LADYPOINTS is a web series celebrating women who have come to define success in their own terms and seeks to find out how they do the awesome things that they do while balancing 'real world' responsibilities like paying the rent.
Hustle is a video game-themed series about two WOC chasing creative dreams while fighting the supervillain of unequal opportunity.
There are only 12 hours left, and Rekha is still $640 away from her stretch goal! There are a lot of cool rewards for donating to a WOC-centric film. Take a look!
Read more about Rekha in her #FilmmakerFriday feature.
Hustle is a video game-themed series about two WOC chasing creative dreams while fighting the supervillain of unequal opportunity.
There are only 12 hours left, and Rekha is still $640 away from her stretch goal! There are a lot of cool rewards for donating to a WOC-centric film. Take a look!
Read more about Rekha in her #FilmmakerFriday feature.
Vote for Hustle as Indiewire’s Project of the Week!
Rekha Shankar’s web series about “two WOC best friends chasing their creative goals while battling the supervillains of racism and unequal opportunity” is up for vote. Show your support for a project by and about women of color! There’s 1 day left!
The Kickstarter has 11 days left! Rekha reached her goal, but there are still lots of cool rewards to snag (like a reward bundle of work by women artists!).
Read Rekha’s #FilmmakerFriday feature here. Here’s a sneak preview of a scene from Hustle!:
www.cinderama.com
Instagram: @cinderblockade
Facebook: The Man With The Western Hat
Tell us about what you do. What’s your latest project?
I'm a writer and director based out of Brooklyn focused mainly on narrative work, but I also dabble in music videos.
My latest short film, The Man With The Western Hat, is making its world premiere at the Big Apple Film Festival on November 5th, 2016 at 5:30PM at Village East Cinemas.
It's about a young woman who, while trying to reconcile her feelings with her latest paramour, becomes intrigued by the handsome cowboy from her latest movie obsession. She soon discovers he may not be the hero she expected.
It's got a little bit of everything: comedy, adventure, western, romance, some light stalking.
What got you interested in filmmaking?
I've always been interested in the traditional arts, like drawing and painting. And then one day I saw the movie, The Princess and the Warrior by Tom Tykwer. It was strange, surreal and sometimes twisted modern take on the fairytale. I didn't know movies could look and feel that hyper real and yet dreamy and nightmarish. There's a really extensive tracheotomy scene in the beginning of the movie. It reminds me of Grimm fairytales. That Rumpelstiltskin story is so weird, and is also one of my favorites.
What lessons have you learned from your filmmaking adventures?
Shotlisting, scouting, and pre-production are everything. This one is pretty obvious, but needs saying. The more decisions you made and solidified during prep will make the shoot go a heck of a lot better because sh*t happens. A lot. A lot of sh*t happens in this jungle we call NYC.
Less is more. Embrace the constraints of your budget. Working with restrictions leads to creative solutions.
Embrace your mistakes. I always have to remind myself of this one. Again, sh*t happens and I'd say that mistakes are a blessing in disguise.
Be humble. If your actor is struggling with a line, change it. It's probably too clunky. You're not Shakespeare because Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. Just be humble and gracious always. Unless someone's being a jerk, cuz ain't nobody got time for that.
What is something in filmmaking that you’re intrigued by and want to learn more about?
I'm intrigued by exploring the ever increasing lowlight capability of new cameras. Will big lights become obsolete? Maybe...
I'm also intrigued by new virtual reality technology and how people will use that technology to tell new stories. It's terrifying to imagine being completely immersed, like being in a watertank. It could also be so fascinating.
What kind of projects do you see yourself working on in the future?
I'm currently writing a horror feature, a comedic web series, a sci fi feature. All at the same time. Just kidding. I suppose you could say I'm a genre-ist. I find comedy fascinating because humor is so specific to personal taste and if you can make your brand of humor reach a broad audience, that's quite an accomplishment. Horror is equally fascinating for me because it's trying to find the underlying fears of society and bringing those fears to the surface. I'm interested in delving into what makes people tick.
