Crowdfunding – Bitch Flicks

How a ‘Little Evil Bookshop’ Helped Me Find My Role in Hollywood

It isn’t that I am or was passive in my acting career, it is that acting is a long game and it can be difficult to see where the road might lead. That is something I have accepted; sometimes it’s terrifying and other times it excites me. But for this achiever, perfectionist, and feminist, there is something unbelievably validating about the immediacy of payoff in this new venture called producing. They call it “producing” for a reason! At the end, you have made something, paved your own road.

Guest post written by Lena Raff.

An actress is pretty much the only thing I ever wanted to be, save for a few months in elementary school when bottlenose dolphin trainer and anthropologist were on the table. When I was young, performing gave me a rush, but I couldn’t have accurately verbalized why I loved it. It took me until now to comprehend and come to terms with why I am on this path. Being an artist means that you get to live in your heart and your body. Acting means constantly listening, feeling, and experiencing. It means getting to roll words around in your mouth and connecting with the other actors and your audience; you get to make people feel. It is all just so human.

The issue is that a person cannot simply go out and act unless they create content for themselves. Writers can write at home or in a cafe; try “acting” in either place and you are going to look very silly indeed. I can’t act in a vacuum. By definition, I need other people, and until now, I’ve needed there to be an existing project for which someone hires me. However, it’s difficult to get an acting job in TV and film. That old adage “You need an agent to get credits and you need credits to get an agent” is still widely true. So you have to have an agent who gets your photo in front of casting. Then, casting has to actually see your photo — one of thousands submitted online for any given role — like your look for the part, your abilities and credits, call you in for an audition, like and trust you enough to send you to the producers/director/studio/network who have to also like and trust you, and then you might get an offer. Given this, and the nature of the way projects are shot, the television and film actor will spend much of their time not acting, particularly early on. Even a highly successful and lucrative career can often mean only a few days on set every month, or every several months.

Much of the time, this life is joyous. I have met many wonderful people and artists who have become my soulmates. Classes keep me involved, focused, and skilled. I thrive on the challenge of a difficult scene, relish putting in the work for an audition, soak in every moment of going to work on set. Acting is a constant adventure and I am always learning. In my worst moments, though, this all feels futile. The odds are so steep, the gateways to entry are numerous but elusive. One can feel like one is floating through a nebulous landscape waiting for milestones to grab onto when they happen to appear. And although it has vastly improved in the past few years, Hollywood can seem like a boys club. Many projects still don’t pass the Bechdel test and the words “bikini ready” periodically make their way across my computer screen. But I am an autonomous being. This is what I, enthusiastically, signed up for.

Then I signed up for something else. This year, I began producing a feature film called Little Evil Bookshop with two other young women — Ashley Ellis (director/producer) and Jessica Schott (producer) — and it has been exciting and illuminating. I love the feeling of creative responsibility for something larger than myself, of concrete steps that need to be taken each day. This venture has made me feel capable and worthwhile. It isn’t that I am or was passive in my acting career, it is that acting is a long game and it can be difficult to see where the road might lead. That is something I have accepted; sometimes it’s terrifying and other times it excites me. But for this achiever, perfectionist, and feminist, there is something unbelievably validating about the immediacy of payoff in this new venture called producing. They call it “producing” for a reason! At the end, you have made something, paved your own road. It’s empowering and self-actualizing in an entirely different way from what I have experienced in my artistic life thus far. I have been inspired to examine the landscape in which I am creating as both and actress and producer. Being on feminist projects has always been important to me, but this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to shape the narrative and be extremely selective about what I put my effort and skill into.

Recently, while working on this project that centers around a middle-aged woman protagonist, I realized that even though the message of the film — a dark ensemble comedy about the staff of a small occult bookstore attempting to impress a revered author and spiritual leader — isn’t feminist in the political or ideological sense, it is feminist by nature of the fact that it is telling a woman’s story. This is the story that three young women want to tell, have put our time, energy, brain-space and hearts into sharing with the world. We are crowdfunding via Seed & Spark and networking. We have committed to diverse and inclusive hiring and casting to deepen and enrich this film about identity. We are standing up, asking for our abilities and voices to be valued.

Through this lens, I started looking around and seeing many incredible women, and many actresses in particular, prolific, daring, and unapologetic in their art. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and Pamela Adlon’s Better Things are two shining examples. With two very impressive respective acting careers between them, Waller-Bridge and Adlon have recently debuted two deeply personal, groundbreaking, and critically acclaimed series of which they are the creators, showrunners, and stars. Issa Rae co-created, co-writes, and stars in the acclaimed series Insecure based on her hilarious web series Awkward Black Girl. Shonda Rhimes created a television empire with creating and producing her women-centric dramas Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. Jill Soloway (who identifies as non-binary) changed television and the culture at large with Transparent and its representation of the LGBTQIA community and whose new show I Love Dick depicts women’s sexuality in perhaps unprecedented ways. Now the highest paid woman director in history, Patty Jenkins revolutionized big budget, superhero films with Wonder Woman, “the highest-grossing live-action film to be directed by a woman” and “the highest-grossing film in the DC Extended Universe.” Brie Larson will be Captain Marvel, co-directed by Anna Boden. Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct Silver and Black, “the first Black woman to direct a superhero film.” Ava DuVernay is the first Black woman filmmaker to direct a film with a $100 million budget with her upcoming adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. She also created Queen Sugar, a beautiful and powerful dramatic series telling the story of a Black family, and hired all women directors for both of its two seasons (she was the showrunner for season one while Monica Macer is season 2’s showrunner). Reed Morano recently became the first woman in 22 years to win an Emmy for Best Directing in a Drama Series and the show she won for — the undeniably, ruthlessly feminist The Handmaid’s Tale — swept the night, except for the awards offered up to the women-centric ensemble miniseries, Big Little Lies. Lena Waithe took home an Emmy award for Best Writing in a Comedy — the first Black (queer!) woman to do so — for a Master of None episode about coming out to her family.

I am so looking forward to the time when these achievements do not strike us as the exception to the rule, but rather, are the lay of the land. For now, I chose to take my place among these artists. I am raising my hand, and learning to stand up, not just for what I believe in, but in full ownership of my talent, effort, and ability.

I am not saying that acting isn’t feminist or empowering. I am not saying that producing is a more worthwhile or fulfilling pursuit. I’m not saying I won’t wear a bikini on-screen, or ask someone else to do so. What I am saying is that both of these endeavors, especially coupled together, have allowed me to take a look at my life and career with a consciousness that I didn’t have before. It is heartening to see such poignant stories told by women about women find critical acclaim as well as commercial success. I know I have a place in this exciting world, in whichever role I chose.

Little Evil Bookshop is currently crowdfunding via Seed & Spark until October 13, 2017.

Lena Raff is an actress and producer in her 20s living in Los Angeles. Originally from the suburbs of Boston, she earned a BA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College. Lena can raise one
eyebrow, but only when she’s on camera and isn’t trying to do so.

