Episode 185: Kate Chamuris, Filmmaker

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Kate Chamuris. Kate is a producer & director who recently won a Gold, Student Academy Award and a BAFTA student award for producing the American Film Institute short film MILLER & SON. She also produced the AFI thesis films, BALLOON and IF THIS IS WRONG. For the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, Kate produced UNSPEAKABLE and BLOCKS.  

Her directing work includes the comedic short A SARI FOR PALLAVI (winner, Best Comedy Short at Rhode Island International Film Festival).  

Prior to narrative filmmaking, Kate worked as an advertising account manager for ROLEX Global at J. Walter Thompson. While there she produced the branded feature documentary “Deepest Dive: The Story of the Trieste,” directed by Fisher Stevens that aired on National Geographic and BBC Worldwide. Kate resides in Los Angeles, CA and produces feature films for dir/writer Jeremy Merrifield and his production company, Dream Three Films.

You can watch her two Oscar Qualified Live Action Shorts at the links below:

BALLOON - http://bit.ly/Balloon_SOTW

MILLER & SON - http://bit.ly/MillerSon_SOTW

Social handle on Instagram & Twitter - @katechamuris 

Episode 184: Thérèse Plummer, Actor and Audiobook Narrator

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Today I spoke over the internet with Thérèse Plummer. Therese is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator working in New York City. She has recorded over 400 audio books for various publishers. She won the 2019 Audie Award for her work on the multicast, Sadie by Courtney Summers for Macmillan Audio,  and was nominated for the Multicast, Any Man, by Amber Tamblyn for Harper Audio and her solo narration for The Rogue: Planets Shaken by Lee W. Brainard for Podium Publishing. 

The American Library Association (ALA) awarded her work on Sourdough by Robin Sloan as part of the 2018 Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration for Adult Listeners. Thérèse has been nominated for 5 Audie Awards in 2018. She was named AudioFile’s Best Voices of the Year in 2015 for her work on Robyn Carr’s A New Hope.

Thérèse is the voice of Maya Hansen in the Marvel Graphic Motion Comic Ironman Extremis, Dr. Fennel in Pokemon and for various Yu-Gi-Oh characters. Television Guest Star Roles on The Good Wife, Law and Order SVU and Virgin River for Netflix.   

You can imagine how intimidating this was. She told me how she broke in – it was a series of preparation meeting miracles, and she spoke about what everyone wants to know – how do you voice those sex scenes?

Episode 176: Eline Mets, Writer, Producer, Motocross Racer

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Eline Mets is creating a series about women in motocross. She got tired of waiting for someone else to do it, so like a real badass woman, she’s doing it herself. Originally from Estonia, Eline is a motocross champion and the first woman in Canada to jump her dirt bike onto an airbag. Passionate about motorcycles and filmmaking, Eline is dedicated to telling stories of badass women. With a background in creating non-fiction content for years, Diaries of Badass Chicks is her directorial scripted series debut. She started a crowd funding for a webseries, and then realized it’s much bigger than that when she received videos and encouragement from women all over the world.
www.badasschicks.tv

Episode 175: Marquette Jones, Filmmaker, Professor, Podcaster

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Marquette Jones began her filmmaking journey in her hometown, Youngstown, Ohio. Marquette is an alumna of New York University’s Film and Television Production graduate program. Before becoming a filmmaker, Marquette was a public interest attorney and social entrepreneur in Oakland, California.  

Her feature film screenplay, AFTER THE JUMP, http://www.afterthejumpmovie.com/, which is currently in development, was recently selected for the Athena Screenwriting Lab in Los Angeles and was a finalist in the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival, Broad Humor Film Festival as well as a semi-finalist in the Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition. It was also selected to participate in the Women in Film/ Sundance Institute’s Film Financing and Strategy Intensive.

Her directing work includes FORGIVING CHRIS BROWN, ROUND ON BOTH SIDES, TUNK, HEROES WANTED and STREETS 2 SUITES (lensed by Bradford Young).  Her films have been featured on Amazon Video, PBS, Showtime, KweliTV, Aspire TV, BET, IFC, StreamPlix and other broadcast & digital outlets. She has also directed several commercial spots, which led to both a Telly Award and Aurora Award for excellence in storytelling.