If you’re a woman or non-binary filmmaker, we’d love to feature you! Click here for info on how to submit.
Rekha, our very talented, former Ladypoints producer, is raising funds for her new web series, Hustle. Consider donating!
www.rekhashankar.com
YouTube: penguinsandfiber and DUMBvideo
Twitter: @rekhalshankar
Instagram: @rekha_s and @hustle.the.webseries
Tell us about some projects you’ve worked on.
I just finished a writing gig for a Hari Kondabolu pilot, which was an awesome experience.
I'm currently working on my digital series, Hustle, about two WOC chasing their creative goals while fighting the supervillains of racism and unequal opportunity. I'm proud of this because I think it's the funniest thing I've written, and it actually got me my first script accolade by becoming an Official Selection at the 2016 New York Television Festival!
An example of my favorite sketch I've done is here!
What got you interested in filmmaking?
I got interested in filmmaking because I've always loved television and comedy. I had a hunch I wanted to be a comedy writer, but that job didn't sound real, and I had never seen more than one Indian-American (Mindy!) doing it. I went to film school and figured out that I did indeed love writing but kind of hated anything related to production. Fortunately, the technical skills of film greatly inform my writing and how I convey a joke on screen, so that production education has been an immeasurable asset to me.
What lessons have you learned from your filmmaking adventures?
I've learned that reliable people are worth their weight in gold-encrusted gold. Truly. Talent is great, but reliability is necessary. There are so few people who will care about a project as much as you do, so the next best thing is to have an arsenal of people you can count on. And I don't mean "count on" as in they just show up, but "count on" as in they want to have fun with you on set and care about the same things you care about. I have always had a hard time finding this kind of core unit, but through college and comedy classes in the city, have fortunately found four or five people who are just really A+.
What is something in filmmaking that you’re intrigued by and want to learn more about?
I'm super intrigued by "using the whole buffalo" -- actually, I'm a vegetarian, so let's call it "eggplant." The more a writer knows about every department, the more their work can truly take advantage of everything filmmaking has to offer. The dialogue is funny, but how can we frame it to be funnier? The actors are hilarious, but how could the lighting enhance the joke? And anyone who watches anything I do will probably notice I use editing and sound effects to play up comedy, too.
I'd love to work on my visual effects game! I only know the most basic, basic, basic things about it, and am envious of people who are good at it. Scott Pilgrim is one of my favorite movies, in part because of how creatively it used the whole eggplant. Also, it's just really insanely funny.
What kind of projects do you see yourself working on in the future?
I see myself working on more comedy projects, hopefully written by and/or starring WOC. In a dream world, I would be a staff writer on a TV show - someone else's or my own. And in a dream-dream world, I would love for Edgar Wright to direct something I wrote.
If you’re a woman or non-binary filmmaker, we’d love to feature you! Click here for info on how to submit.
Our first episode features Rebecca Garcia. As a self-taught web developer who’s passionate about social good, Rebecca passes on her skills as the co-founder of CoderDojo NYC, a free coding club for youth. Find out why accessible STEM education is important to her and what advice she has for those new to coding.
Be sure to follow us on social media for updates on new episodes. Thanks for watching!
We’re excited to release the first episode of season 2 tomorrow, Wed 9/21! We’re kicking things off with Rebecca Garcia, a self-taught web developer and the co-founder of Coderdojo NYC. Stay tuned!
It’s past midnight so it’s ✨officially✨ my birthday! I’m having a 20% off sale all day to celebrate 🎉🎉🎉enter the code HBD2016 at checkout, today, August 29th💕shop over at moderngirlblitz.biz
We’ve been granted an extra day this year, and it’s the perfect, last-minute opportunity for you to sign up for my Patreon comic subscription to get February’s comic as the numbered edition! If you’re unfamiliar with this project, I’m drawing a comic every day this year, compiling monthly collections that I make into lovingly hand-crafted zines, to send to folks who have pledged money on Patreon. There are several tiers of the subscription, including a digital-only option that is a little lighter on the wallet, but I tried to make the prices as inexpensive as possible, and all tiers are offered at a sliding-scale, pay what you can rate.