Links: littleevilbookshop.com | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5299012/
Instagram: @Lenaraff | @littleevilbookshopfilm

The Fellowship of the Fling: How our Romance Film Team Came To Be

‘I’m Having an Affair With My Wife!’ is the first U.S. romantic comedy in 17 years to star a Black woman and an Asian-American man as the romantic leads. … Just let go of the fear you have of diversity, and let art move you, because the spirit of art, taken to its logical conclusion, reflects the beauty and variety of reality. Support diverse movies, listen to diverse stories, and start telling a few of your own.

This guest post written by Jen Finelli appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

I know you’re lying.

But let’s back up a bit, before we get to your lies, and start at the beginning: at that boring, quiet alone place, where fingers hit keyboard and you — and I — have to decide what characters to write about in our films.

I’m Having an Affair With My Wife! is the first U.S. romantic comedy in 17 years to star a Black woman and an Asian-American man as the romantic leads. Lashonda and Sung-min are a stereotype-busting married couple who become upset at their marriage, seek out affairs online, and then accidentally end up having an affair with each other. The film’s directed and produced by the brilliant Samantha Mauney Aiken, and it stars Stacey Malone as Lashonda and William Jeon as Sung-min. It’s reached small-time internet fame with its crowdfunding campaign: the script ranked in the top 15% of scripts in the Austin Film Festival and finalized in the Beverly Hills Screenwriting Competition. Fans keep emailing to tell me how excited they are to finally see people like themselves in love.

But in the beginning, it was just me and my keyboard and the script. Just some mixed-race kid from who-knows-where who wanted to see more people who looked like my friends on the screen. In my sci-fi career, my protagonists have always been diverse or people of color because why the hell not, that’s what real-life heroes look like. But in romance, it’s personal: I’ve got to normalize mixed relationships. See, people blame our mixed race for my brother’s autism, and people told Mom not to marry my dad (who is himself mixed) because then she’d have mixed babies and OH MY GOSH wouldn’t that be difficult. Dang! We really need to see films where mixed race relationships ain’t no thang, where it’s totally normal, so we can change those kinds of perspectives. And dang, just in general, we need films where we show people of color in love! Because holy crap, did you know people of color fall in love and have babies, too?

You wouldn’t know it from Hollywood.

That’s the first lie, and that’s why I’m Having an Affair With My Wife! (then Seduce Me) got pitched to Samantha Aiken, on the sunny Austin, Texas day that we passed hipster graffiti and browsed the odd little art shops beyond the city’s Capitol, and ate tacos, burgers, and other unhealthy things. No big Hollywood companies, no gatekeepers, no investors, just us. After reading what brilliant Asian-American creators like WongFu Productions and actor/director Justin Chon went through, after watching what’s on the big screen, after listening to the diverse film community, it became pretty clear to me that when it comes to Big Hollywood, our kind aren’t wanted here. I never bothered to pitch anywhere else. That was my first and last pitch because Samantha gets it. I knew I could trust her with the script, that there’d be no whitewashing, no twisting of its core message, and I knew I could trust her because she had me murdered once.

Yeah, she had me killed on screen. Blood, fake tears, big-ass cameras, the works. It was just a little horror short — she’s quite ashamed of it, actually — but I got to see her directorial style, and later, got to follow her journey from big film sets like Fast and Furious 8 and Fences to tiny indie productions, documentaries, and charity films. There is nothing this woman hasn’t done, when it comes to film, and I trust her completely.

Because, see, the next lie is that you can make something diverse — and good — without input from others. It’s a lie that a mostly-white-passing writer can just sit down, spit out some stuff, and damn, it’s perfect. I write a lot about how I hate lazy writers, and how important research is even to the most fantastical story, but when it comes down to it, you need a diverse film team, not just racially or ethnically, but in experience and education.

So when we set out to find our leads, it became very, very important that they could provide an authentic perspective. You can hear more about our journey to find them on our casting podcast, but to summarize, we wanted two special things from our leads that we didn’t have already: one, we wanted a beautiful body-realistic woman, who understands that struggle, and we wanted the perspective of a Korean American man who can check us on the validity of our script. We got all kinds of applications from tiny, thin women and a few from non-Asian men, but for the most part our casting experience ripped open another lie, the lie people tell me every time I share studies like this.

“Oh, that study that shows Asian and Black directors are underrepresented in Hollywood? That’s just because Asian and Black people don’t want to get into film. You need to stop having numerical parity be a qualification for equality, blah blah blah, there’s no racism anymore, no of course I’m not listening to your anecdotes about people you know, la la la…” — et cetera, et cetera. It’s the same argument about women directors and producers, Asian and Black actors, etc etc. You hear Hollywood producers saying they can’t “find” actors for those kinds of roles, or that multiracial productions aren’t “marketable.” This is bullshit if you saw how Luke Cage turned out, or how Frozen’s female producer made off with all of America’s money, or how the latest Star Wars films made more money at the box office than any of the previous ones, or how Get Out is the “highest grossing debut based on an original screenplay,” or how films with diverse casts and women-led and women-written films are more successful at the box office — do I need to keep busting your balls about market research?

Meanwhile, we got two hundred and seventeen applications for a tiny indie film no one had heard of at the time. One guy on our audition list offered to move across an ocean for the job. Can you imagine the number of applications the big films get for those million dollar roles? Can you even fathom that?

There are no Asian and Black actors out there, my big flat ass.

We had an incredibly hard time casting our leads because of some amazingly talented runners-up. When we finally did tell William he got the part, he yelled because all his life he’s dreamed of becoming a rom-com lead; Stacey later told us that after she got off our call she danced around her room giggling. You can’t tell me only one color of person deserves those moments. These roles didn’t get handed out for free: Stacey’s a single mother who runs her own production company, and William’s worked as a pharmacist and run a restaurant to manage the cultural pressures that say acting isn’t a real job for a guy like him. Our leads have the perspectives we asked for, and they’re fighters. They’ve each mobilized a different community that’s supported us, bringing their own fans and friends to the table, and that literally pays off in dollars. We’re proud of them, and we’re proud of the experiences they bring to the team.

Because that’s what it’s all about: if you want to make a good movie, you’re depriving yourself if you choose to cast or hire only one color of person. You’re missing out on real knowledge. On these beautiful moments where, again and again, people tell us even in pre-production we’re letting them feel seen. You might even be missing out financially, in the end, because distribution and marketing aside, Seed & Spark’s diversity incentives rock.

So stop lying. Just let go of the fear you have of diversity, and let art move you, because the spirit of art, taken to its logical conclusion, reflects the beauty and variety of reality. Support diverse movies, listen to diverse stories, and start telling a few of your own.

Jen Finelli is a world-traveling scifi author who’s swum coral reefs with sharks, done pizza on the street corner with prostitutes, gotten fired from a secret organization that was trying to control the news, discovered murals in underground urban tunnels, etc etc. She’s the writer of I’m Having an Affair With My Wife, a movie you can find at mysweetaffair.com; you can find her fiction at byjenfinelli.com, and you can follow her adventures on Twitter @petr3pan.