As a producer, Marquette’s credits include Andrea Williams’ SPOONFUL OF SUGAR, Alrick Brown’s ADVENTURES OF SUPERN*GGER, and Tamika Guishard’s JACKIE. Her past filmmaking-related awards include: New York University’s Warner Bros. Production Award, Panasonic‘s “P2 for a Cause” Grand Prize Winner, Fotokem Film Processing Grant, Woods Hole Film Festival, Best Short Screenplay Winner for “Free’s Rain”, ProMotion Pictures / Heineken Branded Entertainment Shorts Competition Winner, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival Best Short Narrative, and First Run Festival’s Producing Award.

When she is not busy writing, producing or directing, Marquette hosts the Directing Magic podcast,http://www.directingmagic.com/, and teaches creative media at The University of Alabama.

Episode 174: Leslie Belzberg, Producer

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Leslie is a producer, most notably working with John Landis, on all of your favorite things, such as Three Amigos, Beverly Hills Cop III, Coming to America, Trading Places, Thriller, Sliders, Dream On, Blues Brothers 2000, Honey I Shrunk the Kids series, Crazy Heart and the list goes on and on and on, before she transitioned to being a production executive in house.

At the time of this recording, she was at Gaumont, but has since transitioned to the Head of Production for Imagine Entertainment.

Leslie has always worked toward diversity, even and especially when she was the only woman in the room. She has incredible perspective and experience and it was such an honor to get to have this conversation.

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 169: Lorna Landvik, Author

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Lorna is the author of twelve novels, including the best-selling Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Oh My Stars, Best to Laugh, Once in a Blue Moon Lodge, and my very favorite, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.

She has also performed as a stand-up comedian and actor, and annually does her one woman show, Party in the Rec Room in Minneapolis. She serves margaritas to the audience while doing improv for the whole show. She’s a riot and this was fun.

Her brand new novel: Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes): A Novel, is available now at booksellers everywhere, and here.

Episode 167: Farhoud Meybodi, Wayfarer Entertainment

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As EVP of Creative at Wayfarer Entertainment, Farhoud Meybodi sets and executes Wayfarer’s overall creative vision across feature film, documentary, series, and commercial content, further strengthening the company’s mission to create entertainment that compels social change.

At his core, Farhoud is passionate about storytelling that entertains, educates, and inspires. He also believes in the transformational power of empathy and shared human experience to heal the political-social divide of the present day.

Mostly recently, Farhoud directed and executive produced several episodes of Wayfarer’s flagship series, My Last Days. He received a Television Academy Honors Award, Muse and Clio for his work on the series. Farhoud also executive produced and wrote Man Enough, for which he received a Telly and Adweek Arc award, and created Project Upgrade, an unscripted series featuring YouTube stars, The Merrell Twins, as they set out to design and build a new consumer product with the help of successful female mentors.

Farhoud serves as a board member of the Wayfarer Foundation, The Muslim Public Affairs Council, as well as Loyola Marymount University’s Business School A-LIST Marketing Pathway, where he teaches a course on Branded Content for Social Impact.

We talked about many things, but one of them was how to invite men into the conversation about equality that promotes healing and forward movement.

See more of Farhoud’s work here:

My Last Days: Meet Anthony: https://www.facebook.com/mylastdayssoulpancake/videos/391034138419712/

Man Enough: #metoo: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreManEnough/videos/2129001024007697/

Episode 166: Maria Mealla, Filmmaker

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Maria was born in Bolivia and raised by storytellers that encouraged her to pursue filmmaking, a path which eventually led her San Francisco. She ventured into movie-making in 2010 and learned the craft through work trade by collaborating with other talented filmmakers on their projects. She has since written, produced and directed the feature film Women and Cigarettes, a collection of romantic short films titled Business Affairs, and a handful of shorts on lower-middle class millennials. She is the chapter leader of the SF Cinefemme Director’s Collective as well as an active member of Film Fatales. Her most recent film Bring me an Avocado, premiered in March and took home the audience award at Cinequest. When she’s not working on narrative films, she freelances as a video producer throughout the Bay Area.

We talked about her path to filmmaking, the state of inclusion within commercial advertising, and her film Bring me an Avocado.

