How Savannah Ostler Went Through Hollywood and Back with Buster Brooks

Everyone who dreams of being in the movies, or of making them, faces the same big question: “Do I need to go to Hollywood?” Utah native and writer-director Savannah Ostler is a living example of both the “yes” and “no” answers to that question. Buster Brooks, her third feature, premieres on Friday, February 27 at the Zions Indie Film Fest, and it’s a lighthearted comedy about a small-town farm boy who heads to Hollywood with his pet rooster in tow. The film is the next big step in a journey Ostler began when she was four years old.

“To start, I would have to go all the way back to when I was four years old and seeing The Lion King, the OG, in theaters,” Ostler says. “Going on that emotional rollercoaster, that journey, with people in a dark room with some popcorn and soda, and experiencing those emotions, crying when Mufasa died… from then on, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell stories. And my favorite way of telling stories is making movies.” Ostler built those dreams early, making home movies, and at 15, she stepped onto her first major film set as an extra on Disney Channel’s High School Musical (2006). Watching director Kenny Ortega (Newsies, Hocus Pocus) at work was transformative. “Everything about it: the spectacle, the lights, the camera, the way Kenny Ortega was working with the actors and blocking — he had this whole vision,” Ostler says. “And it just cemented me further into realizing, ‘This is what I need to do. I’m gonna do it.’”

Ostler studied screenwriting and film production at East Hollywood High School under Mario DeAngelis, a prolific Utah director and producer known for Limbo (2025), Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke (2024), and Friend Request (2013). “I graduated with nothing but a script and a dream,” Ostler says. Working at the Megaplex Theaters at Thanksgiving Point, she saved money and moved to Los Angeles — only to discover how crowded the dream factory could be. “I quickly learned that if you go to any Starbucks in LA, there’s like ten people with laptops with screenplays,” Oster says. “I wasn’t special. So it was kind of the reality wake-up call that I needed.” After years of struggling to get a $1 million budget to shoot her first script, Ostler realized she needed to try a different approach. “What if I tailor the story more and cater it to a lower budget and try to raise as much as I can, and we just make it? That’s what I did with my first film,” Ostler says. Moving back to Utah in 2018, she made Twice The Dream (2019), writing, directing, producing, and co-starring — with DeAngelis serving as an associate producer. The film secured a regional theatrical run and distribution, and Ostler followed it with what she describes as a “soft sequel,” Even In Dreams, in 2021.

Now comes Buster Brooks, premiering in Utah before what Ostler hopes will be a wide audience embrace. The film follows Buster (Matt Cornett, Summer of 69), an earnest farm boy chasing stardom in Hollywood: navigating absurd agencies, sketchy-costumed characters on Hollywood Boulevard, and the chaotic tiers of the entertainment industry. The story, Ostler explains, is deeply personal. “The story of Buster Brooks really came from my own experiences,” she says, recalling moving from the small town of Alpine to Los Angeles and arriving with “rose colored glasses,” only to confront a harsher reality. “You show up on Hollywood Boulevard and people are puking in the street,” Ostler says. “It’s kind of chaos.” Ostler adds that the industry itself can feel labyrinthine: “Every single day, hundreds if not thousands of young actors get off a Greyhound bus hoping to just get their chance at stardom. And it’s a lot more complex than that.” The tension between Hollywood’s myth and its modern machinery fuels Buster’s journey. “For some reason, I was just randomly sitting in my kitchen, and I had this idea — what if this cowboy shows up on Boulevard with a rooster, trying to make it as an actor?” Ostler says.

Though set in Arkansas and Los Angeles, the production remained rooted in Utah, shooting in Logan, Orem, and Salt Lake, with some locations shooting in Los Angeles for authenticity. For Ostler, each film represents growth — creatively and logistically — and her team of collaborators just gets bigger. “I think it’s just a continuous learning journey as artists and storytellers,” Ostler says. “I’m really excited to be a part of this community.”

With Buster Brooks, Ostler brings her journey full circle, telling a story about chasing Hollywood dreams while proving that those dreams don’t have to be confined to a single zip code. By building her films from Utah outward, she has carved out a path that blends ambition with pragmatism and sincerity. Whether Buster finds the stardom he seeks is part of the fun, but Ostler’s own trajectory already offers a clear answer to that lingering question: sometimes you have to leave home to understand the dream, and sometimes you have to come back to make it real.

Read more film interviews by Senior Staff Writer Patrick Gibbs:
James Whitaker Brings an AI Apocalypse into Focus in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Noah Wyle’s Direct Approach to The Pitt Season Two