Calling “Action”: A Lesbian Female Filmmaker on Diversity in Action Films

I was reminded of the importance of telling stories that incorporate minorities and women, who so often don’t get our stories told. … As a lesbian female filmmaker, the biggest barrier to success in Hollywood is always financing.

This is a guest post written by Miranda Sajdak. She is currently crowdfunding her film No Trace.

When I was young, I was taken to see the film A League of Their Own. I still remember the excitement of watching the women’s baseball teams go head-to-head, and the rush of leaving the theater, knowing I wanted to make movies and re-create that experience for others. It took a lot of years – and a lot of movies — to find that same balance of blockbuster and pure entertainment factor in films I was watching.

One day, a co-worker (at my then-job on the metal show Uranium) suggested that I check out the film Ong-Bak. I had no idea I’d be in for one of the most kickass action films I’d ever seen. I was reminded of why I got into movies to begin with – to make entertaining films that engage the viewer so much, they can’t help but leave the theater energized and excited. I remembered the first time I felt that way, watching A League of Their Own, and was reminded of the importance of telling stories that incorporate minorities and women, who so often don’t get our stories told. Other films and TV shows that have influenced me since include The Long Kiss Goodnight, District B13, Damages, and Banshee. Any time there’s great action, crime drama, and fun characters, I’m there.

As an action fan who’s also passionate about diversity, it sometimes feels like we’re the black sheep of the film world; we don’t get the same sort of attention that genre-lovers in horror and comedy do, even when we show up opening weekend to Salt, popcorn in hand, ready to be blown away by some high-energy stunts. But that doesn’t make us action fans any less passionate or devoted to our genre of choice.

I’ve long been a proponent of equality in the film landscape. While my first favorite being an almost-entirely female cast influenced me towards finding ways to showcase diversity in my own work, my prime goal has always been: be entertaining – and incorporate underrepresented cast and crew members, because inclusivity matters, and will keep the story fresh and engaging. As an award-winning screenwriter, I’ve also found that incorporating diversity into my projects makes them more engaging on the page.

To that end, I recently decided to direct a new project, starring Heroes’ James Kyson and Grey’s Anatomy’s Pia Shah, called No Trace. My film follows an undercover cop who robs a bank for the mob, only to find herself on the run from her former partners. There’s a killer fight scene, some great dialogue, and a surprise ending that you won’t see coming.

As I have written:

“The statistics for women directors in film are pretty dismal, with only 9% of the top films in 2015 directed by women (via USC’s Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative), the same rate as in 1998! One of the most important things we can do to make a change is to promote female-directed projects. I hope to inspire other women and girls to make their movies, too.”

As a lesbian female filmmaker, the biggest barrier to success in Hollywood is always financing. I’ve put together a killer team, including Oscar winner James Parris on VFX, with Derek Bauer on camera and Natalie Nicole Gilbert on music. Our team started a crowdfunding page at gofundme.com/MirandaDirects to help achieve our goal of making this film a reality. We were thrilled to make our first goal, and are now approaching our stretch goals with the same drive and determination we’re putting towards producing this film. We hope you’ll be a part of it, and support women filmmakers and diversity in the independent action realm.

For more, check out our site, or follow us on Twitter:
@MirandaSajdak – Writer/Director
@IAmDellanyPeace – Producer
@JamesKyson – Lead
@piajune – Lead
@plasterofparris – VFX Supervisor

Miranda Sajdak is a director/writer/producer currently living in Los Angeles. As a script reader, she has done coverage for producers of films ranging from indie hits like Drive to studio features including Final Destination, American Pie, and Everest, as well as television shows Huge and My So-Called Life. She co-founded company Harbor Road Entertainment in 2015, working as a producer, director, and writer, as well as providing script notes and proofreading to writers in the industry. She was a winner of Go Into the Story‘s Quest Initiative in 2013. She was also a winner of The Next MacGyver competition in 2015, paired with mentor Clayton Krueger at Scott Free to develop original pilot RIVETING. She enjoys hard-hitting dramas, dark comedies, and ’90s legal thrillers.

Seed & Spark: Replacing Shame with Truth and Community

After all, the goal of ‘Don’t Talk About the Baby’ is social change, accomplished by empowering couples to start telling their stories in their communities. … My vision for this film is to examine every thread of shame that permeates pregnancy loss and infertility and reconnect it to support, openness and understanding.

This is a guest post written by Ann Zamudio. Her film Don’t Talk About the Baby is currently crowdfunding via Seed & Spark.

[Trigger warning: discussion of infertility, miscarriage, and infant loss.]

When making a documentary about miscarriage, stillbirth and infertility, it can be easy to get lost in the stories. After all, the goal of Don’t Talk About the Baby is social change, accomplished by empowering couples to start telling their stories in their communities.

The stories are raw and powerful and they’re leading a movement of change which cries out that loss and infertility are nothing to be ashamed of. They’re compelling voices, and they’re easy to get caught up in. As the director, my job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. It sounds counter-intuitive, since we’re asking people to tell their stories, but when it comes to the actual film, I always keep a balance at the forefront of my mind: the balance between the heartbreaking stories, and the fascinating expert interviews that explain the emotions behind them.

Pregnancy loss and infertility are plagued by silence and stigma. It’s my passionate belief that the only way out of the shadows is to thoroughly explore how and why we got there in the first place. It’s harder for a woman to feel like a failure when she knows, scientifically and without a doubt, that she didn’t cause her miscarriage. It’s less likely for a mother to mourn in silence when she knows the words to use to ask for understanding. It’s less likely that a community will forget a family’s loss, when a film tells them the power of remembering and saying that baby’s name.

My vision for this film is to examine every thread of shame that permeates pregnancy loss and infertility and reconnect it to support, openness and understanding.

The experts are key to this documentary, and I chose them by investigating my own experiences after my early miscarriage. What did I do? The woman most likely to watch this film is a woman fresh from a loss, and it’s important to me that the themes we explore are relevant to the journey she’s starting.

I felt silenced when I tried to talk about it. I felt pressured to move on. I felt disconnected from my husband. I went online and sought support from strangers. I found power in sharing my story with them.

So we found an expert scholar who spoke about the value in letting a woman tell her story. She talked about losing trust in your own body, and learning to navigate in a world that places a woman’s worth in motherhood. We found a professor who studied how women share their stories online, and how that’s changed over the last ten years. The revolution we’re in the midst of, with parents dedicated to sharing their stories, is largely due to the rise of social media. I wanted someone to explain the support networks we build online, and how that translates to our real lives. We also have therapists talking about how men and women grieve differently, and giving advice on bridging the gap that grows after a loss. They give the audience tools for starting conversations, overcoming emotional roadblocks, and learning to deal with the shitty hand they’ve been dealt.

Then we follow the real world experiences of couples during and after miscarriage, infertility and stillbirth. We hear their cries and see their tears. They let us into their lives in the most humbling way. And so we strike a balance. When filming these interviews, I always keep in mind the overall goals of this documentary — empowerment, support, and communication. Every interview is geared towards answering one question: How do we learn to heal?

