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CHROMISTA / PROTOZOA
1) My simple advice is go shoot something.
In this day and age there is nothing stopping someone with a story to tell from telling it. The advancements in technology and film equipment make filmmaking accessible to anyone. Even cellular phone cameras are so advanced and good enough to start and you can even edit right on them in most cases. Don’t wait around waiting for someone to pay you to tell stories…. tell your own.
2) Get on as many sets as possible and try to work in every department at least once. The more you know the better you can trouble shoot on your own projects in the future. Study young new directors and follow their trajectory.
3) Technology will always advance and there will always be new ways to tell stories. But nothing can replace a good story. Focus on story first and technology second. With all the excitement with new advancements like VR, directors can get lost in execution before story.
4) We were approached by Droga5 this year to be apart of their New York Times “Truth” campaign. It’s definitely a project that anyone could be proud of. Darren Aronofsky worked closely on the project that gives viewers a different prospective on journalists, and photo journalists struggles for truth, out in the field. I’m very proud of the work that the talent on our roster is creating. Dael Oates’ short film Death in Bloom has won so many short film festivals and Kasra Farahani just premiered his second feature film at the Tribeca Film Festival.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More