Filmmaking Archives - Ashley Maria Productions

Making It Real For Super Human Anxiety

Creating Whitney's World

An interview with Super Human Anxiety Production Designers Lynda Reiss & Rachel Leggett

What are practical effects?

Practical effects are special effects created physically, with a goal of making the viewer feel a desired emotion, and shot in camera. We often create these special effects by hand and utilize tools like puppeteering, hydraulics or animatronics, cloud tanks, bladders, and reverse photography of moving objects….and in our case for this film, sheer woman muscle!

Rachel: We had to make the set look like the world around Whitney was really crumbling around her — breaking, smashing, denting, you name it. To do that, Lynda and I spent months creating the best look for a tumbler cup to shatter, a pencil breaking in her hand, a stress ball popping, elbows punching through walls (*takes breath in…continues*), denting a floor tile, denting an elevator door, breaking elevator buttons, scrunching a book bag…all while ACTUALLY building an elevator because we weren’t allowed to break a real elevator.

Lynda: Not only did these effects need to be safe and convincing, most needed to practically fix themselves again on camera (spoiler alert!).

We needed to think through each effect front & back, inside & out. The popped stress ball refilling with air, the splintered elevator panel stitching itself back together, and more. Trial and error became our best friend.

For example, there is an effect, our “piece de la resistance,” where Whitney (Alexis Jacquelyn Smith) sends her elbow through the wall. We built the elevator set with a wood paneling design so that we could replace the breakaway wood panel in-between takes. During the build we tested multiple versions of the breakaway panel to find the perfect balance of splintering and strength.

Rachel: My poor elbow took the brunt of it all! In the end we found a material that was just right. On the day of the shoot, when it was time for elbows to fly, we recruited the crew to stand on the other side of the wall as reinforcement (and put a comfy arm pad on Whitney to protect her elbow).

Lynda: The stress ball deflating & inflating was less grand but a fun one for Rachel. Deflating was a simple replacement with color matching clay, but the ball shape rebounding was the challenge. We could slow down the footage in post but we needed to delay the rebound just enough for a squeezing hand to escape frame in time.

Rachel: I started thinking back to road trips when I was a kid in the occasionally cold Ohio, and remembered my siblings using their frozen memory foam pillows as weapons. So I thought perhaps that same concept could be applied for good this time. I placed a specialty memory foam stress ball in the freezer, and the cold helped maintain the shape for just long enough to get the shot.

Lynda: By far the largest challenge working on this project was the summer heat. We built the elevator elements in a small living room with no air conditioning.

Rachel: Ha! It’s a miracle we were able to problem solve these practical effects while sweating buckets. We owe a lot of gratitude to the friends who helped along the way, and to popsicles!

Lynda Reiss is a Director, Production Designer, and a Prop Master in film and television. Reiss’s directorial debut, “Ready To Go”, won 27 awards on the festival circuit, and was Oscar qualified for 2019. As prop master, she has worked on feature film projects such as “American Beauty”, “American History X”, “Reality Bites”, and television shows “Stranger Things”, “True Detective”, and “Winning Time”.

Rachel Leggett is a Production Designer, Prop Master, Stop Motion Animator in social media spots, shorts, and feature films. Recent projects include “YOYOs”, “Never Hike Alone 2”, and “The Stain”. As a member of Women in Film, Cool Girl Cinema Club, and a regular at the neighborhood cinema, she loves connecting with the film community.

Let’s Talk Color!

color correction for Super Human Anxiety

Well…correcting color to be exact.

Color correction in film is necessary for creating a consistent flow of color between scenes in the film, making sure the finished product looks natural and visually appealing, and to help promote a targeted response or emotion.

When working on Super Human Anxiety, the Director of Photography, Autumn Palen, and I chose a very specific look for the inside shots of the elevator, especially for when the elevator breaks down.

It started with good production planning

When the elevator was built the Production Design team was given the task of giving it an older look. They used a darker wood paneling to give us the visual, and then Autumn and her Gaffer, Paula Crichton, worked to make sure the lighting in the elevator felt realistic yet also gave us depth.

The darker color space was our first challenge. We needed to be able to clearly see our characters in a broken-down elevator. It needed to appear dark but not actually be dark.

For this we needed a camera with a very sensitive light sensor – and we did! We worked with Canon Cameras to use their C70 Cinema 4K camera that captures more information (data) in darker light.

