writer & director
Based in the ninth ward of New Orleans, Rachel writes short stories, plays, and screenplays, and directs and produces for film, TV, and the web.
Honors abound!
Recently, "Ripe Figs" was honored by the Southern Shorts Awards. While "Ripe Figs" was not one of the three films selected for screening, it did win several honors for achievement, including for direction (Artemis Preeshl), cinematography (Patrick McGinley), music (Eric Laws), editing (Matt Mercer), and acting (Keota Picou and Donna DuPlantier).
Congrats to everyone!
Summer is well along, and hurricane season as well. I've wrapped the show I was working on January through June, then took a break! There was no writing, directing, or editing while I was in Puerto Rico, but I'm back at it now! In addition to this microshort, I've got more news coming later this week, so stay tuned.
The latest of my re-edits of Broad Strokes is number 17 - "Nomenclature." One of the shortest, it clocks in at about 45 seconds. My cut is not radically different from the one released in the series: but I did go for a change in tone. As part of the larger series, "Nomenclature" was presented as a horror parody; my version is more comically creepy. I also had the luxury of time on my side - the performance I preferred was marred by a fallen microphone in production, a problem the original editor didn't have the time to address. They used a different take, and timed out the cuts later in the scene. You can see the original here.
Again, I must thank Sapna and Anisa for their patience and graciousness in allowing me to work on these "director's cuts!" It's been great fun, and I learn a lot every time.
Enjoy "Nomenclature," the director's cut!
I've been busy with festival season, but I'm back to one of my favorite fun projects - recutting the micro-shorts that I did with Broad Strokes a couple of years ago. This one exhibits the largest departure from the featured cut in the series. Anisa and Sapna wanted each episode to be about a minute long, and editing the footage down to that had to have been quite a challenge. In revisiting the material, I found that a slightly longer cut allowed me more freedom with the style I wanted. Including credits, their version came in at 0:49; mine is 1:30.
With no further ado, allow me to present: "Manifestation," the director's cut.
The whole series, Broad Strokes, is on youtube and funnyordie.com, and you should check it out. You can see the original version of "Manifestation" here.
Dances with Films has selected the pilot I wrote and directed for my web series NOPD:Coven to premiere in the "Dances with Pilots" slate!
It is SUCH an honor to be included in this festival!
What a busy week! We have learned that "Dr. Chevalier's Lie" has been invited to screen one at the MidTenn Film Festival, just one weekend after its world premiere at Vero Beach. I'm very pleased to be able to take this piece back to my home state. The festival takes place in Smyrna, TN, and runs in conjunction with the Arts Fest, June 15 & 16. Hope to see you there!
I am happy to announce that "Dr. Chevalier's Lie," the short film based on the story by Kate Chopin, which I wrote and produced as part of Ripe Figs, LLC, will be having its world premiere in June at Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival!
It will be part of the festival's Vero After Dark series, and we will update the listing as soon as a screening time and place is announced!
"Dr. Chevalier's Lie" is a companion piece, although it stands alone as a short film as well, to our previous adaptation, "Ripe Figs." Chopin's work dealt with issues of class, gender, sexuality and social mores, discrimination, race, and personal resistance to oppression. As a single mother writing for income, her subversive themes were often subtle and coded, and difficult to discern. The original story can be read online here; we chose to set the adaptation in the modern age, and given our current time felt that examining the themes of gender, sexuality, identity, and the ways these intersect to make people vulnerable to poverty and violence in a modern setting meant also addressing race and disabilities.
I am very pleased to announce that a local film critic had lovely praise for our short, which screened at the festival this past Sunday!
Sunday, April 15, 2018, 7 pm!
"Ripe Figs" the short film I wrote and produced will be screening along with 9 other short films at the 2018 GNO Film Fete in Chalmette, LA. We'd love to see you there, and are very excited to see the other films that made the roster!
My rescue work and filmmaking come together! I’ve made a 60 second short film about senior dogs in shelters for Mort’s “celebration” short film contest!
click, watch, vote for me!!
"Ripe Figs" has been accepted by another film festival!
It will screen April 15, 2018 in the GNO Film Fete!
As I've mentioned before, the writers and producers behind the series Broad Strokes, Anisa and Sapna, have graciously allowed me to recut the 8 shorts I directed in their series - and I am happy to post the first of them here:
"No Escape," the director's cut.
I'm not attempting to create a "better/worse" comparison here, but had fun making choices in storytelling that were independent of the overall aesthetic of the larger series. This particular short is an excellent example of the kind of difference I mean. Anisa and Sapna chose to present the piece almost as a form of parody, sending up vanity with a mock-horror trope. My version is more playful, asking the audience to identify with our hapless heroines and be delighted with them.
You can see the original here. Enjoy them both.
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of working with Anisa Alamia and Sapna Gandhi, two amazing and talented writer/performers, who had conceived an ambitious and hilarious project: to write and perform in 40 comedic microshorts, broken up by theme into 5 series, and each series was to be directed by a different female director. I was one of those 5. The project (Broad Strokes) turned out great (and you can see it on funnyordie), and was edited by a single female editor.
Anisa and Sapna, in addition to being talented, are also extremely gracious, and have given me permission to post my 8 shorts here, re-edited as "director's cuts" independent of the overall aesthetic of the Broad Strokes series. As I have edited these shorts myself (and made choices that have lengthened some of them from their original 30-60 second limits), I've also learned to respect editors all the more! I've found it very interesting and enlightening to get back into the footage, and see the way the same script, performances, and shots can be re-envisioned to tell a story in a different way. Similar to their original release, I'll be posting them once a week, one at a time, in the near future.
I hope to work with Anisa and Sapna again, and you should follow them both to see what else they are working on!
"Ripe Figs" has been selected to screen at 3:00 pm on Saturday, March 24, 2018 at Kerry's Irish Pub, 331 Decatur Street in the French Quarter! Festival mixer at Kerry's the night before. Price of admission includes your first drink!
"Ripe Figs," the short film I wrote and produced will be appearing in another film festival this spring! Big Easy International Film Festival will run March 23-25 in the French Quarter of New Orleans - specific times and location coming soon!
"Ripe Figs" is the second of three adaptations I have written based on Kate Chopin stories. "Ripe Figs," the story, originally appeared in Vogue in 1893. More on the challenges of writing this adaptation later.