Free from shame, from stigma and oppressive silence. That’s the goal of this documentary, and what I remember at each step in making this film.

The process of making this film has been eye opening and rewarding. Please consider joining our efforts to shatter the stigma, and pledging your support to our Seed & Spark campaign to finish the film.

Ann Zamudio is a mother, filmmaker and writer based in the Washington, DC area. She’s currently directing Don’t Talk About the Baby, a documentary aiming to shatter the stigma surrounding pregnancy loss and infertility. Her writing has appeared in Scary Mommy, PALS, and The Huffington Post. Follow the documentary on Facebook and Twitter.

Seed & Spark: To Web Series Or…

This is a guest post written by Molly Anne Coogan. Her webseries Things I Hate is currently crowdfunding via Seed & Spark.

I often get asked why I wanted to make a web series. Why not make a short film or put all those pages of a season together and make a feature? For starters, the show didn’t come into my head as a feature or as a short film. When I started writing, they came out as episodes and what I saw in my head was a show instead of a movie or a short; I wasn’t interested in squishing something into a box and I wanted to make what was in my brain.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I wrote this show when I was overcoming some big health issues and I was ready to get my hands dirty and make something — I wanted some immediate gratification. There’s no middleman with a web series, no distribution deal to negotiate, no hurdle to getting it out into the world. You create an account, design a page, and upload. Clearly the process is not as simple as that, but you’re catching what I’m throwing, yeah?

There’s a certain kind of freedom in the web series form; there are fewer constraints and not as many rules as there appear to be in television or film. I was incredibly inspired by so many shows I saw all over the web that bucked the norm in terms of how they told stories and who they portrayed on camera. I loved how F to the 7th challenged conceptions about sexuality and what it means to be a woman; how Broad City basically owned the shit out of everything and unabashedly showed women doing what they wanted without apologizing while having a blast doing it; and how High Maintenance allowed each episode to be its own contained world and didn’t feel the need for a continuous plotline. All these shows have incredibly unique voices, vibes, and tones and each is stellar in their own way. Their uniqueness got my creative juices flowing.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42W_UWQPXok”]

The other benefit to a web series is the simple power of the Internet. You’re able to grow your audience, quickly connect, and find your people, whereas it’s much harder to do with other forms that have bigger machines involved. I had experience with the rapid-fire reach of the Internet when my sketch video “Nickelblock” from my comedy duo Moll & Rell went viral. We woke up one morning to the video having hundreds of thousands of views and being all over the front pages of The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Bustle, E!, and more. It was being talked about on the radio; I had friends from abroad telling me they saw it on publications overseas. It was wild and zany and so much fun, but also a totally different thing from a web series. It was a short, comedic tidbit as opposed to a show that you really have to sit and watch. “Nickelblock” was like a handful of candy whereas Things I Hate is more like a rich chocolate torte that you’ve got to take your time enjoying. Now I just want dessert…

I do feel is important to point out is that the line of what is “TV” and what is a “web series” is blurring with each passing day. I don’t own a television, but I “watch TV” because I own a computer. You can stream everything. In essence you could say that all television shows are web series because they’re streamed online. Perhaps they’re not made for the web at the start, but that’s where they’re ending up.

We have only two weeks left in our Things I Hate Seed & Spark campaign. If you’re a fan of ambitious, hilarious web series made by filmmakers easily distracted by sweets, join our team, and spread the word.

Molly Anne Coogan is a maker of all things. As an actor she’s worked with Ars Nova, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The O’Neill Theatre Center, The Civilians, TheatreWorks California, CBS, TBS, and more. She is one half of the comedy duo Moll & Rell known for their viral video “Nickelblock,” which Molly directed and co-wrote with her comedy partner Arielle Siegel. As a writer her work has been produced or developed by The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ars Nova, SPACE on Ryder Farm and The 52nd Street Project. Her web series, Things I Hate, which she created, wrote, produced, and stars in premiered February 2016 on The A.V. Cluband features actors from The Knick, Girls, and Orange Is the New Black. She loves photo booths and the word “burgled.” She refuses to pass a lemonade stand without buying a glass. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Jonathan Anderson.

Seed & Spark: Being a Lady Boss: Producer Molly Coogan Hires Ladies and Celebrates a Lady Named Coco

This is a guest post written by Molly Anne Coogan. Her webseries Things I Hate is currently crowdfunding via Seed & Spark.

Once I got over the fear of putting my show, Things I Hate, out into the world, I then had to… put it out into the world and actually make it. Early on in the process, I committed to being the producer. This was important to me for several reasons: I wanted a hand in who was being brought onto the project, as well as the final stamp on what I was putting out into the world. This does not mean that I was not open to collaborating, or that I only wanted to do it my way, or that I wanted all the power. What it means is that since these were my words and my point of view, it was important to me at the end of the day to feel that I had seen the show through from start to finish in order to honor the creative vision I had set out to realize. Of utmost importance to me was finding a team who understood the tone and humor; in order for it to be successful, I knew everyone had to be in the same figurative family. Also, I really like producing! I like sourcing and finding people, bringing folks on board, organizing things, and working like a fiend. It checks a lot of my boxes.

I get asked a lot as a lady boss if I try extra hard to hire women. I truly believe in hiring the person who is best for the job, which means you have to look at a pool that reflects all the best potential hires. However, most hiring pools do not reflect that at all. Sometimes the people who have the longest, shiniest resume aren’t going to be the best fit for your project. And while it can be enticing to hire someone who has worked on TV shows you love, if they don’t understand what you’re trying to make it won’t work out in the end. I didn’t want to exclusively hire women for the sake of hiring women; I wanted to be mindful that we were looking at all of our options instead of just what people were giving us (which was names for a lot of dudes). My co-producer Liam Brady, a super dude in his own right, was right there with me.

For example, one of the jobs that felt very important for us to nail was the Director of Photography. I met with several incredibly qualified people, but when I met with Edna Biesold I knew I found the person who understood it all. This show is told and seen from inside the mind of a woman. The questions she asked, the ideas she had, and her point of view all jived. She also made me consider and see things from angles I hadn’t thought of before. As a result, I ended up being blown away by the two episodes we made together (which can be seen here via The A.V. Club.)

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I am proud that the roles of Director of Photography, 1st AC, 1st AD, Production Design, Costume Design, Hair and Make-up, and Production Assistant were all filled by women. But I did not hire them because they were women; I hired them because they were the best people for the job.

One of the other aspects of producing is you have to be tenacious. There is another woman I haven’t mentioned yet who came on board and elevated the level of the production for Things I Hate. We really wanted the locations to be authentic and knew we wanted to shoot in a real salon for the episode called “Lady Grooming.” We were shooting in a brownstone in Bedstuy, NY for another episode, entitled “Weed,” so we wanted to keep things in that neighborhood to ease gear schlepping, especially since we were shooting both episodes in 3 days, a ridiculously fast shoot. But I hadn’t found that salon yet.

