First and foremost, we hope that you are staying safe and healthy during these strange and scary times. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones. Those of us in Los Angeles have been in stay-at-home mode for over a month now, and expect to be in lockdown for at least another month. Although film and television production has been completely shut down, we have been trying to make the best of working from home, including continuing to push through post-production on PURE!
Our director, Cate, and key producer/editor, J, have been busy creating the graphics and animation for the interactive scenes in our pilot episode. We have also been writing and testing voice-over dialogue to accompany those scenes. And it’s been looking pretty darn cool.
We’re looking forward to putting this together with all the live footage and creating a unique storytelling format that allows us to expand on the world of PURE. As always, thank you for your support and enthusiasm!
Set in a future where genetic modification has divided society, PURE is a sci-fi/adventure digital series exploring freedom, sacrifice, and morality from an inclusive perspective.
The pilot episode, Episode Zero, crowdfunded in the the summer of 2018, principal photography wrapped in December of 2018, and the project is currently in post-production.
Thanks to you, last weekend we shot two days of principal photography on Episode Zero of PURE. We had a fantastic time shooting on location in Idyllwild, California and cannot wait to show you how it all turned out. Here is a little behind-the-scenes sneak peek:
But we still have a long road ahead of us. Following a short break for the holidays and the New Year, we will be jumping right into post-production. We’ll keep you posted on our progress, and, as always, don’t hesitate to reach out and say “Hi” via social media, Seed & Spark, or at [email protected].
In our most recent update at www.journeytotheannex.com, our lead actors Briggon Snow and Julia Morizawa go to their first official fitting with costume designer Kumie Asai. The core team continues pre-production based on our shiny new script, while director Cate Carson is getting the whole show together with all our department heads and key producer J. Everley is busy magically stretching our budget as far as it’ll go.
Happy Sunday! I’m super excited to share this sneak peek of the poster for my animated short film DRAGONFLY created by animation director Maria Marta Linero (see more of her work at www.vimeo.com/rolypoly2d).
I don’t have an official website for this film yet, but you can read a little more about it at www.juliamorizawa.com/dragonfly
And here’s the logline: A young girl learns of her mother’s survival of the Tokyo Firebombing on March 9-10, 1945 through the eyes of her brother’s spirit.
Thanks to you, last weekend we shot two days of principal photography on Episode Zero of PURE. We had a fantastic time shooting on location in Idyllwild, California and cannot wait to show you how it all turned out. Here is a little behind-the-scenes sneak peek:
But we still have a long road ahead of us. Following a short break for the holidays and the New Year, we will be jumping right into post-production. We’ll keep you posted on our progress, and, as always, don’t hesitate to reach out and say “Hi” via social media, Seed & Spark, or at [email protected].
In our most recent update at www.journeytotheannex.com, our lead actors Briggon Snow and Julia Morizawa go to their first official fitting with costume designer Kumie Asai. The core team continues pre-production based on our shiny new script, while director Cate Carson is getting the whole show together with all our department heads and key producer J. Everley is busy magically stretching our budget as far as it’ll go.
Black women directors have created some of the most powerful, nuanced, and layered stories of our time. From indie hits to serious blockbusters, projects written and directed by black women have proven to be essential in contributing a unique cinematic gaze. In the span of 39 years, Sundance Institute has supported numerous black women artists in telling their stories via labs, grants, and the annual Festival in Park City.
In celebration of Black History Month, we’re highlighting black women feature-film directors with ties to Sundance Institute. We’ve chosen 11 artists who have worked to portray the intricate lives of black women, bring into focus cultural aspects of the African diaspora, and express socially relevant themes through film.
Tanya Wexler had just started her career in film when she fell pregnant. Now a decade and four children later she’s back with ‘Hysteria’. With an all star cast including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rupert Everett, Felicity Jones, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce 'Hysteria’ chronicles the invention of the vibrator in Victorian England in the guise of a romantic comedy. I met with the New Yorker in Soho to talk about leaving the 'mom cave’, women in film and stand-out star Sheridan Smith.
HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED WITH THE FILM?
I was given a two page treatment by the developing producer, Tracy Becker. I’d made two teeny-weeny art house films, had four kids and was in the mom cave for a while (laughs) I was developing some stuff but I wasn’t really…it was just slow and I liked it but when you’re in independent film you have to be willing to miss things like dinner with your family or a recital and sometimes on the promise of nothing happening so you have to have to make it.So Tracy said, “I know what your next project is, it’s about the invention of the vibrator in Victorian England.” I almost peed my pants just about the idea so I just knew that I had to do it.
Then we knew that we needed a story because if it was just about the vibrator it would have been a short movie! (Laughs) We brought the writers on and I knew I was an American but I wanted it to be a British film rather than something that was just set over here so we made a list of British independent producers and really through luck and a friend we got to Sarah Curtis who is a goddess…I worship at her feet, she did Mrs Brown, she loved it and in the end we were joined by my third mom on Hysteria, Judy Cairo who did Crazy Heart, and she really brought the finance together with Sarah…and six years later we were shooting! (Laughs)
YEAH IT WAS A LONG PROCESS!
Yeah it was almost two years to get the script right and I’d made two films before so I knew where to put the camera but I didn’t have a very big track record so I need to prove it through developing the script. Once we got that going we financed for two years and as with everything it fell apart as it did for people in every sphere, so it took another two years to get it back together again.
WAS THAT QUITE DISHEARTENING?
Of course, but I mean people always want to attribute it to a tough subject matter but the truth is films are hard, they’re risky endeavours – they’re art in a way, they’re commerce in a way…it’s a silly business. (Laughs)
SO WOULD YOU SAY FINANCING WAS THE TOUGHEST THING?
