Episode 183: Mary Rachel Gardner, Filmmaker, Heartist

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Today I sat down with Mary Rachel Gardner. She graduated from USC in 2013 with major studies in Acting, Business and Film Production; she also spent a semester abroad studying at a theatre conservatory in London.

Mary Rachel gained hands on experience and knowledge working at production companies, such as Steve Carell’s Carousel Productions and agencies such as William Morris Endeavor. She also worked as a PA on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she learned about the production and operation elements of running a live television show.

Since graduating from USC, Mary Rachel founded her own film company Kalliste Zoe Productions to explore, create and share original content through visual art and storytelling. Kalliste Zoe "Όμορφη Ζωή" means "A Beautiful Life" in Greek. She has developed many of her own independent projects including music videos, parodies, comedic sketches and short films. Mary Rachel has received honorary awards at film festivals, such as Audience Favorite and Best Screenplay, and successfully licensed some of her films overseas.

Under the Kalliste Zoe umbrella, she founded the Independent Cinema Showcase (ICS): to discover and share independent filmmakers’ visions from around the world as well as provide an opportunity for them to join a cinema family that connects and supports talented creators.

Episode 182: Elizabeth and Isabella Blake Thomas - Mother & Daughter Entertainment

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For today’s episode, there was a happy miscommunication. I was meant to interview Elizabeth Blake- Thomas, a director, via the internet, as I assumed she was in England. Well, she also assumed I was in England. Once we were on the phone, we realized we were actually down the street from each other. So, I jumped in my car and ran down to the Hollywood film festival, where I got to interview both Elizabeth, and her daughter Isabella Blake-Thomas. A very lucky two-fer! Together, Elizabeth (Director) and Isabella (Actor, Singer) have the production company Mother & Daughter Entertainment, whose film Unseen I caught while I was at the festival. It was an unnerving film about child trafficking. We walked out of the screening, and into an outdoor bungalow for this interview. Forgive the background noise, but try to soak up the ambiance.

For more information:

http://www.elizabethblakethomas.com
http://www.motheranddaughterent.com/

IMDb link
Instagram:

@elizabeth_b_t

@isabella_b_t

Twitter: @Elizabeth_B_T

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabethblakethomas/

Episode 181: Heidi Nel, Social Impact Executive

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Heidi Nel is the Executive Director of Good Films Impact. She previously served as the head of The Raben Group’s Impact Entertainment division where she provided pro‐social consultation to leaders in media, entertainment, and philanthropy. Clients included the American Film Institute, The Fledgling Fund, One Community, PBS, Sony Pictures TV, and YouTube, as well as independent filmmakers, artists, and change makers.

With nearly two decades working in entertainment, advocacy, strategic communications, and public engagement, Heidi is a leader in the social impact field, with unique insight and expertise in advancing cultural and policy change through stories and film. Her issue‐area expertise includes criminal justice reform, immigration, sexual assault, and gender and racial equity.

Prior to The Raben Group, Heidi was a Partner at Picture Motion where she led the Washington, D.C. office. She began her career at Ghost House Pictures where she co‐produced an original web and TV mini‐series for Comcast, and managed marketing at Lionsgate for Grindstone Entertainment films. In addition to her work on Just Mercy through the development of the Represent Justice campaign, she has led impact strategy and successful engagement campaigns tied to award‐winning films, such as Batkid Begins, The Best of Enemies, Food Chains, Happening, The Human Experiment, The Hunting Ground, The Invisible War, The Return, Racing Extinction, and The Rape of Recy Taylor.

Heidi has guest lectured at Boston University and the George Washington University, and was an adjunct instructor at Duke University in the Sanford School of Public Policy. She has been featured in Variety, Real Screen, Screen Daily, Washington Life Magazine, and HuffPost; has been recognized by the Case Foundation as a “Millennial Leader to Follow”; and received the Media Impact Award from the PVBLIC Foundation and the United Nations Office for Partnerships. Originally from South Africa, Heidi grew up in Colorado and attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where she majored in modern dance. She is currently completing an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband and dog. 

