I’m constantly working with various crews, artist, and talent.
Were you trying to get it done for the festival or was there another
constraint in there?
Well the cinematographer and talent , we were trying to work around their
dates. The director was also an actor and he was working so hard at that
time. He was in multiple shows and traveling all over the state.
How many movies have you produced so far?
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I have not counted. I think my first film I produced in April 2004. Then I
produced my German Filmmaker’s movie, which was a thesis film at the
University of New Orleans and it’s called “Us Against the World”. We
produced that one and it won Best Picture and Best Screenplay at the UNO
Film Festival and Best Sound at the New Orleans Film Festival. And we
just released it on DVD.
How does that work, distributing a short film?
I’m in the process of signing a contract with an online platform, which puts
a package of short films into an app, and people download it so people can
watch a block of shorts.
Besides everything, what does a producer do, or what do you feel your
role is?
The producer is there from the very beginning to the very end. We don’t
do quite everything of course, we hire different people to do different
jobs, but we do oversee and supervise every single department and every
step. For me it starts with an idea, if the script is not there yet we rewrite
the script, we perfect it so it’s ready to go to be shot. After that we hire a
team. If the director is the same person that wrote the script it’s easier but
sometimes you have to hire a director and sometimes he brings his own
team. So we put all the crew together, we do casting, sometimes we hire a
professional casting director or sometimes we do a local casting depends
on the scope of the film. We scout locations, lock locations, usually I work
with SAG agreement films so that’s another process that I have to do. I
obtain signatories and make sure all the paperwork is there. Then we start
production, for short films it’s about 3 or 4 days with a few pick up days of
shooting. For a feature it depends on the budget. Then postproduction, it’s
editing, it’s supervising, then submitting to festivals, finding distribution.
So your job isn’t done once shooting starts or even finishes?
Being a young woman and a producer, perhaps, sometimes creates an impression of a young
inexperienced person claiming that she knows what she does. I do think that women still have to work
harder than men to prove their abilities and earn trust. I’ve been sexually harassed before; however,
never discriminated or told that I could not do my job. In fact, I have to admit that I enjoy being the
boss and tell men what to do. I think I do it pretty well.
So right now you have two more movies you’re working on?
Well I’m shooting something in the spring. I think April. I have a few films in development but I still
need to prioritize to see which one I want to go with first. With short films you can squeeze them in a
month, in one weekend. Feature films though are a long process. So I’ll probably make a couple more
short films really quickly and move on to features.
So whatever the next feature is, it’s going to be your first feature?
First real one, probably, yes.
How many films have you entered
into film festivals?
Quite a few, 5 or 6. If it’s something
that I can show to people without
squishing my face then I’m totally
submitting it to festivals.
We’re always the harshest critics of
our own work, and maybe you didn’t
always love every film that you did
what was that feeling like when you
first did a film that you were totally
okay with people watching without
you having to lie them.
I don’t think I was ever embarrassed
Photo Credit: Victor Nguyen
with the work we’ve done, because I’d never say yes to a script that I didn’t like. I
know it’s always a work in progress and I usually see cuts before the final cut so I know what’s
changing and what’s going to make it to the final product. I fall in love with a piece in pre production
so it’s a positive creative process bringing it to life. So once it’s fully developed and ready to go it’s
hard to say that I don’t want anyone to see that. I’m actually more proud of it than ashamed, so I don’t
think I ever really felt ashamed.
So it’s like a kid?
Oh no, you still have to be there to make sure everything goes smoothly. Yes, it’s your baby, definitely. No matter how terrible it turns out to be, you still love it. You know
that’s true but hopefully it’s all good.
What challenges did you experience, if any, being a woman as a
producer? In the future do you look at yourself to continue to produce films, or are you looking at other
roles.
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