Then work with one of the best colorists in the field

Once the film was complete and picture locked, the film was sent off to colorist, Harry Locke IV. (You may recognize his name from the credits of Pioneers in Skirts as well!)

I sat with Harry to talk about my goals with the final image; referencing screen shots from existing content like — Only Murders in the Building — so he could visualize my intentions. From there, it was up to him to do a full color pass of this 9 minute short and then return it for feedback.

Since I was traveling we worked remotely at first. That forced me to come up to speed on various applications because each application for viewing color is different. Playing the color in my AVID editing software, versus Quicktime Player, versus VLC all showed something different – and sometimes REALLY different.

Needless to say, this is an important lesson for all filmmakers – no matter how beautiful your color looks on the official color correction monitors at the studio, it will always look different whenever you play it somewhere else.

And that’s okay! Sometimes, if you know exactly where something will screen, you can work towards that kind of monitor.

We used color correction to engage the eye of our audience

One fun trick we used was to darken certain areas so that our audience’s eye will automatically go towards the light in a frame.

Here is another before/after color. You can see that we started in a great space but then took it into a more stylized direction with the goals of the project.

Back to my point about good production planning…

You should shoot your film in LOG (S-Log for Sony, C-Log for Canon). LOG is how the camera stores all the picture information and allows you to do more with it during color grade. Shooting in LOG gives you more options for color – rather than marrying your footage to a picture profile right out of the camera.

So, looking at the split-image at the beginning of this article ↑ – the movie footage may look kind of dull & gray (left side) but don’t worry, the colorist will do their magic (right side).

Lesson from this article: budget to shoot in LOG and hire a color correction artist

Happy Filmmaking!

Ashley Maria

Hey! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, then check out this incredible show at the Academy Museum about Color: https://www.academymuseum.org/en/exhibitions/color-in-motion!

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A BIG movie grant from Big Sky

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ASHLEY MARIA PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES GRANT FOR “NEARLY DEPARTED”

Los Angeles, CA — June 26, 2024

We are excited and proud to announce that Ashley Maria Productions has received a $20,000 grant from the Montana Department of Commerce to make a film in Montana. The movie grant funding is awarded through the Commerce’s Big Sky Film Grant (BSFG) program.

“The grant will help fund a film written by Molly Quinlan Artwick,” shared Director Ashley Maria. “We are happy to be able to support a Montana-based cast and crew with our funding, as well as the local economy.”

The short-form film — called “Nearly Departed,” will run eleven minutes. Targeted to film in Montana during the 2025 tourist off-season, the film will be Directed by Ashley Maria and produced by her production company, Ashley Maria Productions.

“Molly wrote a heartfelt piece about grief with a dash of humor. When I first read this script, and felt my own reactions to the story and my own vulnerabilities to the topic, I knew I had to make this project a reality.” added Ashley.

What is “Nearly Departed” about?

“Nearly Departed” is a story of Charlie and Jules, two sisters at odds with each other discovering how to move on from their father’s death. This black dramady deals with the dark, trying, and often funny ways grief manifests. Faced with the loss of her father after moving across the country, Charlie struggles to find a meaningful place to let him go–and holds a secret that prevents her from saying goodbye. Jules’ own disastrous memorial to their father haunts her as she tries to help Charlie give their dad the sendoff he deserves. Things come to a head in the Montana forest, as a desperate Charlie threatens to smash their father’s urn.

Of the $2.5 million awarded through the Montana Film Office, Ashley Maria Productions was one of 21 short-form non-resident films that received grant funding.

Since the BSFG program started in 2013, nearly 350 film projects have received over $11 million of grant funding to assist with those productions. The Montana Film Office is part of the Department of Commerce and is funded by an allocation of the lodging facility use tax, commonly known as the “bed tax.” In 2023, Senate Bill 540 of the 68th Montana Legislature revised laws related to state-funded tourism promotion to require a specific allocation of lodging facility use tax for Montana-based film grants. For more information about the Big Sky Film Grant, visit montanafilm.com.

Big Sky Grant film grant Montana montana film grant

Women of Cinematic Arts Speaker Panel

In the news

Originally appearing in the School of Cinematic Arts News on March 31, 202 3 by USC Cinematic Arts.