Above is a glimpse of what the comics have been like so far, from my weekly free offering.
It’s like peering into my life with binoculars! This is what the first booklet looks like:
And these booklets are not available anywhere else; you have to sign up on Patreon to get them! Talk about an exclusive club! So consider this a friendly public service announcement: sign up before March 1st to start your subscription with the February issue (which may or may not have a purple sparkly cover)!
Thanks for the support! I’m having a great time with this project!
I’m currently working on my thesis film entitled Birds And Other Things We Placed In Our Hearts. The story is this really amazing and tragic love story. The film is an adaptation of a short with the same title. We worked very hard on the film and the project is really important to me because it promises to showcase qpoc in film in a thoughtful way.
What got you interested in filmmaking?
Missy Elliot, well, really Hype Williams? I grew up in the 90’s, basically the era of music videos. Missy and Hype always had the craziest visual collaborations. As a young black girl, Missy’s video offered me all the fantasy of traditional cinema with a whole lot more representation. When I closed my eyes I could envision myself in Missy’s world more so than any other in media.
What lessons have you learned from your filmmaking adventures?
Everything is a learning experience. As long as you’re resilient, your l’s can be transformed into to something unique and special. Filmmaking offers a landscape for continual growth.
What is something in filmmaking that you’re intrigued by and want to learn more about?
World cinema history is something that always intrigues me. There are some many interesting ways to tell stories in cinema and I think we’re often confined to some type of western ideal of cinematic storytelling. I think there is a lot that can be learned in how non-western cultures interrupt visual storytelling.
What kind of projects do you see yourself working on in the future?
I want to continue working on projects centered in minority perspectives, stories that go unheard, unobserved. I want to focus on telling these stories in an avant-garde way. It’s about time people of color have a voice in art film. I want to help pioneer that voice especially in the subject of art film, black film should have the opportunity to be thought of as art as much as mainstream Eurocentric cinema.
If you’re a woman or non-binary filmmaker, we’d love to feature you! Click here for info on how to submit.
Support Birds and Other Things We Placed In Our Hearts
Columbia College MFA student Saeedah Zahrah is raising funds for her short film about a woman struggling “to fill the hollowness in her lover after accidentally freeing her lovebirds.”
She has only 4 days left to raise funds. Take a look at the video and considering donating!
Also, check out this cool test animation for the short, and look forward to Saeedah’s #FilmmakerFriday post this week!
Tell us about a project you’re currently working on.
So excited to say that I am currently working on my self-produced web series, Shampagne! (It’s my first, MERP!) The show went into production late September and we are powering through the season’s episodes with a premiere date set for February of 2016.
The show follows, M, a 20-something actress in New York City, fed up with having to fit into the industry's "black girl" box, and decides to break convention, sort of, and become a hip-hop star, who will then book oodles of acting work.
We've all reached points in our lives, especially in our 20s, when we're just not sure what our next move is going to be. M, makes an extreme choice and you (the audience) have an amazing opportunity to join her for the ride.
You can watch the trailer here!
What got you interested in filmmaking?
Honestly writing, catapulted me into filmmaking. The acting industry is teeming with so many people, offering their individual talents, personalities and energies to the pool, I realized that I would need to produce my own work to showcase what I can do. Pagnecham, M’s alter ego, started out as a joke between friends but soon blossomed into a real girl grappling with issues I wanted to voice about my experiences “pounding pavement.”
A good friend of mine, created a web series last year and after talking with her, and getting a chance to help out on set, I was encouraged to try my hand at it as well!
What lessons have you learned from your filmmaking adventures?
