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Making a Film with Karisa Bruin and the Alliance of Women Directors

If you are a filmmaker and you haven’t worked with the Alliance of Women Directors (AWD) yet then I have a suggestion for you … do it!  I worked with the fabulous director Karisa Bruin on my most recent film THE TOOTH RACKET and it was the AWD that helped lead us toward collaboration.

One of my favorite things about running a production company is finding and showcasing the talents of diverse people.  In planning THE TOOTH RACKET, I knew I wanted to have a female director calling the shots, so I reached out to the AWD to see if they might know of a good fit for the project. They put out the word about my project and I received loads of interest from qualified and super talented directors. When I saw Karisa’s film UberEx (check out the hilarious bicycle stunt) and got a chance to talk with her about my film it was immediately clear to me that she was a perfect fit for my project. And oh boy was I right. Not only was she every bit the fearless leader I needed to guide our team through a jam-packed single day of shooting — her skills at improv made her a great collaborator when it came to putting the final touches on our dark comedy script. Karisa secured us several outstanding crew members she had worked with before in addition to referrals through her AWD connections. I can honestly say that assembling such an awesome team wouldn’t have been possible without the Alliance of Women Directors and Karisa, and I’m so grateful to them for their help.  You should definitely look into AWD as a resource for your creative projects!

The video below has a few excerpts of Karisa at the Rock the Shorts Film Festival’s filmmaker Q&A.

  1. In the first part she explains how we assembled our top-notch team and how it was working with actress Madison Taylor Baez (from Netflix’s, Selena: The Series).
  2. In the second part she is responding to an audience question. This was the only question asked about the benefits of being a parent (incidentally no men were asked this question … blerg). Karisa was was generous and give us some insight on how being a parent helped her multitask around the very real limitations of time and resources on set. “Being a mother has enhanced the skill of managing chaos for me.”

For more information on the Alliance of Women Directors, check out AWD’s website at www.allianceofwomendirectors.org, where you can search for a director using their “Find a Director” tab or contact them to learn of other ways to collaborate. You can also follow AWD on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

For more information on THE TOOTH RACKET director Karisa Bruin, visit www.karisabruin.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

Oh … and here’s the film! 🙂