 Welcome to Suncoast Spotlight. You're watching a television program brought to you by the Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office in partnership with the Suncoast Technical College. And I'm Jeannie Corcoran, your Sarasota County Film Commissioner. And today we're going to meet with some young women filmmakers who have a new initiative, a new collaborative with other filmmakers called Forward Indie Films. So with me today we have Millie King. Hello. Hello. And we have Zephung Zou. I'm going to call you Zee from now on everyone calls you Millie. So welcome Millie, welcome Zee. And I'm really excited to hear that the two of you have taken the initiative to start your own film collaborative to help younger filmmakers find their way. And let me start with you Millie. How did this idea come to pass? Well actually my good friend Lisa Silvermore and I co-founded this at the very start. A few months ago we were just getting coffee together and talking about filmmaking. And we, you know, we're kind of pooling our resources and we were like, you know, we could really get some people together and make this more of a resource for the community. We can actually get some things done if we make this into more of a collective. And so that's what we did. We started, she invited Zee and I had worked with Zee before on some student sets. So that's just three of us are, you know, part of the half dozen that are now making up the group. So you're growing exponentially. You went from two to three to six. So it was 12 next. Is that how this works? Medically. That's great. And tell me a little bit about your background and then we'll get on Zee and have her share the same exact thing. Well I actually attended the digital video production as it was called when I went there. That was digital video technology program. Yes. I attended when I was 16 to 18 and Mr. Gray was my instructor and he really helped me stay focused on being a part of the film community. And so when I graduated, I started working with the Rensis Films and some other local people in the area on some different projects. I've worked on three features now and some producing capacity. One of them I did produce was the producer on a year ago now, a year and a half ago when I was 19. I was just about to turn 20. And then now I'm trying to get back into being involved with the students more because it's what I like to do and I'm presented again with an opportunity in my life to do that. That's a great motivation and sharing the knowledge, sharing the wealth. And there's strength in numbers. Definitely. The more you grow, the better it is for all of you. That's something I've learned and that's what we're trying to extend of it. That's great. And Zee, tell me a little bit about your background, how you got started. Yeah. I know your situation is a little different. You're still in school. Yeah. I'm currently a junior film student at Ringling College of Art and Design and originally I'm from Delaware, a little state of Delaware. And I started kind of getting into the filmmaking world when I was in high school. I had a technical high school. So I learned the basics there and then eventually when I got to college I decided to go to Ringling and from there on just been part of the film program there. It's definitely helped me out a lot and I got a chance to work on big professional sets such as the Kevin Smith project that was here over the summer and also worked with Justin Long on his little short film as well. Right. It's great that they bring the digital filmmaking lab initiative over at Ringling College brings in a lot of the real deal. They bring in actors and performers who are also their own writers their own producers and things like that. Yeah. And like Millie, I feel like I've come to a point where I have a lot of knowledge that I can pass it on to the younger generation of filmmakers and being a part of this group is a step towards what I want to do in bad terms. And for those who don't know because you can't know this behind the scenes Z was doing a little impromptu documentary of filming footage around the green screen with her cell phone before we were on camera. It's just the way it is today. You can make footage anywhere, anytime with anything just about. And it looks great. It's amazing the tools and the technology now that democratizes the ability to shoot. Which is kind of like another point that we're hoping to get across to people that are even just a couple years younger than us is, you know, needing to take advantage of the resources we have now and how young you can be to make films and how you don't have to necessarily wait until you're done with your education or you have an angel investor, anything like that, you know. Your net is hamstrung by all the technical needs that used to exist that don't exist anymore. You can shoot something on an iPhone. You could, you know, if you're 20 and you have an iPhone and you have a story, you can make a movie. They even have iPhone film festivals now. I see it online all the time where you can submit anything from 15 seconds, I think, up to two minutes. Now, what sort of content are you going to specialize in? Or are you just going to do a little bit of everything? Let's start with you, Millie. Well, obviously, film and local indie filmmaking is something we have the most experience in. But we're, we try to keep an open mind with everything we're approaching. You know, we just, we're looking to give more technical skills and resources to other students and, you know, learn ourselves. You know, it's something we kind of want to figure out, I think, as we go along, because it's still such a