Episode 180: Kathleen Courtney, UPM

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Kathleen has enjoyed working in the film and television industry for over 30 years. She has worked “on location” most of that time, shooting across this country as well as internationally. Over her career, she has served as Producer, Production Executive, Production Manager and Production Coordinator on feature films and most recently on TV. She is currently working on the Netflix hit 13 Reasons Why. Previous credits include Chance, Steve Jobs, San Andreas, The Boy Next Door, and Because of Winn-Dixie. At one point, she was the head of production at a company called The Film Department.

We talked all about her career, how she helped organize Production Coordinators, start the Frog & Frigate, and continue her career, even after moving out of Los Angeles. It takes effort, but it’s possible.

Episode 179: Jessie Levandov and Nina Reyes, Co Founders & Directors of Mala Forever

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Jessie Levandov and Nina Reyes are the Co-Founders & Directors of Mala Forever. Mala Forever is an award-winning, women-run film and digital studio based in LA and NYC.

They develop and produce films, new media, and commissioned work that centers unheard voices. They are redefining the future of filmmaking through equitable production practices, and their growing community-based platform is a cultural hub for the radical femme revolution. 

Jessie is an award-winning community-based filmmaker, creative director, and educator. Her queer documentary series Signified was presented by the Guggenheim Lab, and her short film The Greggs won the Spirit Award at Slamdance. Her work has been featured in publications such as Teen Vogue, Huffington Post and Them. Jessie is committed to storytelling as a tool for social justice, and served as the longtime program director of Youth Documentary Workshop at New York’s Educational Video Center.

Nina is a countercultural filmmaker and creative director whose work is grounded in her point of view as a mixed-race first-generation Mexican-American and Jewish woman. Her feature-length screenplay La Paz was a finalist for the 2017 Latino Screenwriting Project; her short films, Organism and Invisible Men, have won press and played at festivals around the world including Outfest, Frameline, and HBO: New York Latino Film Festival. They both are fellow NYU alums with BFA’s from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts – go violets.

You can follow them on the social media @_MalaForever_

Episode 178: Natalie Metzger, Writer, Director, Producer

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For this episode, I spoke with Natalie Metzger, who is the VP of Development and Production for Vanishing Angle. Natalie is a Spirit Award nominated producer whose credits include Jim Cummings’ newest film THE WEREWOLF, GREENER GRASS (Sundance, SXSW), THUNDER ROAD (Grand Jury Award - SXSW), THE ROBBERY (Sundance), MATPAT’S GAME LAB (Streamy Award), Lil Dicky’s FREAKY FRIDAY (over 506 million views), HYDRANGEA (Vimeo Staff Pick), THE ARRIVAL (Jury Award - Napa Valley Film Festival), THE STOP (Vimeo Staff Pick), virtual reality miniseries GLOBAL GAMER, among numerous others. 

Her directing credits include AT&T original documentary ALONE IN THE GAME (AFI Docs, Frameline, Outfest); healthcare documentary SPECIAL BLOOD (Best Feature Documentary - CWFF); PSA “Topless Women Talk NFL” (featured in Washington Post, Huffington Post, Vice); and numerous award-winning commercials and short films. 

Also an accomplished writer, Metzger won the Gold Prize at the Page International Screenwriting Awards for her sci-fi script IMMORTAL.

Metzger holds a Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts and a Bachelor of Arts from Emory University

Episode 171: Ana Lake and Jennie Nystrom from the webseries "Tracy Buckles"

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I spoke with Ana Lake and Jennie Nystrom about their webseries Tracy Buckles. 

A Los Angeles-based actress originally from the Central Coast, Ana Lake has been immersed in a love of film since childhood. She made her public debut in the short film Finding Home, For Now that she wrote and starred in. The film had its world premiere at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival in 2017. She plays the title role in Tracy Buckles. 

A graduate student of Clinical Psychology at Antioch University, Jennie Nystrom is an accomplished producer who enjoys collaborating with her husband on all aspects of film production. Her artistic capabilities are eclectic, and she has a deep passion for story supervision, set design, hair, make-up and costume. She is a producer, among many other jobs, on Tracy Buckles.

I spoke with both of them and we basically solved the problems of the world.

