Three years or so ago, Mark Gantt found himself dissatisfied with the way his acting career was progressing. In fact, it was barely inching forward. His girlfriend had booked a film and a TV pilot, but Gantt was spinning his wheels, unable to get many auditions or meetings with casting directors. His one dependable creative outlet was his acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.

One day a woman in class complained that her career was, like Gantt’s, stalled, while her sister was booking work regularly. The teacher, Allen Barton, advised, “You’ve just got to build your own door and walk through it.”
Barton’s edict touched a nerve with Gantt, setting him on a course that would result in a starring role in an original web series and feature film, both entitled The Bannen Way. Gantt would play Neil Bannen, a suave chick-magnet of a thief who finds himself torn between the examples set by his chief-of-police father and his criminally inclined uncle.

Gantt says of the moment he decided to produce original content. “I’ve been on sets and I actually directed a couple of shorts and some music videos back in 2003 and 2004. So I knew how to create stuff.”

Gantt had begun working in the industry in 1991, starting as a production assistant, then a driver, and finally an assistant prop master. He had developed a pattern in which six months each year were devoted to prop-department work and six to his acting and other creative pursuits. Now he was ready to push forward fulltime with the latter.