There has been an untold story in me that I’ve been longing to tell based on my experiences with being bullied and physically assaulted as a teenager. It’s been one of those personal project “work in progress” for years that I haven’t had the courage to tell, until now.
Over the summer I discovered a contest open for film makers hosted by Canon and world renown director, Ron Howard. As the Academy Award winner for Best Director of the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, he partnered with his actress/director daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, along with Eva Longoria, Jamie Foxx, Biz Stone, Georgina Chapman and James Murphy (all well known directors and actors in their own right) who made up the judging panel.
The Canon “Project Imagination“started with photographers submitting stills as inspiration for the Film contest. The film contest made up the second leg where film makers had to pick 10 images as inspiration for a short movie.
I’ve always been intrigued with film and movies and over the past few years I’ve immersed myself with learning the nuances of film in conjunction with my photography. So you can imagine my thrill and excitement to hear of the opportunity to be part of a global project for creatives!
Since my own personal “bullying” story is so personal in nature, I felt sharing it with my 14 year old daughter would make it even more powerful. When she heard of the ‘Project Imagination’ she jumped right in helping to develop the storyline, suggest direction and setting, as well as acted as ‘me’ at her age. I had my younger 3 year old daughter also involved playing “mini me”, so the story is a timeline narrative of my own journey, along with some artistic elements to make it more impactful. Toward the end is real life footage of my family all grown up so it became a family event!
It took us around 8 days of shooting bits and pieces, and having to redo the ‘milk scene’ three times made for quite a hilarious summer time project.
After Project Imagination received a flood of film entries from filmmakers across the country, they announced 20 Film Contest Finalists. From there the celebrity directors picked the 5 winning films that will be screened alongside the Celebrity Directors’ films at the Project Imaginat10n Film Festival later this Fall.
Even though my film “The Scarlett Letters” was not picked as a finalist, it was a wonderful opportunity to stretch my creativity and connect with telling a very real, raw and authentic story. My wish is that by telling my personal story that it gives even one person hope to push through the hard parts of life and know that it gets better!
Luke 6 v27-36
Please SHARE this story you never know it could CHANGE a LIFE!
Here is some ‘behind the scenes’ footage of how the project was put together…
Here is the link to my official entry
NEWS FLASH: Charlotte Observer newspaper features the story “Teen’s film fights bullying“
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