 Hello and thank you so much for joining us. As part of our month-long women and horror event series, UT Libraries has been hosting weekly free film screenings this October. Tonight's screening was the Stylist, directed by Jill Gavargazian, who actually is in the audience. She's joining us now for a live Q&A session. So for those who couldn't be with us in person tonight, we are live streaming this session now just for you. If you have a question for Jill, drop it in the comments and we'll ask it live. Let's tune in. Also, I just saw T-Tom by he was in Porto, who also made a raw, it's a new film, but that film, I had the opportunity to see the U.S. premiere of it at Fantastic Test and she was there, never heard of Steve for a wedding interview with her. It's like, I became obsessed with my first. She was one of those aspiring filmmakers I've heard in a long time and she's like, I put towards something that I felt open about film storytelling. I'm really interested in like the messed up characters or anything to call monsters, but by finding their humanity and just re-listening to this interview with her actually today and she says something about the monster she's talking about specifically Frankenstein and the creature and how the monsters have to say more about the person looking at the monster itself. I just want to hand it there. But answer a good question. I definitely did. I remember seeing Law and it was a rough film. Really good. I don't want to do it in these films. And before we answer this question partially, I think we'll let Amy be on one of these films that you've mentioned. That's a different style of directing. Yeah, there's lots of film. I pretty much all of my styles come from people I'm inspired by. And with the styles specifically, I discovered a whole sub-genre of film that I didn't know about. I was doing a book called Cossack Psychiatrically by Taylor Lease and there's a whole segment which is talking about films with the theme of the doppelganger, the double. And that's actually when I realized that the style was really so much about. I knew it was about someone obsessed with someone with a good theme for that term. And he listed all these films in there that I've never seen before. He's more important than persona. A lot of these older films that really use their visual language to accentuate that theme. Two people becoming one or one assessment. Or use of split screen or the stacking of the two characters to intentionally cover a funding campaign character. And I really like this pre-production study films that share similar themes that we are out of records and brought them out without just like, safe. I think it's also connected into a very different theme now about slasher and psychological genres. I think younger I like slasher more than I thought. I would also do it as me pretending like I wasn't scared of the other stuff. I think that slasher for more realistically whatever the hell that means. I don't know if most of the slasher's are not, but I was really like a version to like fantasy and science fiction. I think it actually scared me more than I thought. But yeah, I've always liked stuff with more like, with more grounded reality. I'm actually kind of the opposite. I just heard things that are, you know, that's outside of the more of an outside of reality. I'm not going to make a list of things. I always want you to put involved in marketing as a way to help prevent anxiety. But at least see what I'm looking at. And I don't appreciate it. I say that though in my candy man's, what my favorite one is, I have lots of like real, real, like the digital and the legend behind it. I like the story behind it. It's absolutely, to me, out of the system. I was like, I don't know about that at all. I personally really enjoy the technical effects that were used to be a lot of different styles. So, I love to put the brain on the community with the devices. It's more of a, it's all about the access. I can tell it to you. Sorry. Well, I prefer, it just depends on the situation in, I think in more and more than the most part, I prefer practical and I think it's sad to see if not use it all and it's just door stuff and you make up and it's kind of getting rid of like an entire craft. We really wanted to do everything practical. I like, as much as I can be real and feel it, I mean, it kind of sends out through the screen, but there were a couple of moments where we added some words actually, which I might hate, because we wanted to pop some crap on it normally, but we added it on top of some of the practical words, only in two moments. And we did the very end, which is looking right at you down the forehead of the last second, it kind of goes faster, but which I was very scared to do. I was like, this looks, I'd rather just not do it. But I was really surprised at what's the accomplishment with that stuff. I think it's a matter of layering on top of the practical effect that makes it kind of work when you use one, one, definitely not what we're aiming for with this. The practical effects on this are very involved because the actor's hair, we have to know what it looks like and then be able to turn into a wig if they're being scalped in the movie. Which I don't need to cast people for very special effects but it's an exceptional thing to do. I like, one of my actors meet me at a wig shop to try to match it as much as I could, like on a budget or not one. And I'm the last scalping. That was a matter of like, it