Episode 165: Lisa Hammer, Filmmaker, Writer, Musician

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Lisa Hammer is a film director, writer and musician. She is best recognized as the voice of Triana Orpheus on the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. She has written/directed independent dark comedy feature and short films such as Pox and Pus$bucket, and the CMJ Film Festival winner The Invisible Life of Thomas Lynch which she co-wrote and co-directed with James Merendino (SLC Punk). Lisa's films have won awards from dozens of festivals including: the CMJ Film Festival, Telly Awards, Hugo Awards, It Came From Kuchar Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Canada International Screenplay Festival, Ontario Film Festival, Antimatter, Indieworks and two from New York Press. She has had one-woman shows at the Olympia Film Festival, Perth International Film Festival, and the Duolun Art Museum in Shanghai, China. Her surrealist silent film Empire of Ache was recently acquired by The Getty Museum’s feminist film collection, curated by Miranda July. Her storytelling abilities support not only writing, but her editing, gaining her the reputation for saving shelved films as “The Edit Doctor”.

Hammer’s most recent film The Sisters Plotz, starring Eve Plumb (The Brady Bunch) was recently acquired by Amazon Prime, the Roku Channel and FandangoNow. Hammer co-created and co-writes the original series Maybe Sunshine now on the Seeka TV channel on Roku. Her new "Environmental-Comedy-Sci Fi- Horror" screenplay Ghostapus is winning and placing in dozens of festivals and screenplay contests and is in development. 

We talked about her career and the gritty days in New York where you could have rent control and live as an artist.

Episode 164: Sigrid Gilmer, Writer

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Today I talked with Sigrid Gilmer. Sigrid makes black comedies that are historically bent, totally perverse, joyfully irreverent and concerned with issues of identity, pop culture and contemporary American society. Sigrid burst onto the national theater scene with her play Harry and the Thief, an action film/historical/time travel play about a thief who is blackmailed into traveling back in time to deliver a cache of arms to Harriet Tubman. It has since been produced across the country, including runs at the Pavement Group (Chicago), the Know Theatre (Cincinnati), and the Skylight Theatre (LA).

Additional select works include Slavey (Clubbed Thumb), Seed: A Weird Act of Faith, It’s All Bueno (Cornerstone Theater Company), Frilly, and White 3: Manifestdestinyland. Her television work includes: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix) and Claws (TNT).

Sigrid’s play Mama Metal is playing right now at IAMA Theatre Company at the Atwater Village Theatre through June 23rd. You can get tickets here iamatheatre.com.

Episode 163: Angela Cohen, Actress, Writer, Filmmaker

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I spoke with Angela Cohen for episode 163. Angela is a writer and an actress with a degree from Emory University in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. In 2012, Angela founded Charley Bear Productions Inc, with a vision to affect change through art, showcasing the female perspective in front of and behind the camera. Charley Bear produced the dramatic short film, Without Grace, starring Angela alongside award winning actress Ann Dowd. It is wonderful and you should watch it.

In fact, you should watch it today, as it is in the All Voices Film Festival on Amazon through June 17th. Finalists are based upon the numbers of views in the time period. Angela would love to recoup her angel investor’s generous contribution in making this film and stir your heart with emotion in the process. It's 18 minutes- you have 18 minutes!  

Here's the link to watch Without Grace. Tell your friends! 

Angela is fascinated with the brain and the overlap of art and science. The synergy of this will be actualized in her work in Virtual Reality, which she will tell us all about.

Episode 155: Kaili Hollister, Actor

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Kaili is an actor with The Actors’ Gang in Los Angeles. Her film debut was in October Sky, and she has been acting on stage and in film ever since. We talked about her reluctant yet guided journey into acting, meeting Tim Robbins and joining The Actors’ Gang, and living every day with the responsibility of an artist. And this - it can be a long journey in your body to joy.

And, she has a beautiful love story.

This is episode is little long. But, trust me, as long as I am moved to tears, I’m not cutting it. And that happened to me a lot while editing. You are warned.

Episode 153: Mari Meyer, Writer, Journalist, Filmmaker and Actor

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Mari is a writer, journalist, filmmaker and actor. She holds a BA in Journalism and completed the 3 Year Conservatory program at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York.

As a journalist, she has over ten years of experience in news, art and entertainment journalism, both in the Netherlands and in the U.S. She is producer and director of VAGILANT, a short documentary film about the Women's March on Washington and was the lead producer on music video project A Whole New World. She co-wrote, produced and starred in The Soothing System, an award winning narrative short film. In 2018, Female Filmmakers Fuse Film Festival in Los Angeles named her Filmmaker of the Year.

We talked about her new projects in development, her work within the prison system in New York and how finding your voice and telling your story, as cliché as that is starting to sound, is still imperative.