Man, oh man! What lessons have I learned? I think the pivotal one for me, is that because I hold so many titles behind my name (Creator, Writer, Producer, and Star) the learning curve has been STEEP and filled with challenges that have taught me so much about myself, what I can handle, how to delegate, and when to ask for help. I think all artists pride themselves on being independent and driven, but, in my case, that hindered my creativity and focus both on and off camera. Luckily, I have a solid team behind me: Glenn Quentin, producer; Jamie Li and Pierce Robinson, my DPs and on-set crew, and my first-time director and dear friend, Jason Gray. Knowing that I have a solid foundation behind the scenes has alleviated tons of stress, and really has made my first time in the “filmmaker’s chair” an easy one.
If you’re a woman or non-binary filmmaker, we’d love to feature you! Click here for info on how to submit.
#CreateInColor: Support Lauren Domino & Angela Tucker’s upcoming film!
Ladypoints Season 2 interviewee Angela Tucker is raising funds for her new film Paper Chase, a “comedy set in New Orleans about a young girl raising money for college by any means necessary.”
There’s only 8 days left and they’re still only halfway to their goal. You could be the proud owner of this awesome tote if you donate!:
#CreateInColor: Support Lauren Domino & Angela Tucker’s upcoming film!
Ladypoints Season 2 interviewee Angela Tucker is raising funds for her new film Paper Chase, a “comedy set in New Orleans about a young girl raising money for college by any means necessary.”
There’s only 8 days left and they’re still only halfway to their goal. You could be the proud owner of this awesome tote if you donate!:
HELLO CHICAGO! I am teaching a 3 hour workshop this Saturday on making comics about your life! It will be fun! And informative! The class is taking place at CHIPRC, at 858 N. Ashland. Preregistration is suggested! You can reserve a space by sending a paypal payment to [email protected].
Jennifer is raising $20,000 until July 2 to film Season 2 of The Fabricant Way. Consider donating!
www.thefabricantway.com
candelita.is
Tell us about a project you’re currently working on.
Last summer, I got lost in a maze of “should’s” while growing my graphic design agency. In doing all the right things, I felt like I lost a bit of the essence of my business. So I shut down my computer and started visiting craftspeople and artisans, whose work I love.
I was intrigued, even a little obsessed, with the stories I heard about building a thriving business while keeping the love for your craft alive. I decided I wanted to help share these stories to inspire creatives struggling to make their own vision a reality, so I created The Fabricant Way. The web series is uncovering the stories of creative entrepreneurs and artisans, whose formula for success is a mix of love, artistry and community.
Tell us about your Kickstarter for The Fabricant Way.
I’m Kickstarting to cover the production costs of a second season of The Fabricant Way, so that I can tell more stories of fabricants whose businesses are thriving.
I love the idea of going behind the scenes of the lives of people I admire and sharing them with everyone. My adventure with filmmaking that started with this intention will continue this path, allowing me to really make my way of telling these stories unique and recognizable for others.
What got you interested in filmmaking?
I really wanted to share the stories of fabricants in an intimate way. Bring the viewers to the same room with me and the guest artist, while creating and overall experience of visiting their spaces. I think that seeing these artisans in their "environments" (studios, stores) helps us as storytellers see the potential of each story.
What lessons have you learned from your filmmaking adventures?
Having a clear intention of what you want to convey with will help you craft a more compelling narrative. It allows you to plan shots, scenes and think of the mood you'll create while editing and mixing audio. All these components will make your story be different, more human and stand apart from others.
If you’re a non-binary or woman filmmaker, we’d love to feature you! Click here for info on how to submit.
How To Be A Black Panther: US Premiere at Brooklyn Film Festival
After screening her short as part of the Cannes 2015 Short Film Corner, Daisy Zhou (ddaisyzhou) will be back in the states for How To Be A Black Panther’s U.S. Premiere. Buy tickets:
Friday, 6/5: 10:30pm @ Windmill Studios
Saturday, 6/6: 10pm @ Wythe Hotel
Read more about Daisy in her #FilmmakerFriday Interview.