was a great scenario for me but also kind of producer standpoint where like, this is practical. My hair was all like, it's easy to turn into a wig. I'm already there. You guys don't have to pay me to play this role. But yeah, it's practical effects for our hair. The day of, we never know if it's going to go well and I promise you, that should be quite a bit challenging. We were worried with each one that we did on the day and it all turned out pretty awesome. One thing I want to brag about this digital that's not blood is this like girl, girl, girl sign flashing effect on this thing. We just added that neon sign. It's a small thing but I think it looks awesome. I'm going to try to articulate this as well, but as writer and director involvement in a project this big. So I come from art school and you know, if you were making your own films, you either started and you got your friends, you were in charge of lighting. Every single thing was on you right down to post production. And now I teach media production here and I teach a lot of how lighting is a language and is a big influence and focal length and all that. And so when you take on a project this big, you still get to have your fingers in all of that since this is kind of like your baby. How involved are you in all of those sort of processes? It's not. I am involved in the matter of like talking about the vision and what I want. I did go to film school but I didn't learn all of the technical details of exactly how to talk about lighting as far as showing what I want. But it's something that the style started in the short film like five years ago and almost all the team came over to the teacher with the same director, photographer, team, same production designer. And so, and them too and me are like the major creative producers that have been like building this project for years. And so they were just the best design and even like crafting like the world and the vision for it for a long time. Like they even thought about the characters and the visual language like when we zoom, when we're close like all of that had me even set out ahead of time. But yeah, I had a lot of normally like, you know, like each department, I could give them my vision and also want them to come. It's really collaborative. Sure. Yeah. It was exciting to make it. We were trying to make it for years and find it like a much bigger budget. But finally we decided to piece it together on our own and it was beautiful. The lighting and such was just one of the first things I noticed. And I don't know. In your team. Yeah. Actually, coming up on my note, in the book I'm asking about, I read that you developed a difference that's a robot. A big issue I read about for a long time was the connection on the use of the budget based on your experiences in the work and use of this project. And you feel like it's to be reliable on the use of the viable way of doing it. Is it for something? Well, get on with it. And then you can get started is such an undertaking. And you really do have to have some sort of a name or a following of some time for it to, you know, to do well. Alright. I did it from multiple short films and then the side of the future was terrifying. Maybe raises a little, like 25% of the budget And who knows if you can actually get it, like, still two years later on, like, the bill never mourns for it still. So it's like a huge product on top of the project you're doing. But it is an incredible tool to have to take it into your own hands in a sense to actually make me an app and all that. It's cool because there are like really hundreds of people saying that they're donating their quality of the app to you. It is a huge project that I'll talk to incredibly soon. Sorry. Is this the one? Okay. I just want to say a couple things. And then my question is, I love the costuming. It was phenomenal. I love costumes. That's my thing. Color was amazing. And where you got scouts in it, that was the point where I was like, oh, the visceral like realness of that whole theme, really like a roller coaster of emotions. And that was where I really went. So the rest of it was like, you're connecting with the characters for me anyway. And that kind of gets me in my question where when I was doing some, you know, online research, looking at the film and seeing comments, not comments, but like reviews. And it seems like there was this very specific line that was kind of drawing between men and women where I don't know if men have a different view of horror or women directors as horror directors. Because I could feel a lot of emotions. I've been that girl in the club listening to the drunk girl. And, you know, and I'm also been like this, let me crazy one in the back. I'm like, oh my God, this is terrible. Like a million times you change your outfit. And so I don't know if there's just like, are men sometimes don't connect with it or they just see different things in the horror genre than a woman does. And if there is difference, do you feel like as a women's woman director or as a male director? And that's a really convoluted roundabout for a question. And I'm bad at asking them. It's hard to answer. I can ask that. I know. I don't know what it's like to make a film as me. Who I could comment on as a woman. Yeah. But I have noticed in a lot of interviews I've done with men that they really have connected a lot of the things that things like the fries pie are naturally just being like a film about almost solely women