It’s hard to know what ‘appreciate’ or ‘support’ should mean to you, specifically, as a filmmaker or a fan of films. When Women’s History Month rolls around, it’s what we’re asked to do, but how do we put that into action? Is it just a matter of acknowledgment or credit to the women who’ve pioneered filmmaking in the past?
The word ‘process’ can be misleading for our own creative processes. It implies that it plays out the same way every time, that we have a formula for working our ideas out. Well, if you’re reading this, then you know that couldn’t be further from the truth. You know creative breakthrough can be hard to come by, and Director Salomon Ligthelm knows it, too.
Welcome back to our second article in a series exploring The Commercial Directors Diversity Program, or CDDP. In this installation, we had the opportunity to speak with Vanessa Black and Jane Qian about the specifics of their productions and how they overcame challenges to make them a reality.
Amanda is the director of integrated production at Wunderman Thompson in Chicago. If you don’t know what that title means, it roughly translates to “person who does just about everything.” Our conversation about her producing philosophies is an apt reminder that if you’re in the film industry, you’re a creative. You have to be. She’s a veteran in an industry that’s always changing—and she seems comfortable riding the wave of that change way out in front.
Tom Rolf worked through the transition from analog editing to digital editing and managed to do it without skipping a beat. It proves that a good editor is a good editor, no matter what era.
Finding music for your films is not easy. It’s a little bit like a treasure hunt, and not always the fun kind—it’s the kind that can really slow your edit if you don’t have the right tools at your disposal. We know because we’ve been there. You’re in the middle of a project and it’s time to start thinking about the soundtrack, then it all comes to a screeching halt.
Drea watches more than 350 films every single year and plays an active role in whether they’re successful or not. She’s well aware of the uphill climb many filmmakers face to get accepted — she said Sundance receives around 14,000 submissions every year and only 100 actually get a premiere. So, in an effort to make that climb a little more friendly, we decided to chat with Drea to put together a rough guide for getting into film festivals.
