what do you wish someone had told you as a child?

What do you wish someone had told you as a child? This question is the through-line in director A.V. Rockwell's "The Gospel," a music-driven docu-style short film commissioned by Alicia Keys, in support of her album "HERE." The answers to this question are filled with a mix of regret, hope, longing for days of innocence, but always poignant and certainly relatable. We all have an answer to this question. 

A.V. Rockwell has marked 2017 as her year - signed with Little Minx, she was recently named the grand-prize winner for her upcoming film "Feathers" in CHANEL'S Through Her Lens grant, selected for the 2017 SHOOT Online Directors Showcase, and awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship of the Arts. Rockwell's work is a force: charming, haunting, raw, and beautifully honest, in both "The Gospel," but also her heartbreaking short "Open City Mixtape" about New York's inner city life. 

Do yourself the favor and take a minute to watch.  "The Gospel" and A.V.'s reel here: http://www.littleminx.tv/av-rockwell/

A.V. Rockwell 

If you've been following my blog, you are familiar with my stance on the importance of the female lens. Additionally, I recently had an experience that reinforced my position on the importance of including the lens of person's of color. Working on a project, we were looking for diverse inclusiveness - actively seeking it out - but in the end we missed out on racial nuance. It wasn't until our client, 50% persons of color, pointed it out, that we saw that the equitability we were striving for was off balance. And in that moment, it wasn't so difficult to see how the Dove fiasco came to be. 

What do I wish someone had told me when I was a child? That I would be humbled, deeply humbled, by my own inability to see. Despite all the best intentions, I left wondering if we can ever overcome the unconscious handicap of looking solely through the lens of our own experience. If not, then we need to make sure that there are industry professionals/colleagues that represent the voices we are portraying in the work we create: women, people of color, GLBT, etc, so we don't trip over ourselves in our blindness. Strategy is only going to get us so far. The perspective of those with alternate experiences can give the breath and authenticity that our projects need. I know that I am grateful for them.  

A.V. was recently asked if she had any words of wisdom for other women working in film, but this applies to all of us.  I'll leave you with this: "Be inclusive in ways that the industry isn’t, not just regarding gender, but create opportunities for other minority groups as well. Most importantly – check your biases, most of which are still unconscious because we’ve been nurtured to view the world a certain a way, whether those images and practices harm us directly or not." - A.V. Rockwell

http://www.therockwell.co

If you are interested in working with A.V. on your next project (she's now available for commercial work) contact:

NIKKI WEISS & CO: Nikki Weiss - nikki@nikkiweissandco.com

scandinavian cool

Last week I was listening to The Movidiam podcast, and they were interviewing director Åsa Riton from Sweden, who recently signed with RSA for commercial work. Naturally, I looked her up.

Her work is amazing. It's a perfect blend of the masculine/feminine, grit/gorgeous, romantic/moody, dream-state/reality, all wrapped up perfectly in a beautiful little bow. She's avant-garde, without being inaccessible. You just want to throw her your boards and see what amazing vision she comes back with. Take a look:

Åsa Riton RSA Commercial Reel

Her goal is "to stay true to her ethic of merging art and film," and she does it like a perfect pairing of salty and sweet. With a graphic design background, she studied at Central Saint Martins, The Danish Film School, worked with the ever-inspiring David Lynch and countless other artists, and counts Nike, Mercedes Benz, Playstation, Diesel, Philips, Microsoft and Sony as clients...and she's just getting started.

She believes that clients need to take more risks in their work. To make things viral and shareable, they need to be memorable (creative folks, everywhere, nodding enthusiastically). Her work is bold - something needed to stand out in the overly saturated media-driven world we live in.

Seeing her work, however, begged the question; does Sweden, known for being incredibly progressive, have the same issues as women filmmakers in the US? Turns out they do. In fact, they have their own initiative, called One Of Three, that encourages agencies/clients to bring at least one woman to the bid process and more women to production company rosters. Sound familiar?

Alex Reeves of The Beak Street Bugle, sat down with Åsa a couple of years ago in Cannes to ask her all of the questions that I had: what kind of projects attract you? Does your work attract clients that are looking to do something more creative instead of pushing their message too hard? How has the One Of Three initiative been beneficial? Do you have to try harder to get projects that are more universal and less female-related? Take a look:

Åsa Riton Live in Cannes

One Of Three is important, because it shows the lack of women directors represented in the commercial world--or the entire film world for that matter--is not just a US issue, it's a global issue. If Sweden feels the need to have such an initiative, then you know it's needed everywhere else. The female lens and perspective is not only needed, it's a lens I believe the advertising world is starving for.

So for this edition, I'm leaving you with One Of Three's website that highlights some of the best women directors in Sweden, including Åsa Riton. So if you can't find the woman director you are looking for, let this be another resource. Go ahead, bookmark it now: http://oneofthree.se/

If you are interested in working with Åsa on your next project, contact:

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:  Chris Karabas - chris@thehouseofrepresentatives.tv and/or Rob Mueller - rob@thehouseofrepresentatives.tv

the future is looking equitable

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've had many conversations about Free the Bid. Whether it's about if agencies I have worked for have taken the pledge, if my last set of bids have consciously included women in the mix for directorial candidates, but the majority of the time it's someone asking the same and most frequent question: where are all the women directors?

Our industry faces the same situation time and time again. A products target market is women - and yet much of the time, the creatives, the director and editor are, largely, men. The representation for the female voice is still by and large dominated by the masculine voice. So when this question has been asked, I have not always had an answer. Until now.     

I recently came across Adolescent Content, a production company comprised of Gen Z and Gen Y directors, photographers and influencers. Helmed by Executive Creative Director Ramaa Mosley and Executive Producer Hope Farley, Adolescent functions as a traditional production company that both mentors up and coming talent and partners them with agencies and brands to bring authenticity and a fresh voice to youth driven advertising and entertainment.  

Adolescent has the most equitable roster of talent that I have ever come across, with 50% of the talent being young women. That's right...50%.

To give a sampling, Claire Jantzen, a Gen Z director, bewitches us with her maturity in a Levi's spec spot, brings authenticity to friendship in Netflix's "13 Reasons Why You Matter," and her work for Target. Similarly, Allison Raskin, a Gen Y director, gives us all a reason to laugh and cheer her heroine on in Buzzfeed's "One Woman Discovers the Wage Gap," and shows us her pro-chops in spots for Spotify and Snickers.

When we ask, "where are the women directors" - they are at places like Adolescent, and we should all be paying attention to where they go next. If these talent, both young men and women, are doing this kind of work now, what will they be captivating us with in ten years?

Adolescent makes me hopeful that we won't ever have to hear the question, "where are the women directors," again.  Because they are out there, and will soon be ready to join the rosters of the shops we love and work with today. The future is looking equitable.  

Check out their site:  http://adolescentcontent.com/

If you are interested in partnering with Adolescent on your next project, contact:

JULIUSSON+RATCLIFFE: Dawn Ratcliffe - dawn@juliussonratcliffe.com and/or Marguerite Juliusson - marguerite@juliussonratcliffe.com