because I just, to me, that's just like, was natural to what players like and their story. But it wasn't by something I set out. I realized actually when I broke down the script, I was like, can I make this with a Kickstarter? And I saw it like broke down all the characters in the list. I was like, oh my God, there's only like one man. What character do you care about? But I don't, I think we would see less of that experience because it's historically more men making movies. There's more and more of some depth perspective, especially lately after all. Thank you for adding my comment with a question. You know, really different, but related to what you were mentioning before, what was the hardest scene to get exactly how do you imagine on the screen? The hardest scene. There's like, they're all coming right at the exact same moment. I guess I was most intimidated by the big club scene, which is not worried or tight. But because I only make short films prior to this and every time I made me two to four actors in a room, I felt like tons of background and it's all that going on. I'm very anxious. So the more things that are happening, I was so stressed out about all of that. But I didn't learn through the process of, oh, there's a whole team of people that helped me deal with this. I don't have to direct every single extra in the background. But it didn't have to be a lot of stuff, but I was horrified for when it came down to do it. It's like a relief. But I feel like we're much on a different note. I'm really challenging like the dramatic scene was the scene of the two women when they're sitting at the table and she's an Olivia's character is in front of her the whole time, like walking bird. It's like a five minute shot where we don't break away. That's like a shot that completely ripped off from persona and this is the perfect scene to try this. And it doesn't work. I don't know where to do the whole thing, or both the conversation in a boring way. But it worked out and was like the most exciting moment. This works and then we just read it the first time. What made you want to get into films? I've got a lot of films as a kid, but it didn't bother me that real people made movies until I was like almost 30. And I went to my first big horror convention, Texas Brighton, our weekend in Dallas. And I saw some like two between films there and that's the people that made them. And I watched like big independent films growing up that never met people who made movies. And that's my bond with like real people made movies and this is something that like was possible. As a little kid, I made stuff with my dad's hand quarter and then did, I feel like all kinds of little things that were connected to filmmaking, but it never worked out because that was something that we tried to do. I wish I did it elsewhere. It felt that way when we first started working here thinking about things that we didn't want them to do and then suddenly just go like, I don't know, I could actually just do the thing. Yeah, it seems out of reach when you look at the evening like from afar. You just have to break it down and then it's possible. Like every kid is a little bit smaller but you just have to have the confidence to get there. So I know that the, first of all, this film was great. Thank you very much. But I know that it started as like a 15 minute short film and then I think it all came from the children's film. How did you come up with the concept of this film and how did it develop from that short link to a full 90 minutes? It started because I'm, like I said, I'm an hairstylist and I just realized I went from the Rodriguez book, Dremel Without a Crew. I read that really young film maker's time and my point is teaching of like, what do you have at your disposal that's unique that doesn't cost you money but what do you know that's your time limit? And I just thought, one day at this moment, I was like, how is it not already a hairstylist slash or like a dentist or like a doctor in the book type of a movie? And so it started me thinking like that and I'm like, I should make the hairstyle as a horror movie. And then as I started to develop it, I was like, I wanted to do something more serious and psychological. I go on the one that was made and leather takes the life of two movies and three scenes of the character. But I just, rightly the concept to me is like, of course you take people's care, which may be the leather face and escapes into these personalities as like an escape from herself. And in the short film, I'm kind of trying to capture a similar moment as the end of this one, but like that she was, I was knew I wanted to be the end of her career, whatever that means, like her downfall at the self-sacrifice when she was trying to break free of this addiction towards and she put she can't. And so I was knew that it's like going to be the arc of the film that was hard, because it's a while to be out exactly and how to get there. And when the wedding scene came to mind, I was like, I know how I'm going to be in. So I was so excited. But to explain, the short film is a lot like the opening, except for kind of the emotional part, which is the case. And then I just reversed it. In the short film, she cries even after she puts the lid on, like it doesn't work anymore. And then to reverse it for you, like this is the normal routine, the normal way to fix is everything. And the rest of the film, I want you to notice, which has kind of been an extreme metaphor