When Ryan Hartford was a student at Eudora High School, he believed his future might hold a career as a Navy Seal or a lawyer. His English teacher, Jeannette Bryant, had other ideas.
“She said, ‘No, you’re not going to do any of those. You should follow your dream. You should make movies,’” Hartford said.
From that point on, regardless of what he tried to do with his life, Hartford couldn’t stop thinking about movies.
Since graduating in 2005, Hartford has moved on to living in LA, working amidst some of the best and brightest in the media and film industry.
Hometown influence
During his time at EHS, Hartford was encouraged by friends, family and Bryant to develop his budding love for filmmaking.
“While my other friends were buying cars and saving for college, my first purchase was a camcorder, a little Sony handycam, and a computer with editing software on it,” Hartford said.
His parents, Tim and Teresa, said their son’s passion for filmmaking began to blossom around this time.
“I think that’s really where he got his passion, was while he was in high school,” Tim said. “He worked really hard on that in high school.”
Enlisting a friend’s help, Hartford planned to debut a short film, titled “Dating for Dummies,” at the school’s annual talent show. When he told Bryant about the project, she requested that he bring the film into class to be shared.
“She rolled in the TV, and she put my movie on and shared it with the class,” Hartford said.
Nearly a decade later, Bryant recalled why she wanted to share the video.
“I showed it to the class because he and his friends worked hard on it and deserved the recognition,” she said.
Hartford was amazed by the positive reactions and support he received from his classmates.
“I was like, wow, people support other people like this,” he said. “I didn’t realize it.”
After that first showing, instead of the typical curriculum of papers, Bryant gave her students the option to create dioramas, or short films for class projects, an opportunity that Hartford didn’t pass up.
“I made a project called Viking Voyager, which was toys floating around on a flip flop in a bathtub,” Hartford said. “Then I made a Robin Hood film where I danced to Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust.’”
Bryant recognized Hartford’s abilities almost immediately.
“Ryan was the filmmaker, and I remember addressing him as Mr. Spielberg,” she said.
“He had a great eye and a good sense of movement and flow. He has only gotten better with the years.”
Hartford was a unique student in numerous ways, including outside of his affinity for filmmaking.
“When I think about Ryan as a student, I remember a smiling face looking back at me,” Bryant said. “He was always friendly, open and polite. While some students were surly and moody, Ryan was always affable.”
A journey toward something bigger
Right after high school, Hartford moved to Texas to live with his grandmother. While there, he worked for Walmart, a choice that led him to seek out higher education.
“I just saw, like, this is the path without college. This is the path without goals or vision or a journey towards something bigger. This is what my life could be,” he said. “So it inspired me.”
At around the same time, Hartford’s parents moved from Eudora to Chicago and encouraged him to move out to live with them due to the fact that his affinity for filmmaking could benefit from proximity to Chicago’s film industry.
Upon moving to the Windy City, Hartford was cast as an extra in the film “The Express.” Attending a local community college for communications during the day, he spent his evenings playing a male cheerleader on the set of the football movie.
“It was the best time of my life. It was so much fun,” he said.
He worked on the set for two months, eventually finishing up and receiving his associate degree in communications. He moved back to Kansas to study film at the University of Kansas shortly thereafter.
After graduating from KU in 2013, Hartford made the leap, opting to move out to LA for the summer, simply to see if he could find work and gain experience. Shortly afterward, he landed an unpaid production assistant internship on the set of the film “Atlas Shrugged.”
Eager to please and prove himself, Hartford put his all into his time there.
“I always made sure when I was on set that, whatever I did, it was to the highest level, because I wanted them to notice me,” he said. “I wanted to be in that industry so badly. I was so hungry for it.”
Following his internship with “Atlas Shrugged,” Hartford was hard-pressed to find work. In a last ditch effort, he reached out to a contact he had made at Showtime who informed him that they had several unpaid internships available.
After sending in his resume for a distribution position, Hartford received a call informing him that he was selected for a phone interview.
Certain that he’d land the gig if he went in person, he flew out for the interview.
“I knew that if I went in and talked to them face to face, that they could not, would not, choose anybody else,” he said. “And they didn’t. They hired me as an unpaid intern.”
With much hard work, he climbed the ranks from intern to full-time employee in the distribution department and would go on to work for Showtime for four years.
From there, Hartford left Showtime to pursue a career in photography. He began his company, Ecliptic Media, after buying a DSLR camera and began working odd jobs.
From kids’ birthday parties to landscape photos, he kept building his resume, even going so far as to message out to businesses in search of more work. He was eventually contacted by podcaster Jordan Harbinger, who sought to hire him to shoot media for his podcast, the Jordan Harbinger Show.
In this role, Hartford covered podcasts starring such individuals as Howie Mandel, Chelsea Handler, Moby and Mike Posner. His largest opportunity arose, however, when Harbinger invited him to shoot media during a podcast featuring Kobe Bryant.
“It was amazing meeting Kobe Bryant,” Hartford said. “That was kind of where I was like, this is where I’m supposed to be at.”
Roughly six months later, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. As some of the last podcasters to feature the athlete, Hartford’s photograph of Bryant was featured in Newsweek and other large magazines.
“That was a pretty big moment,” Hartford said.
During his time in the industry, Hartford has also developed promotional media for Amazon, in particular the Amazon “Scout” robot.
One of the projects that Hartford is most proud of is a commercial that he directed and shot that later aired during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
His latest project is a children’s book, “Searching for Polaris,” which he originally wrote as a short film.
Hartford spoke casually of the short film to friends and family, all of whom suggested he continue with it, with one friend even sitting down to draw storyboards of the script as an animated film.
Inspired by his friend’s work, Hartford reached out to a friend at Dreamworks Animation who suggested he adapt the film into a children’s book, as they are more often made into feature-length films.
“So I hired an artist, and I spent months turning that film script into a children’s book,” Hartford said.
On retainer for the solar company Harness, which he had made a commercial for, Hartford’s plan was to save up enough money to fund this dream project. Everything came crashing down when that company went under.
“I didn’t have any funding or financing anymore,” he said.
With limited options, Hartford turned to Kickstarter to fund enough money to have the book illustrated and published. He has since exceeded his goal, and the book is expected to release in September 2024.
Hartford still has greater plans for “Searching for Polaris,” with hopes it will one day be adapted into film.
“I’d like it to be a feature film at some point,” he said.
Hartford said his biggest takeaway from his life since graduating high school is to enjoy the journey.
“Respect those moments. You may never get them again,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you should stop working toward it because you can always grow and you can always have more and better projects.”
To his parents, Hartford’s success has come as little surprise.
“He’s always been one that’s dreamed big,” his father said. “He really sets his sights on things and really gets after things to do what it takes to make it happen.”
For his former teacher Bryant, watching Hartford’s success has been one of her greatest joys.
“It has been fun to watch this sweet, goofy kid become a success and to see him bring his dreams to fruition,” she said. “I will continue to cheer him on, and I will always wish him success and happiness in all he does.”
Is there a Eudora alumni making an impact in the world who should be featured in The Eudora Times? Let us know! Email us at [email protected].