I suppose so… I find it fascinating, some people just want to wash their hands of it, I think I just want to wash my hands of the pain of ‘will it or won’t it’. I was talking to a friend last night and he saying that you shouldn’t remove the obstacles, it forces you to improve the material and it’s tricky because your goal is to remove the obstacles so you can get the thing made but making sure that the obstacles and push-backs and all the millions of no’s you get really force you to hone the material. I was just really lucky because I loved the material and I found people who loved it and believed in it…
I’M SURPRISED THERE HASN’T BEEN A FILM MADE ABOUT IT BEFORE…
I know right! I think maybe about 10 years before we got involved there was a very well written scholarly book called The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines, and I think it was just the tipping point, where someone pulls together all the knowledge and maybe only a few hundred people will read it but it filters down. I wanted to see a movie about it so thought I better make it!
DO YOU THINK IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOU’RE A WOMAN DIRECTING IT BECAUSE OF HE SUBJECT MATTER - IT’S ALL ABOUT FEMALE LIBERATION?
That’s a good question, yeah I think for a long time I would have said no or that it didn’t matter and that a man could have placed the camera in the same place I did, but where it comes into play is where I’ve learnt more about the film, people going to see it – men and women – feel safe, they have permission to laugh; no one is exploiting anyone, they know that they’re literally in safe hands…excuse the pun! (Laughs) I think a guy could have gone more explicit, or more comedy and I wanted to see a film that was entertaining, fun and didn’t take itself too seriously. It’s very easy in this film to talk about the gender and politics and I think that’s great but it’s a lot to put on. It’s a romantic comedy and it just happens that the characters happen to be talking about more interesting subjects. The world of romance and finding the one has been really explored – sometimes really well and sometimes not – but this is a romantic comedy of a different kind, the comedy is really about the denial they have. It’s not a movie that’s going to solve the problems of gender and equality! (Laughs)
THERE ARE SOME GREAT ACTORS IN THIS, HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT CASTING?
Oh it was so fun! When you do the financing you do these wish lists of people you’d love to have in the movie…and everyone on my list is in the movie, it was crazy! If I’d known who Felicity Jones was she would have been on my wish list too! My casting director said “There’s this really special actress, she’s really coming up, everyone is talking about her” and I thought I knew who I was going to cast but she was just like, “Just wait, wait we just want you to see one more person!” She came in and I just thought, ‘Holy shit!’ she’s a proper actress and she’s funny, she has pathos. We weren’t doing broad comedy so we needed proper actors who could be funny and I was just like, ‘Are you f*cking kidding me? She’s so good!’ She has a huge facility.
The other revelation for me…because we didn’t really have Gavin and Stacey in the States…was Sheridan (Smith). My producer said, “Before you cast Molly I want you to come and seeLegally Blonde.” I was like “Really? Legally Blonde?” it didn’t do so well in the States and I think it’s down to Sheridan that it did so well as a musical. She made me go, like a proper British woman saying, ‘Don’t be a snob you obnoxious New Yorker!’ (Laughs). I went and I was like"‘I’m going to cry in Legally Blonde? There’s pathos in Legally Blonde?” Sheridan was like a genius! I went backstage to chat to her and she said, “I read the script, I love it, do you mind if I audition?” I was just trying not to offer it to her on the spot! She came in and read for me and it was such a treat, I literally fell off the couch laughing in the audition! You guys are just not fair, you have too much acting talent stuffed into this little country.
It was also amazing to get Maggie (Gyllenhaal) one of my three producers was like, “Do you mind if I send the script to Maggie?” – Do I mind? I was thinking: who is that Katherine Hepburn character today? And there was no doubt, it was Maggie.
YOU WENT AWAY FOR A BIT TO HAVE CHILDREN, HOW HAD THE FILM BUSINESS CHANGED WHEN YOU CAME BACK?
I don’t know I think directors work on projects for long periods of time, people that work on a lot of different things, like producers, may feel it more. I try not to bother about the female director question because you cant really change it…you definitely get pigeon-holed and in a way it seems to have gotten worse, they say of the top 250 grossing films 5% were directed by women and 10 years ago it was 7%.
I think women are tending to be, whether by choice or by force of the industry, are being allowed to do certain types of films, not many women, aside from Kathryn Bigelow, are doing big action films or epic pieces, so they tend to make films that don’t make as much money and are often harder to execute. It’s a self-reinforcing thing where female directors aren’t given films that make lots of money and aren’t given the opportunity to so it just feeds off itself. A lot of women are given high school films but where’s our women that kick ass? (Laughs)
I don’t know it’s interesting, for me it’s changed a lot, the film played at Toronto last year and has been making its way round the world and that’s a huge thing. I think in a way it’s nice to be part of the discussion and getting a crack at things that I never had before.
WHAT FILMS WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE MAKING THEN?
I’m obsessed with good actors so actor-magnets - great characters. I’m not particularly genre specific, though I’m not a big horror fan. I just love big ideas, for me this was about having a laugh at yourself, knowing what’s serious and what’s fun and being true to yourself – those are big universal ideas. I have a biopic I’m working on… that I can’t totally talk about with a really awesome actress and that’s half in the UK and half in the US and hopefully the script will be done in a couple of months. I also have a weird surreal comedy I’m developing…kind of Charlie Kaufman-y….
YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE BACK INTO IT NOW THEN?
Oh yeah, my youngest one has started school so it makes it easier, though travelling can be tricky, even though we have two moms in our family it’s still a little tricky!
DID YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO GET BACK INTO?
No, I loved it, it’s hard to not be with your kids but we worked it out, the worst bit is the editing where the fun bit is over and you just want to blow your brains out. (Laughs)
WHO IS YOUR IDOL?
I have too many, the first person who pops into my head is Jane Goodall, she’s a brilliant strong women, trailblazing, changing the world.