The Women of Cinema Arts (WCA) hosted a screening of Pioneers in Skirts, School of Cinematic Arts alumna Ashley Maria’s documentary about the dire state of gender equity in Entertainment, Tech and other industries.

WCA President Nicole Wisdom reminded the audience of the stark facts of the film industry, including that out of more than 400 Academy Award nominations for best director, only eight have been for a film led by a woman; and only three have won (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, Chloe Zhao for Nomadland and Jane Campion (who was nominated twice) for The Power of the Dog).

Following the screening, director Ashley Maria moderated a panel comprised of SCA alumni HIKARI, Iram Parveen Bilal and Martina Lee, joined by filmmaker Brea Grant who worked on Pioneers with Maria. They spoke about their personal journeys to getting projects made, and overcoming the disappointment of stalled projects, intermittent unemployment, and rejection. The event was emblematic of the kinds of work WCA does to promote and progress the work of women filmmakers, particularly those who graduated from SCA.

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Selected for the Blackmagic Collective Film Program!

I’m very excited to be part of this amazing initiative for 2022-2023! I, and the entire fellowship made up of writers, directors, actors, cinematographers, and crew, will receive support from BMC (and each other!) in making our next big project as we strive toward our career ambitions.

“A curated group of filmmakers on the verge of breaking through to the next level of their careers, they will receive a full year of support to help them hone their craft, expand their network, and complete their next big project.”

For me, I’m using this opportunity to elevate my focus on directing several narrative projects as I pursue industry representation. By the end of this program I am to have finished shooting a narrative feature (that you can watch in a theater with a big ol’ tub of popcorn).

Blackmagic Collective’s Mission: Founded with the belief that the art of filmmaking should be accessible to all, the Blackmagic Collective is designed to bring together filmmakers from all disciplines and all experience levels to learn from, share with, and inspire each other.

Black magic collective director program film program

Lessons I Learned When I Made My Student Film

Hi Filmmakers! As I work on my next project, I am reminiscing about past projects and thought of some goodies to share with you from when I directed my short film “Friday Night Fright”… more than 10 years ago!

Want to watch it? Head over to this link: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/fridaynightfright!

At USC Film school teams of three are put together to make short films for class projects. For “Friday Night Fright”, Carolyn and Karen were my partners. It was 2010 and we were the only ‘all-female’ group in the whole semester of 60 students.

Some even joked that they should make their short film about us because they were sure ‘all women’ would mean ‘all fighting.’ That’s a hard ‘no,’ my friends. I learned so much from these women about being a part of a team, and cherish this time we had together.

“Friday Night Fright” went on to win many awards including winning me a DGA award! After that I was hooked. I love this genre, and I love directing.

Three Lessons Learned From Making FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHT:

Keep your end credits way shorter than I did! The image below shows where viewers keep their attention during the film. You can see how quickly they jump off during the end credit roll.

I had nearly 1 minute of credits in a 6 minute short. Don’t do that. I know why I did it, though — we were SO FREAKIN’ PROUD of ourselves. Can’t shame me, just learn from that mistake! Oh – and on a short film, there’s no need to have beginning credits like they do in feature films. We only need to see the title.

Sometimes people think you shouldn’t fundraise for low budgeted projects — I learned that you should. because the effort of fundraising will help you to build your supporters. USC only allowed students to put $1000 of their own money into their project (not including USC resources). I chose to fundraise for the $1000 instead of going out of pocket…who has $1000 as a grad student??

The act of fundraising and bringing on supporters actually helped me to fine-tune my idea, my message, and brought people into my circle who are excited for my work – that’s pretty great, right?

Kid actors are not allowed to scream for every take per their studio teacher rules, so we had to fake it a lot so that our actor didn’t lose his voice. I’m sure this is a good lesson for adult actors as well — no one should have to scream for 10 – 20 takes! But, those shots never looked as good as when he really screamed. So my suggestion to you, plan around safety for your kid’s voice by doing coverage of them when they don’t have to really scream, then go all in for those money straight-on shots!

Bonus Tip: Get yourself a crew member like Russell Beaman who is hilarious, so the positivity will spread through your whole crew. 🙂

Watch the film that solidified my voice as a filmmaker! Head over to the link (above) to watch. And yes, it was made with an all-student crew! We’ve gotten better 🙂 Enjoy!

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Category: Filmmaking