Episode 170: Emily Aguilar, Filmmaker

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Emily Aguilar has been out of college for about five minutes and has already made and sold three feature films. She is an award-winning film director in Los Angeles known for creating emotional impact for her audience in narrative films. She is the director and producer for The MomentEM Productions and has films distributed by Bridgestone, Pure Flix, The Dove Foundation and Amazon Prime. 

She is the founder of the 5th annual Global Impact Film Festival held in Washington, DC every August. A Washington DC native of Latino heritage, she has a competitive edge who aims to provoke, educate and inspire her audience in both her creative and commercial productions. Emily is currently in post production on her third feature film, "Brie's Bake Off Challenge." 

You can find more about Emily and follow her here:

Social Media Handles: @themomentem
FB: www.facebook.com/themomentem
IG: www.instagram.com/themomentem

Website Links:
Global Impact Film Festival: www.globalimpactdc.org
The MomentEM Productions: www.themomentem.com

Fundraiser Link: https://www.gofundme.com/briesbakeoffmovie

Episode 138: Julia Camara, Filmmaker, Writer

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To kick off this year, I sat down with writer and filmmaker Julia Camara. Originally from Brazil, Julia has made several award-winning shorts. She has also written the feature films Area Q, Open Road, and Occupants. She recently released her experimental feature film called In Transit, which won Best Experimental film at the Glendale International Film Festival and is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video.

We talked about her career, her films, and spent a minute unpacking the Kavanagh hearings, as we recorded during that week. Somehow, we kept our sense of humor, because we laugh a lot about the absurdity of gender inequality.

Episode 113: Sarah McGrail, VFX Producer

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Sarah is the Director of VFX Sales at Picture Shop and has been a Supervising VFX Producer for the last decade. She is a wealth of knowledge of that side of the business, which is a side not that many people are expert in.

Some of her credits include Veep, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black – basically my streaming queue.

And she taught me the word sanctamom. Talk about descriptive…

Episode 112: Allegra Clegg, Production Executive, Producer

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Allegra is the Senior Vice President of Physical Production at Paramount Pictures. Before becoming an executive, Allegra was a Producer and Production Manager on no less than four Transformer movies, along with Paranormal Activity 4 and a favorite of mine, The American President. If you need to see even more credits, here is the link to her IMDB page. She is a serious badass. One might even call her the Michael Bey whisperer.

We talked about what it took to rise to the top of the production world and how she made the shift to a studio job. What is important? What matters? What factors into your important career decisions?

Episode 111: Jeanette Volturno, Production Executive

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Jeanette is the Head of Production for Blumhouse. Her credits include Get Out, Insidious, The Purge, Paranormal Activity and approximately eleventy-hundred other things. She is also the founder of Catchlight Films and an entrepreneur. She has several projects that she will tell us about.

Jeanette’s story starts with a fiery redhead who could light up Las Vegas with her power and goes through visual effects, horror films and releasing a software app for worldwide filmmakers, and even collaborating with yours truly on an audio series. She has her hands in a lot of pots and makes it look pretty easy. I assure you, it’s not.

And this important tidbit: Lure them in with snacks.

Episode 101: Kayden Phoenix, Filmmaker, Writer, Director, Producer

Kayden is a filmmaker – Writer, Director, Producer. Kayden is a native Angelino, Chicana, activist, storyteller. She is all about diversity and inclusion. A passionate and prolific filmmaker (6 shorts just last year), she hires female crews, and believes in a rising tide raising all boats.

Kayden is currently working on a series of films about Latina superheroes, which sounds like something you have not seen before. She’s not describing her characters as "strong" female leads because that should be inherent.

I know I say this a lot, but Kayden is another one you should be watching.

And here are more ways to reach Kayden:

IG: @kaydenphoenix

FB: /phoenixkayden

aphoenixrises.com

Episode 79: Alexandra Boylan, Actor, Writer, Director

Alexandra is an Actor, Writer and Producer.  She has two production companies – Mirror Tree Productions produces Horror Films and Mustard Seed Entertainment produces Faith-based Family Films. Because there is room for both.

She moved to Albuquerque and started producing and distributing independent films, which kept growing in size and budget as she got bigger and better deals.

Alexandra is also a key contributor to Ms in the Biz, which you can have a look at here.

And this – your poster is way more important than you think.

“Sometimes you have to deconstruct your life in order to reconstruct it.”