It was hot as balls one day, especially for the end of September, and I was determined to find that salon to shoot in. I biked for 4 hours straight around the neighborhood going into every single salon, asking if we could shoot there. I can’t tell you how many places I went into. I was so hot that sunscreen dripped down my pale little body. I had sweat literally everywhere, my clothes were drenched, and I looked like a drowned rat. Perhaps that is why every single salon turned me down. By the time I got on my bike to go home, I was certain my shoot was screwed.

Moments later, I was waiting at a stoplight, and for some reason (perhaps to create some sort of cooling wind), I turned my head and saw this little tiny salon on the corner. I full on whipped my bike across traffic and walked in with my helmet still on my head. Four women who were getting their hair braided turned to look at me like I was an alien. The owner, Coco, was there, cool as a cucumber, and as soon as I asked her if I could shoot in her salon she said,”Count me in!” Coco, you saved my series. Everyone else, go to Honeycomb Hair Studio, and give Coco all your business! Right after you follow and fund Things I Hate on Seed&Spark.

Molly Anne Coogan is a maker of all things. As an actor she’s worked with Ars Nova, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The O’Neill Theatre Center, The Civilians, TheatreWorks California, CBS, TBS, and more. She is one half of the comedy duo Moll & Rell known for their viral video “Nickelblock,” which Molly directed and co-wrote with her comedy partner Arielle Siegel. As a writer her work has been produced or developed by The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ars Nova, SPACE on Ryder Farm and The 52nd Street Project. Her web series, Things I Hate, which she created, wrote, produced, and stars in premiered February 2016 on The A.V. Club and features actors from The Knick, Girls, and Orange Is the New Black. She loves photo booths and the word “burgled.” She refuses to pass a lemonade stand without buying a glass. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Jonathan Anderson.

Seed & Spark: Alone, Then Among Many: On Filmmaking and ‘The Ladies Almanack’

The process of adapting ‘The Ladies Almanack’ for film has been exciting, but in the beginning, it was an incredibly lonely task; a lonely one for a long time. … Alone I had to discover what this film wanted to be, and the only way to do that was to listen carefully to the voices in the books of women, living and dead.

This guest post is by Daviel Shy.

The process of adapting The Ladies Almanack for film has been exciting, but in the beginning, it was an incredibly lonely task; a lonely one for a long time. I spent a year and a half of researching and writing before I approached anyone to be in the film, but that time gave the project the backbone it would need in order to grow. Alone I had to discover what this film wanted to be, and the only way to do that was to listen carefully to the voices in the books of women, living and dead.

I started with copious notes and copious daydreaming. At the time, I was the manager for a performance company who was on tour in the UK. Somehow, that tour is secretly written into the script between the lines; the train rides through England and Scotland; the quiet nights in hotel rooms. This is where I found the freedom and quiet to begin to see the film’s scenes crystallize in my head.

One brave task I took on early to ensure the future of the film: I checked with Djuna Barnes’ literary executors early on to be sure I could legally make this film. The answer, luckily, was yes.

Cauleen Smith, an artist I’ve admired for years, could see what a big idea this was from the very beginning. She advised me to learn French for the project, which helped immensely. She was the only person I would occasionally share ideas with before writing them. For example, when I described to her my vision for the film’s final scene, she said, “Film that first, as soon as you can. Do it now; don’t let it get stale.” I followed her advice, and indeed, this scene was shot almost a year before the rest of the film, during my preliminary scouting trip to Paris.

One of the resources I found most useful was Julie Taylor’s chapter on the novel Ladies Almanack in her book, Djuna Barnes and Affective Modernism. Taylor writes: “Having it all is precisely what Barnes’ Ladies Almanack, with its non-compromising, gloriously greedy and accumulative notion of happiness promises the reader.” Her astute analysis gave me permission to bend the rules of storytelling, and the constrictions of no-budget filmmaking to be “gloriously greedy,” myself and attempt to “have it all.”

So I set about not to represent the women whose lives and work inspire me, but to invite these very people into the project themselves. Within another year I’d be sitting face to face with Hélène Cixous, Eileen Myles, or Guinevere Turner. Once I was able to reach someone personally, almost everyone joined the cast immediately, without pay or persuasion. They simply liked the idea. After reading about the project, Cixous said to me on the phone, “I can see what you are trying to do, and it has got to be done perfectly.” Most of the casting happened organically.

There is one exception to my casting luck: for a number of years I have been pen pals with the incredible artist and performer, Vaginal Davis. I cherished her letters stuffed with postcards from art shows, naked women cut from vintage porn catalogues, clippings of interesting art news in German, and other encouraging odds and ends that I’ve pasted onto my studio walls. Initially, I had envisioned her as Gertrude Stein, but she refused the suggestion three times in our letters, finally saying, “No way, baby! I am focusing on art, and do not want to perform in films anymore.” I couldn’t argue with that, but it worked out for the best, because artist Alison Bechdel recommended Terry Castle for the role. Terry owned the role beautifully, and enhanced our production in a different way: her wife Blakey cameos as the perfect Alice B. Tolkas.

Months before casting the role of Radclyffe Hall, I traveled on an Amtrak train to Kansas City, passing Illinois horses and barns. I thought of Deborah Bright’s essay, “Horse Crazy,” which I read and reread in graduate school. Then it clicked! I looked out the window, then wrote:

Reverse dream girls. May 2nd, 2014,
I am riding through Midwestern fields with Deborah Bright. She’s agreed to play Radclyffe Hall in my film, so we take to horseback, heading West. My Aunt lives in New Harmony, Utah, where the red mountains meet the green ones. We could be there by Wednesday.

There has been a certain magic protecting, driving, and following the making of this movie. I don’t necessarily understand it, and I certainly do not control it. I see my role instead as learning to listen to it and ride it, wherever it may lead.

Daviel Shy’s film The Ladies Almanack is now crowdfunding via Seed & Spark.

Daviel Shy has written and directed nine short films. Her writing has been published by Taylor & Francis (UK) and University of Chicago Press. Her forthcoming chapbook, Grammar Rulse, will be published by Dancing Girl Press in July. The Ladies Almanack is her first feature film. www.davielshy.com

Seed & Spark: Unearthing Buried Voices with ‘The Ladies Almanack’

Systematized omission of women, gender non-comforming persons, queers, and people of color from history is still rampant in the arts, literature, and other fields of cultural production. I make ‘The Ladies Almanack’ in response to this erasure and in service of the hunger I feel for these buried voices.

This guest post written by Daviel Shy.

I was drawn to my research for The Ladies Almanack because of the rich interplay between the singular artist and her creative community. For the past four and a half years, I have run a semi-private event in my living room each month called L.M.N.O.P., or, Lesbian Movie Night Ongoing Project. The community that gathers for this event varies month to month, but the centrality of women’s voices and lesbians on-screen provides a context in which to gather. There is still something very powerful about coming together in a real room.

When I found the story of Natalie Clifford Barney hidden in the words of Djuna Barnes, I recognized that what Barney created in her Parisian home at 20 rue Jacob contributed to my commitment to L.M.N.O.P. While each artist featured in the film is a complex and prolific creator in her own right, Barney’s salon supplied a gathering place for their entanglement. My film, an adaptation of Barnes’ roman à clef, is a glimpse into that entanglement.

