched Hollywood way. I plan to stay behind the camera for this one. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for years, and I’m really looking forward to it.

ISA: Thanks for your time, and congratulations on “Deer Season”.

CM: Thank you! It’s been an honor.