young and growing process for us. Right. And Z, I know over at the Ringling College digital track, they basically have you work on short films. Yeah. And short films are sort of their, their piece de resistance to make that art form. Yeah, mostly like narrative short films we focus on are from freshmen up to senior year. And once we get to senior, we kind of diverse out into branded stuff. So like commercials, music videos, PSAs, things like that. So it kind of gives us an opportunity to see how those types of films are different, but at the same time structured similarly to a narrative short film. Right. Yeah. And have you ever thought about, the documentary world, because there's so many interesting subjects and topics, especially we've just recently had the Sarasota Film Festival wrap up its 20 year anniversary. And the documentaries were phenomenal as were many of the short films and the narrative films and a lot of other content. But I was impressed by the diversity of the documentary films. Have you, either of you given any thought to that? I definitely have. It's one of those things that I've considered as a part of my thesis. I'm not thinking about doing a narrative in my part as a director, but I am interested in directing either a documentary or commercial. So getting that option and seeing what a lot of people have done now with documentaries, it's definitely inspired me to at least try it out. It's a fascinating field. And what about web series? Let's talk a little bit about that because that, talk about democratization of distribution. Everybody has access. Everybody can do this. It's funny that you say that because I think it's kind of in this current period of time maybe more efficient or effective to do a documentary web series because things change so quickly and things move so quickly and even just an event or a particular historical occurrence that you're trying to cover could be changing so rapidly. The story of what you're trying to cover could be changing so rapidly that maybe you can only do it in small sections right now or you wait until it's all over. But yeah, with the pace of things going the way they're going, that may be the best way to catch people's attention with hard hitting or heavy material. And I think about the days of uplinks when I was doing a lot of production out west. If you didn't have an uplink truck, you were hard pressed to get what you were creating if there was something that was breaking news to get it up and on the air. And we would go all over with an uplink truck and we would be ready to hook up around the country just to go live. But now you can do it on the internet. You can do it with your cell phone. You can go live on Facebook or even things like Twitter, Instagram. Anyone can be a journalist. But not everyone applies the rules of journalism. But we definitely embrace the technological world and definitely using it for our advantage. And at least for me, I believe that at least for this generation of filmmakers is a great thing, a great tool to do. I've heard stories where somebody would just upload their short films to YouTube and at one night during the day a big name filmmaker just see it on YouTube and it's like, I want to talk to this person and try to get in contact with them and see if we can develop something even more. So I think it's just a great connection to it. It is a great connection. I do a lot of trade shows. I do a lot of conferences with television producers and TV and new media as well as film. And one of the things that I've heard a lot at reality television conferences which also includes partially scripted and documentary. It's not just, you know, baby boo boo or some of the goofy shows. It's also a lot of real life, realism, semi-documentary based, partially scripted stuff. And one of the panels I heard said the magic number on YouTube to get Hollywood to call you or to get a producer to call you is a million hits. You get a million hits and suddenly the networks or the cable outlets or the producers or the production companies you've got their attention and they go you've already got a built-in audience of a million fans, let's talk. So do you have a hope for any of that? I hope that with us being generous in sharing what we're doing and how we're doing it with people who follow us on social media whether it's YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, whatever that they will you know, if they're filmmakers will respond in kind you know, will support us. Will continue to follow us. Will continue to share us. Will continue to get us views. Will, you know, Spread the word. Help us stay doing what we're doing because we'd like to do that. All right, let's wrap up with how do they get a hold of you? What's the easiest way for people who want to get involved with forward indie films? Currently, we have an email that people can get a hold of us at it's forwardindiefilms at gmail.com Is that indie? Yes. Forwardindiefilms at gmail.com and what about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? We are in the process of getting all of those things up and by the time this airs I'm sure it will be so it will be Forward Indie Films that's something you can Google and you'll be able to find our Facebook page but the email is how you get direct contact with us. Excellent. Millie, Z, thank you both very much. I really appreciate you being here and I think what you're doing is great. Keep up the great work and to all of you watching, follow these young women, follow these filmmakers, be a part of what they're doing and help support this effort to bring people together and create a great collaborative. Thanks for watching.