Our film, Pioneers in Skirts, and Ashley Maria were featured at the 2020 Portland Film Festival.
Watch two interviews with Ashley discussing the film and sharing behind the scenes stories!
Q&A with Ashley Maria
“Female Gaze” panel with the awesome Directors featured in the festival.
Ashley Maria & Lea-Ann W. Berst featured on panel for the World Summit on Women and Girls, along with:
Logline: A brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a story that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story’s plot, and an emotional “hook” to stimulate interest.
This weekend I sat in on a Festival Strategies and Creative/Business Development Master Class with Kathleen McInnis. It’s something special she hosted for us as part of her Emerging Filmmaker’s Facebook group. We discussed the business aspect of branding our creative selves and our creative work to better fit how the industry and our audience could market us.
It’s very similar to the work we’ve done on “Pioneers in Skirts“. When we first started making the film there were so many assumptions of what the film was about — so much so that we had to quickly hone in and fine tune our marketing to make sure people knew our goals with the film.
It helped that my mom, and the producer of Pioneers in Skirts, had a career as a global brand & activation marketer. I mean, no big deal. So she really spear-headed making sure we were on point with our materials – our logline, our synopsis, our tone in social media, our photos and articles shared – everything.
Which brings me back to Kathleen’s class, which was a nice refresher that you MUST be this way in your life as well.
You have to watch how you market yourself –
These are a lot of questions to ask yourself, so I’ll share with you some of my conclusions as you ponder your own.
In the class, I workshopped my personal logline —
As ambitious women are forced to maneuver a work-world built for company men, Ashley wastes no time planning her escape while clearing a path for the women coming up fast behind her.
I was lucky – I made a movie about my experiences so I could very easily apply the lessons-learned to my every day. But I’m also defined by where I come from (North Carolina), my humor (weird), my experiences (wild), my outlook on life (everything is random / honesty). So, the idea is to have this all ready to go at the tip of your tongue. Practice it. Make sure the content you share relates to this somehow.
I think we are all striving for authenticity and connection. So, if I could give you one suggestion for your logline – make it unequivocally you.
And, remember – you can watch Pioneers in Skirts right now!
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to speak to your alma mater and pretend like you’re really cool? I do. It was all an act, but I did it!
In July, I was asked to speak with UNC Student Television recent grads about life after school. What is our career like? What was our path? There were a few of us on there that represented various angles of the film industry – talent representation, commercials, news, documentary, and film. And, we were all from different years of graduation, too – so some of us have been in the industry 2 years, 10, or 30! The coolest part for me was ‘meeting’ Adam Reist who was the creator of General College, a show I also produced while at STV. General College would get a revamp every few years with new storylines and characters, but always stayed ‘General College.’ I really hope it keeps going – it’s kind of a staple for UNC, especially since Billy Crudup was one of the original actors. And, here’s one of my General College episodes. (You may also see a familiar face… before I committed to “Ashley Maria” as my professional name)
I hope you enjoy this interview – we answer questions about our careers, film school, advocating for your career, and yes I talk about Pioneers in Skirts. Enjoy!
How did we come up with the name of the movie? Pioneers in Skirts has a special naming story…
Continue reading
We are so excited to share that Pioneers in Skirts will have its Los Angeles premiere on Saturday October 26, and wanted to extend our personal invitation for you to attend!
The screening will take place on Saturday, October 26th at 12:45pm at the 2019 DTLA (Downtown LA) Film Festival in the Regal Theaters.
As announced by The Hollywood Reporter, Pioneers in Skirts will be part of a select group of DTLA films that explore what “inclusion” should look like.
WHEN: Oct 26th at 12:45pm, followed by an “Inclusion in Film” panel at 2:30pm
WHERE: Regal LA Live Theatres
TICKETS: https://www.dtlaff.com/film/pioneers-in-skirts/11/
25% discount code – DOWNTOWN25.
We’ve been traveling the U.S. and screening the film in front of young teens – college students, along with their mentors & teachers. Screenings have become an excellent training and discussion opportunity for organizations trying to provide positive outlets for their youth.
We open the film with a Girl Scouts scene where we speak to a local group about becoming leaders and what it is like for them to overcome obstacles unique to only girls. We then introduce an all-girls robotics team and follow them for 3 years.
We wanted to see if their mentors experiment (of separating them from the boys) will work. The movie reaches into the causes for lost-ambition and what to do about it.
Pioneers in Skirts is a 60-min entertaining documentary film that discusses what ambitious girls and women confront as they go after their dreams, and what we ALL must do as a culture to change it.
After the screening we’re having an audience Q&A. And, at 2:30pm Pioneers in Skirts is hosting a FREE filmmaker panel on the topic of Inclusion in Film. It’ll be an amazing day for us and we do hope you can be part of it!