The excitement of the movie isn’t just based on Barney’s lesbianism: she was also a self-proclaimed pagan and anti-monogamist. She was a radical who lived her message. She made friends the center of her life and supported the work of other women both financially and through her connections. This is a virtue we can learn from today.

When Djuna Barnes approached the most prominent people in publishing about her unconventional book, Ladies Almanack, she was rejected. Never mind that the influential Adrienne Monnier, Sylvia Beech, and Gertrude Stein happened to be lesbians themselves: they were all deeply entrenched in supporting and furthering the works of the men around them. Not Barney. She began L’Académie des Femmes, to honor women authors and always put women first.

Systematized omission of women, gender non-comforming persons, queers, and people of color from history is still rampant in the arts, literature, and other fields of cultural production. I make The Ladies Almanack in response to this erasure and in service of the hunger I feel for these buried voices.

I’m part of a big family and my siblings keep me connected to the rest of the world. Without them I’d likely disappear into dusty archives, cult-cinema obscurity and D.I.Y. underground arts. My sisters, who are not artists (and not lesbians), are how I gauge what savvy and thoughtful mainstream women in society are into. Thus, a few years ago when my sister Yael tells me about this show called Orange Is the New Black, and then my sister Trysa raves to me about Transparent, I am excited and thankful. I wonder at how great it is that the mainstream is discovering that lesbian stories are not just for lesbians. These shows are opening doors for my work. Our culture is waking up to the fact that we need all of our voices.

The multiplicity of truth is evident when we listen to more than one monocultural voice. Women appear in each others’ fiction where they become mythologized and multiple; competing versions of events exist simultaneously. In my film work, I try to honor that complicated reality.

My work relies on a tireless belief in our collective ability to reclaim and rename our history and, in doing so, our future. The recruitment at the center of my practice is not participation, but initiation. I aim to turn the outsider in. Coming together, we acknowledge the singularity of this present, this temporary configuration that is equally as powerful as the pasts I research and reconstruct. And I believe that if we turn our attention to one another, we can realize our full potential as world-makers. My journey with The Ladies Almanack, and our current crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark, is a step in that direction.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week – and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

Aziz Ansari’s Hilarious New Show Tells Stories Rarely Seen on TV by Amy Lam at Bitch Media

10 Awesome Feminist Films From the ’90s by Gisselli Rodriguez at Ms. blog

Documenting Women’s Stories: November 2015’s Crowdfunding Picks by Laura Nicholson at Women and Hollywood

For A Year, Shonda Rhimes Said ‘Yes’ To All The Things That Scared Her at NPR

Shonda Rhimes On Running 3 Hit Shows And The Limits Of Network TV at NPR

Watch 25-Minute Conversation with Gina Prince-Bythewood on ‘Love & Basketball’ & Indie Filmmaking Challenges by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

10 Female-Directed Movies on Netflix That You Need to Watch Now by Allyson Johnson at The Mary Sue

Reese Witherspoon Gives Glamour Awards Speech: Female-Driven Films “Are Not a Public Service Project” by Ashley Lee at The Hollywood Reporter

Why Catherine Hardwicke Started to Fight Back Against Hollywood Sexism by Ramin Setoodeh at Variety

The ‘Ishtar’ effect: When a film flops and its female director never works again by Rebecca Keegan at LA Times

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Seed & Spark: “Not Even Once”

I don’t know yet if we made a good movie, but I’m pretty sure we made an honest movie—and you can’t do that while you, or your characters, are busy pretending to be “strong.” Being vulnerable, and weak, and pushing ahead anyway is what’s interesting about anyone, fictional or real.

Bre Mueck and Matthew Luret at the park in a scene from All Earthly Constraints

This is a guest post by Ryan M. Moore.

My first memory of being exposed to a feminist film (and one of my first memories, period) is of my mom setting up a projector in our basement (8mm? 16mm? I am old), loading it with a reel she had borrowed from the library (yes, you could do that!) and showing my brother and me an animated film called Reverse-a-quake! It was set on an island which was hit by a big earthquake, which caused all of the men to have to switch to doing what had previously been women’s work, and vice-versa. That there was anything political about this storyline sailed right over my 6-year-old head, but knowing what I know now, it must have sunk in a little.

I call myself a feminist without reservation, but I didn’t set out to make a feminist statement, or any kind of political statement, when I wrote and directed my feature film debut All Earthly Constraints. The lead character, Emily (played by the amazing Bre Mueck) is a struggling screenwriter (“Write what you know!”) who works in a gelato shop. Emily’s screenplay is about a struggling screenwriter named Emma (“Write what you know!”) who works in a coffee shop, and is also secretly a superheroine named Emmageddon. Emma is Emily’s “Mary Sue” (a character that is a thinly veiled, idealized version of her author), and Emmageddon is Emma’s. It’s Mary Sues all the way down.

In one scene, Emily has just left her writer’s group in tears after having her script “Emmageddon” savaged (“Self-indulgent! Masturbatory!”) by the sadistic self-proclaimed group leader, John. Soft-spoken Dylan goes after Emily, and they end up talking and drinking at a local park. In the course of their first-ever real conversation, this happens:

DYLAN: I guess I just think about… sometimes, you know, a real job, a family, stability. No “someday when I make it.” Is that so wrong? I mean, haven’t you ever thought you might be worthwhile, or good enough, or whatever, just how you are—just being you?

EMILY: Not even once.

DYLAN: (after a long pause) Me neither.

Shooting this scene was incredibly strange. To hear and see the most honest thing I’ve ever written about the creative process brought to life by two amazing actors, seemed, at the time, like an affirmation of all the choices I’ve ever made. I fell largely on Emily’s side as I thought, “Yeah, I’m doing the right thing with my life.”

Three months later, mired in the post-production process, I can see Dylan’s side too. Maybe it should be enough to just work your job and live your life and be happy with you are. Maybe I would’ve been happier that way. Maybe it’s just my ego that tells me I can’t possibly ever settle for “normal.” It’s been an incredibly difficult process trying to finish this film—making a movie is hard. Trying to do anything well is hard. Life is hard.

Bre Mueck as Emmageddon in a scene from All Earthly Constraints

But what I learned in the process of shooting that scene (and of tangling up my reality and emotional state with that of my character’s to a frankly disorienting extent that I hope would make Charlie Kaufman proud), was this: Emily is not a “strong female character.” Emily isn’t “strong,” at least not exclusively. She starts the scene in tears, and continues by admitting her deepest self-doubts to Dylan, not because she has any real connection with him (yet), but because he’s there and willing to listen and pay for the booze.

And Emmageddon isn’t always “strong” either, even though she’s a self-proclaimed superhero. Who would be interested in seeing a story about someone who was nothing but “strong,” all the time, in every situation? It would be like watching a film about a slab of granite. I don’t know yet if we made a good movie, but I’m pretty sure we made an honest movie—and you can’t do that while you, or your characters, are busy pretending to be “strong.” Being vulnerable, and weak, and pushing ahead anyway is what’s interesting about anyone, fictional or real.

