Sorrel Brae of Humble directed this web campaign in which each spot features an LGBT adult in a classroom setting, not only relating his or her life story and lessons learned but writing a synopsis of the main lesson on a chalkboard.
In “Jana,” we meet a young woman who hid the fact that she was gay. She concluded, “Hiding didn’t work for me. Hiding worked for my family.” The camera then reveals the lesson she wrote on the classroom chalkboard: “I learned to shine without permission.”
A voiceover intervenes: “What you know now can make a real difference for LGBT teens’ today. Gay it forward.”
The “Gay it forward” slogan is a mantra for The Homecoming Project initiative in which successful LGBT professionals connect with LGBT teens, inspiring and empowering youth to realize and take pride in their identities. The online spots drive traffic to liveoutloud.info, a website where more can be learned about The Homecoming Project.
In another spot, titled “Matt,” his chalk-written lesson is simply, “I learned that my happiness makes my family happy.”
Agency is Deutsch New York.
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