Erika Arlee is a writer, director and cinematographer based in Wilmington, North Carolina. She, along with actress and producer Kristi Ray, co-founded the award-winning production company Honey Head Films, and their first feature production A Song for Imogene has been making the festival rounds the past year.
The Mississippi Indie Film Forum, held at the Capri Theater in Jackson Aug 16-17, will welcome Arlee and Ray for a free screening and Q&A of A Song for Imogene, and the following day the duo will present a pair of workshops geared to aspiring filmmakers and actors. Their filmmaking workshop, Hindsight 2020: An Indie Filmmaking Retrospective, breaks down the arc of scaling a zero budget short concept into a calling card feature film. And their acting workshop, The Business of Acting, will share hacks, tips, and tools to help you build a sustainable career as a professional on-camera performer.
For full details on the Mississippi Indie Film Forum and to reserve tickets, click here.
Your film A Song for Imogene won Best Narrative Feature at the Oxford Film Festival earlier this year. What was that experience like?
It was our first time visiting Mississippi. It was Kristi Ray, my business partner, and I. She starred in the film and produced it, and I wrote and directed it. We had a great time. It was an incredible experience. Oxford really was a welcoming community, and we just loved it there. It was so much fun. It was also our first time learning about the film incentive program in Mississippi, which is really competitive. We had a wonderful reception and winning that amongst all the other incredible films that were screened at Oxford was really an honor. I’m looking forward to coming back to Mississippi and being in community with everyone again, because it was so welcoming there.
The film was your first feature after several successful short films. What are some important things a filmmaker wanting to make the leap from shorts to features should know?
Going from shorts to features, it’s a big undertaking. And Kristi and I joke that we had kind of been on the practice field with all these shorts, learning what works and meeting the people that we knew we could make our first feature film with.
Shorts are a really fun and safe environment to home in on your voice as a filmmaker. So, in doing that, and then getting to post-production and seeing what mistakes you made, what would you do differently next time, you really learn from the process. So that when it comes time to make your first feature, you’re not, say, in day three of production wishing you had gotten this shot or you wish you had learned how to take a little longer for a natural reaction from an actor, things like that.
Also, shorts are a great way to get more get exposure for yourself as a filmmaker out on the festival circuit and for networking and meeting people. That’s where you might meet some of your crew that eventually gets on your first feature. That’s where you might meet investors who want to come in and put equity down on your first feature, or where you might build a community that’s going to help crowdfund your first feature. And I know a lot of filmmakers who use a short film as a first concept for a feature as well, and they shop it on the on the festival circuit as a short clip, gain an audience and things like that.
Imogene was born from a short film, but we didn’t initially mean to make it a feature. But people got into the story and were like, are you going to make this a feature? That was 2017. So that idea sat in the back of our minds, until 2020 when I finished the feature film script.
You and Kristi have an independent production company, Honey Head Films; what do you value most about working independently, and at the same time, what are its biggest challenges?
It can be a blessing because you’re operating outside of the politics of the studio system. Some of us can face a lot of red tape when we’re trying to get bigger projects made. But there is positivity to that platform as well. We’re trying to get our second feature financed and we’re going more of a traditional route. There is a place for that. Because when you have talent acquisitions and studio backing, it’s easier to get the budget you need for higher-concept projects. So, by saying we like being independent, it’s not that we’re against the studio model.
It’s just we’ve seen some issues with it in the past. We started Honey Head Films to try to rethink the model—how people are treated and how films are made and how can we mitigate waste in the film industry? Try to narrow down our environmental footprint, and to make sure our crews feel well taken care of and valued. When you’re independent, you are your own boss and you’re running the show, and you can make those choices.
As far as challenges, when you’re running a small business and you’re working for yourself, there isn’t as much job security. And we’re part of the same grind in this industry as everyone else. Even though we’re independent, the trickle-down effect of things like the writers’ strike impacted us still, even though we were able to continue to operate as a company because we do other projects besides big features. Those projects keep the lights on at the office. But we’re still on the same industry roller coaster everyone else has been on.
Working in the industry isn’t for the faint of heart, and certainly not owning your own production company. That’s why having a business partner is really important. And Kristi and I work well together and our skill sets balance each other out in a way that we kind of make this dynamic duo as far as our personalities and the different skills we bring to the table. So, it’s worked for us so far and it’s continuing to do so as well.
Tell me how you started your filmmaking workshop, and what can attendees expect?
A huge part of Honey Head Films is giving back and workforce development. Broadening the platform for independent filmmakers so that there’s not as much gatekeeping in our industry as has historically existed, so that we can level the playing field and get more access to resources and knowledge. To help bolster the independent sector of our industry hopefully to a point where we are really competing with bigger video productions for audiences, and kind of training the audiences to want more independent cinema.
So, the approach for this workshop is we wanted to reverse engineer our first feature because we weren’t really thinking about it strategically when we were doing it. A lot of the things that made A Song for Imogene possible, like working in the community building, giving back, all that made our crowdfunding campaign a success and allowed us to develop relationships with rental houses and location owners and things like that. We were just doing it naturally before we knew we wanted to make a feature. All of that was not premeditated. So, we thought, what if we reverse engineered how we got here? As if we had planned it from the start? What all made it possible and successful as a first feature model? We hadn’t really ever put it down on paper. And then when we did, we were like, this makes sense. There are so many ways to make your first feature. There is no one roadmap to get there. But this was our path. And maybe it could be somebody else’s. Or maybe they take one ingredient from our recipe, and they apply it for what makes sense for them.
So, it’s definitely a roadmap, but we always open it up for pretty long Q&A segments in the workshop because we find that’s where a lot of really valuable discussion happens when people can get a little bit more into their personal case studies as far as what they’re trying to do. We can kind of unwrap or maybe demystify the process of making your first feature and what that what that looks like in real practice.
What can folks expect for the acting workshop?
Kristi and I both came from an acting background. That’s how we met, actually. I studied acting in college, and Christy went to conservatory in New York for acting. We both started our careers in film in front of the camera. Our friendship began putting each other on camera for auditions and reading for each other, and that actually was how when we decided we wanted to start Honey Head Films, because we wanted more autonomy over our careers because, going out for however many auditions and hoping you get picked and waiting and waiting was just not fulfilling for us.
So we both know getting into the acting world is something that’s really, really confusing. And there’s a lot of misinformation out there, or, unfortunately, predatory people out there that are going to take advantage and say you need this or that. We give the basics you need to know, like what makes a good headshot? How do you go on tape for an audition. What’s the best practice for audition techniques? What platforms are worth using. And what does it look like from the other side? I’ve done casting for various projects. I have experience going through actors’ tapes and I know kind of what works and what doesn’t work. So we have a lot of tips and tricks for the best practices starting out as an actor.
I have a big heart for actors. I love working with actors as a director. I think all directors should take an acting class or act in something. They should go do that before they direct actors. You need to know what it’s like to be having that moment with a camera ten inches from your face and a whole crew watching your every move. Knowing what that feels like makes you a better director.
Can you tell me something about your next project or anything you’re working on?
The next project is another feature. It’s quite different from A Song for Imogene. It’s a female-led concept, and it’s a dystopian action thriller set in kind of a near future. So very different, but still on brand for us, grounded by female characters.