I have a lot of problems with the current crop of superhero movies. While the artistry and craft that goes into their creation is almost literally unimaginable, all too often they exist exclusively in the realm of black and white, “good guys” and “bad guys,” strong, wise-cracking male heroes and female sidekicks who exist mostly as window-dressing, or as sexual conquests for the men. One of my goals in creating All Earthly Constraints was to create a female superhero who was also human: Yes, she kicks, punches, and slaps people who deserve to be kicked, punched and slapped, and she’s good at it. But she has no special powers and she can be hurt, physically and emotionally. Under the costume, she’s still a person. I’m not quite delusional enough to believe that All Earthly Constraints will ever be playing in your local multiplex next to the latest Summer tentpole, but I hope it starts a few conversations, or adds a little bit to some that are already happening.

You can learn more about All Earthly Constraints, and follow or support our crowdfunding campaign at Seed & Spark.

Ryan M. Moore is a writer and director living in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. All Earthly Constraints is his first feature film.

The Making of a Caribbean-Canadian Sci-Fi: ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’

When speaking over the phone, Sharon’s enthusiasm for this pioneering adaptation of a Caribbean Canadian sci-fi novel emanates as though this was a fresh and newly discovered idea. In fact, Sharon has been working on creating this film for the past 15 years (while also establishing herself as a published playwright, writer, actor and award winning director) and although the journey has been long, she strongly believes that now is the perfect time to transition this well-nurtured idea into tangible reality.

This guest post by Amanda Parris appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

Interview with the filmmaker below.

I was in my first year of university when I first read Nalo Hopkinson’s critically acclaimed novel, Brown Girl in the Ring as part of a Humanities course entitled Cultures of Resistance in the Americas. It had never occurred to me to think of futuristic dystopias and sci-fi literature as part and parcel of a resistance culture that has sustained African Diasporic cultures in the Americas until I was introduced to this work. A few pages into the novel, I was hooked. Located in the city where I have spent most of my life, the story is set in Toronto, a downtown core cordoned off from the surrounding suburbia where the rich and wealthy have fled. In the opening pages Hopkinson sets the scene:

When Toronto’s economic base collapsed, investors, commerce, and government withdrew into the suburb cities leaving the rotten core to decay. Those who stayed were the one’s who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave. The street people. The poor people. The ones who didn’t see the writing on the wall, or who were too stubborn to give up their homes. Or who saw the decline of authority as an opportunity. As the police force left, it sparked large-scale chaos in the city core: the Riots. The satellite cities quickly raised roadblocks at their borders to keep Toronto out. The only unguarded exit from the city core was now over water, by boat or prop plane from the Toronto Island mini-airport to the American side of Niagra Falls.

Nalo Hopkinson

Seventeen years after the publication of Brown Girl in the Ring, Toronto was named the No. 1 city in the world to live in by The Economist. But who benefits or lives the reality of this status? The rise of condo-mania in the downtown core has also led to the rapid gentrification and resulting dislocation of numerous communities – the individuals affected fit a disturbingly similar profile to the ones that Nalo envisioned eventually cordoned off from health care, electricity and technology. Her description of The Burn, that walled-off section of Toronto, feels hauntingly familiar and it is this resonance that writer/director Sharon Lewis feels will hook people into the film adaptation of the novel that she is currently working on: Brown Girl in the Ring – The Prequel.

The Prequel puts the coming-of-age story of the novel’s protagonist, a young girl named Ti-Jeanne, front and center. The film will illustrate her first steps as she moves into the role of the heroine that she becomes in the novel. Beyond an exploration into the particular otherworldly gifts Ti-Jeanne possesses and her ability to navigate the dystopian landscape that defines her home, Ti-Jeanne’s character is also challenged by a more familiar narrative of conflict between her Caribbean and Canadian cultural identities. When speaking over the phone, Sharon’s enthusiasm for this pioneering adaptation of a Caribbean Canadian sci-fi novel emanates as though this was a fresh and newly discovered idea. In fact, Sharon has been working on creating this film for the past 15 years (while also establishing herself as a published playwright, writer, actor and award winning director) and although the journey has been long, she strongly believes that now is the perfect time to transition this well-nurtured idea into tangible reality. Last week Sharon successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign to support the film. Achieving this recent milestone has affirmed her belief that there is an audience out there excited for a story like this and that the moment is now for the film to be realized. She says,

Well I think we’re in the zeitgeist. I think that the novel and the film are coming to life in an appropriate time. I’m not sure if in 1998 we would have understood that this is so relevant to our present day lives. I think that with the rise of social media and technology we have a lot more access to those images so all of a sudden Ferguson, Baltimore, Detroit, all of those are in our consciousness in a way that it wouldn’t have been in 1998 because we didn’t have the same kind of access and the people living within those situations didn’t have the same kind of access. We see the rise of public videos being used in legal battles. That was never the case in the late 1990s. So all of a sudden police officers are being held accountable according to public videos. It doesn’t mean that they’re always being held to justice but they’re actually being held accountable which again is being used as a catalyst for people to riot. In the film that is the trigger for all of the things that happen. There is an economic collapse and the poor people are tired of being poor and they rise up. I think that if you look at why they are rising up it’s because there’s an access to social media in a way that they didn’t have before and then the only way to shut them down is to seclude them and cut off their electricity and cut off their ability to communicate with the outside world where their reality is going on.

Corporate and government decisions to seclude a section of the population following their mass politicized mobilization as a result of increased connectivity and communication feels eerily prophetic in the current era recently dubbed “Black Spring.” Sharon revealed that part of Nalo’s inspiration for the novel came from poignant observations of the harsh realities occurring south of the border:

When I talked to Nalo she was inspired by Detroit in terms of what post-apocalyptic Toronto would look like and this is 1998. So she was in Detroit and looking at a city that basically had an invisible wall around it. You had all the wealthy industrialists living in a particular area and then all the Black neighbourhoods were burnt out, abandoned, policed – heavily policed and the public school system was on its way down. So that’s the Toronto that you’re going to see in my film.

Although set in Toronto, Sharon recognizes that this story of economic flight and extreme disconnection and alienation is one that can resonate beyond the city’s borders. As a child of the Caribbean Diaspora, the extremes of wealth and poverty sitting side-by-side in an imbalanced yet normalized fashion is disconcertingly familiar for Sharon:

I spent a lot of my childhood in Jamaica and Trinidad and a lot of that reality is already there. There were already people that were cut off from technology or cut off from electricity who were having to make do. And right across the street they were seeing the glistening lights. I remember in Jamaica driving through Kingston and on the hillside you’d see people living in zinc shacks, still walking to the river to get water and then just a couple of feet down from them was this massive, beautiful house with satellite dishes and massive technology.