You can find more about Mari here.

Episode 150: Amanda Blumenthal, Intimacy Coordinator

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Today we have something new - new for the podcast and new for the industry. I sat down with Amanda Blumenthal who is one of a handful of people working in the new position called “Intimacy Coordinator.” She is currently working on the HBO show called Euphoria. She breaks down for us what that job really entails, how her unique background, education and work history prepared her perfectly for it, and the real need for this position on a set. It makes total sense and it’s one of those things that makes you hit your forehead with your palm and ask why haven’t we always had this!? You can reach Amanda via her website here: intimacycoordinator.com.

Episode 145: Eden Young and Catherine Natale, Creators

I got to speak with the creators of the webseries called All About Manos – Eden Young and Catherine Natale. Eden is an actor and stand-up comedian turned creator and Catherine is also an actor and writer turned creator. They will tell us all about the show and how they came to do it. You can find All About Manos at allaboutmanostv.com and on a bunch of digital platforms including Amazon Prime. They are killing it on the festival circuit also.

We recorded remotely, and it must have been during Mercury Retrograde, because it took us several tries on several platforms before we got something to work. So, the audio quality could be better, but this conversation couldn’t be. They are a delight.

Episode 143: Lisa Ebersole, Talented Multi

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For today’s episode I sat down with creator Lisa Ebersole. Lisa created and stars in the webseries called “37 Problems,” which you can find on Amazon Prime and Who Ha Ha. The series is a comedy about a woman facing the end of her fertility and what she is going to do about it.

She is also a playwright, whose plays have been produced off-broadway and regionally, and a screenwriters coach. We talked about what it takes to raise the money and produce a webseries and get distribution. It’s a whole thing.

check out the BRIC Foundation Summit here: https://bricfoundation.org/2019summit/

Episode 142: Laura Maria Censabella, Playwright

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This is my month for playwrights, and today I have another very special episode with playwright Laura Maria Censabella. She wrote the play, Paradise which was commissioned by Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and was a runner-up for the 2016 Saroyan/Paul Playwriting Prize for Human Rights. And lucky for us in LA, the West Coast premiere of Paradise, presented by Viola Davis’ and Julius Tennon’s  JuVee Productions and American Oasis,  is opening at the Odyssey Theatre, January 26th at 8pm and running through February 17th. You can get tickets at www.plays411.com/paradise.

Laura is an award winning playwright, a daytime Emmy winning screenwriter and teaches
playwriting and new play development at the New School for Drama, where she has been honored with the Distinguished University-Wide Teaching Award. She graduated from Yale University and is currently writing the screenplay for Paradise.

check out the BRIC Foundation Summit here: https://bricfoundation.org/2019summit/

Episode 139: Anne Kenney and Lane Allison, Writer and Director, Last Call

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Anne Kenney, a television writer known for Outlander and Switched at Birth among many others has written a play. It’s called Last Call and it’s being put up at the Open Fist Theatre company, directed by Lane Allison, who you will remember from this podcast, episode 52. I was lucky enough to have them both in studio to talk about it. And by in studio, I mean at my dining room table. We talked all about the play, and Anne’s career as a tv writer. This is a goodie.

CLICK THE POSTCARD BELOW TO GET TICKETS:

Episode 133: Ally Iseman, Actor, Writer, Producer

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Ally is an actor, writer, and producer. She has worked on stage in productions like Jekyll & Hyde, as well as on screens big and small including shows like American Housewife, Criminal Minds, and Days of Our Lives. Ally makes an appearance in Nicole Conn's newest feature film Nesting Doll, in Jorge Xolalpa Jr.'s latest feature A Giant Without A Head, and as a lead opposite Ray Wise and Bonnie Bedelia in the feature film Life On The Rocks.

Ally has spoken on numerous panels about gender parity and intersectional, inclusive feminism and does her best to align herself with work that has an eye on advocacy. Her internationally award-winning film Wedlocked, an LGBTQ comedy about gay divorce toured at over 45 film festivals worldwide securing digital, broadcast and theatrical distribution.

Most recently she can be seen in the feature film Solver, hosting the new plant-based food travel show The Road Less Eaten, and in her gender parity comedy series Flip the Script, which is being produced in partnership with Women In Film. 

Ally is driven, fearless, and hilarious. Grab your tea and enjoy some time with us.

You can find out more about Ally here: www.allyiseman.com.