Sharon Lewis

Prescient in the film will be the way that these kinds of divergences in experiences create walls between people – sometimes physical but often subconscious – thereby separating them from each other in ways that enable the current world order:

There is a wall but like any ghetto there’s an invisible wall. There’s a wall that basically you don’t step into the other world because you don’t belong there. And you won’t see the wall in the film because again my whole point is your own psychological barriers are much more destructive than any actual physical wall that’s built.

The setting constructed by Nalo Hopkinson in her novel was, as are many dystopian landscapes, a prophetic warning of what will come to be if we continue to ignore the signs of the times. And yet it sets itself apart from other popular dystopian literary tales with a distinctly Caribbean Diasporic influence, one which director/writer Sharon Lewis is excited to push aesthetically in the cinematic adaptation. She cites Marcel Camus’ 1959 Oscar Award-winning film Black Orpheus as a key inspiration in imagining an aesthetic that is steeped with a heavy Carnival influence:

I’ve never seen a Caribbean set in a dystopia. I’ve never actually seen a dystopia that has a Caribbean aesthetic. For me it makes sense because what I saw in the reality of Jamaica or Trinidad where people had to adapt with little resources…it’s dystopia. Aesthetically it will be interesting because you’ll see Caribbean people and that will affect the way they dress and you know the food and all of that, but also in the way that they talk and the way that they relate to each other in terms of what those moral values are.

To step into the unchartered territory of Caribbean-Canadian sci-fi film, Sharon has cast a wide net in considering her aesthetic and story inspirations. She celebrates the rise of female heroines in Sci-Fi and Fantasy film such as Bella Swan in Twilight, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. Although an avid fan of sci-fi, the unbelievable dearth of Black female heroines in the film genre has meant that Sharon has had to look elsewhere for reference points when conceptualizing the heroine Ti-Jeanne for Brown Girl in the Ring – The Prequel. She cites Julie Dash’s seminal film Daughters of the Dust as a key inspiration in seeing Black women as magical, full, and rich characters.

With the success of her crowdfunding campaign, Sharon has launched a Brown Girl Movement, led by women of colour who are coming together to tell this story in a new genre that will inevitably feel strangely familiar for so many: that of the Caribbean-Canadian sci-fi.

To learn more about Brown Girl in the Ring – The Prequel, visit the website.

Amanda Parris is writer from the 6ix who dreams of screenplays to come, has a couple of theatre plays under her belt and sometimes really geeks out and writes for “the academy.” In her spare time she is an actor, Critical Hip Hop educator, and producer of all things cool, creative, and disruptive that started from the bottom. You can follow her on Twitter at @amanda_parris

Seed & Spark: Funny, Feminine, and F*cking Fantastic: Funny Women Who Make Me Want to Woman the Bejeezus Out of My Writing

But lately there’s been a surge of female writers who inspire me. Not only for their individual writing styles, but also for their ability to be so unapologetically female. Which, as my writing partners and I launch into production of our web series ‘Supporting Roles,’ means everything.

This is a guest post by Shannon Hollsten.

For the longest time I’ve said, “I don’t want to be recognized as a good female writer. I want to be recognized as a good writer who happens to be female.” It was a huge distinction for me. Because up until recently, “female” has been a qualifier that somehow had – and to some degree still has – a negative connotation. Like, somehow whatever fantastic writing/acting/directing/cooking/etc. we’d created was still lesser than anything any dude attempted.

But lately there’s been a surge of female writers who inspire me. Not only for their individual writing styles, but also for their ability to be so unapologetically female. Which, as my writing partners and I launch into production of our web series Supporting Roles, means everything. Seeing the success and variety of funny female writers in Hollywood just means that the “X” in my chromosomal makeup is one less thing I have to worry about as I put pen to paper.

(Or rather, keyboard to Microsoft Word. Same thing.)

Tina Fey

As if she wouldn’t make the top of this list. If she had come into the forefront before I was an adult, I’d absolutely want to be her when I grew up. (Truth: I still do.) She was the first female head writer on Saturday Night Live and then decided to dominate TV because she could. I’m not sure how she does it, but everything she writes is quotable and is like an inside joke that you think you probably might be in on.

And she made Kenneth immortal. Brilliant.

Mindy Kaling

Honestly, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Kelly Kapoor on The Office. For whatever reason, the character just didn’t resonate with me. So when I found out Mindy Kaling was getting her own series, I was just like, “but….why?” About two minutes into the first episode of The Mindy Project, I got it. And I immediately and happily jumped on the Mindy bandwagon. Her comedy has a lot of subtlety baked into the big moments, and more often than not it’s the details that amuse me the most.

Katie Dippold

The genius behind The Heat, some of your favorite Parks and Recs episodes and now the already hyped female reboot of Ghostbusters. Her comedy is sharp and has its own recognizable charm to it, which isn’t a bad way to get your career going. She jumped from critically acclaimed TV to blockbuster movies in, like, 30 seconds (on the fame clock). WHO DOES THAT? Oh, that’s right. Katie does.

In the time it took me to write this caption, she probably completed Pitch Perfect 3 like it ain’t no thing. — In the time it took me to write this caption, she probably completed *Pitch Perfect 3* like it ain’t no thing.

Kay Cannon

Anyone with 30 Rock on their resume instantly gets an honorable mention. 30 Rock + New Girl + Pitch Perfect 1 and 2? Now you’ve made it right smack-dab on the list. The Pitch Perfect movies combine everyone’s guilty pleasure, A cappella, with strong characters, great dialogue, and humor. More than anything I want all my dialogue to be something that Fat Amy would say. And to be partially in harmonizing song.

Jillian Bell and Charlotte Newhouse

These two ladies are getting a spot on the list because I recently discovered – and discovered I love – their web series (or, TV mini-series as it’s listed on IMDb) Idiotsitter. It combines with outrageous characters with an absurd premise but in a way that’s oddly relatable and very funny. Watch it. You won’t be sorry. Or uninspired.

Yes, Amy, I did just write all those nice things about you! Can we be besties now? — Yes, Amy, I *did* just write all those nice things about you! Can we be besties now?

Amy Schumer

Finally (for this list at least), Amy F-ing Schumer – the “F” in this case standing for “Feminist.” Between her Emmy nominations and the successful opening of her comedy Trainwreck, she is now a fully active and hilarious member of the Hollywood’s A-list. Her comedy is perfectly on point for today’s culture. She’s self-deprecating but self-aware, not afraid to be feminist but not trying too hard to be one. She has brought her A-game to every part of her career this year. I really can’t wait to see what she does next. (No pressure, Amy.)

I know I am missing a few dozen amazing female writers. But, like inviting guests to a wedding, the list has to cut off somewhere or it’s just gonna get ridiculously out of hand. And these women are the ones who very specifically make me want to stand up and declare, “I am a female writer!”

I mean, I won’t. That’d be weird for my coworkers who have no context for that kind of outburst. But in my head I’m Norma Rae-ing this moment so hard right now. So hard.

Shannon Hollsten is an Austin-based amateur karaoke singer who is waiting oh-so-eagerly for the day they miniaturize elephants so we can keep them as pets.