for how we're always looking for fix everything outwardly in the movies. What advice would you give to a young woman in getting started in filming? I think it, I think that, what I'd say is to not be afraid of what you don't know, because until you do it, you don't like, there's no way to like understand a lot of stuff, and really like go through the process. That's what I'm still learning. That's something I also love about filmmaking is it's every project totally unique and requires like figuring out different steps, or the same steps put a very different specific reason of always moving the journey. But I think I have to realize that we're finally making a feature. I thought that you could, I was like I'm gonna have it all secure, we're gonna have like a little budget figured out, we'll know how to finish this thing, and I was like there's a lot of just thinking that, and even if we don't have like a fourth of our budget to just start it. And the same thing with the short film, I didn't have any idea of starting the process, but I think that's what keeps us actually on so many things. I think like as a woman, it's best just to not, I think to not put yourself in a box like that, just to not believe yourself if that means anything. It's just I feel like it can hold us back to think with us as something that I think is already part of it. I don't know if it is, like I said, I don't know what my experience is like. You mentioned you didn't have a film school, because I'm wondering what kind of experience did you have before your first production project, and like how did you use the internet? I had really no experience before I made my first short film called Bro. I've been on a few sets, like as an extra, just what I wanted to get on and set and see what it was like, and at that time I had been like a year and a half into running my own screening series, where I was shown a different genre of film mostly for and through that net tons of filmmakers, and it was through that I started building my connections to not just a local and all over the world before indie work, and I have networking knowledge and something I've been focusing on, even as a hair stylist I would call it out promoting myself or it's something I want to realize how important that is for what you're trying to do, but just with the call row, I would put a lot of people that weren't film makers necessarily. I'm going to be a photographer to shoot it and just slowly piece it together, like who do you know that might be able to do the sound or this first short film is definitely right. And I'm still probably saying that while I'm making stuff now, I don't know what I'm doing, but it's just, yeah, I matter my first short film called Bro. The second one I made was the Stylist, which was a huge step from, while Bro was like all shot through, like it's a left hand but I worked with the team from the future on the Stylist and they were really experienced and they really like took me through a film making boot camp first, like I would describe it but it helped me to have really high standards of when I used desktop branding as the director or the division or whatever it might be so it was really that process that taught me how to take it. Thank you so much. For those of us who might not be aware of what that role in producing the artist can describe how you just like do things and somehow help the movie get made because there's so many different ways to make the producer but producers kind of come on to if you're a creative producer and not a producer because of money is like kind of creating like a safety around the director so they can focus on being creative and you can like figure all the logistics and writing and emails and I like that it's weird because it's really stressful and there's a lot of satisfaction out of like solving the problems and things that I don't even care about but I like doing that for others when they're here but on this one it's like actually you have to do a kind of get your first direct referral film made and kind of have different uses. But I enjoyed it because it was the thing you needed to get done and like checking and figuring out how you're going to do it. I think that's what I want to do You think you're accomplished but that's your structure and stress I always love major features of stress and anxiety stressful thing ever it's also like feeling satisfied together when you do the politics that we set out it's a weird variety and a depression and all of this it's like It's been really rewarding. I feel like you might have heard of it, too. So this one that I feel like is a bit of fun. So we know that art can have a meaning to a place that people are going back to time, that films are being made into new films, new series, and new novels. And they're not their actual novels. So it's more New Yorkers, the small spirits we feel we might see, and that's some of the films. It's on, you know, what is currently going on in the world. Um, can you tell me a little bit about that? We dare it is that I would be totally fine if TV and the week were kind of like a pandemic that would happen on Monday night. Something about it is that it's too real. When we see it, it's something. Maybe other movies that we might see. I feel like we, I'm at this, the new Halloween film. We saw it a lot. But kind of the mob mentality, the cancel culture, kind of the dark side of that. I think that was that much of a thing for us here. For canceling people. So, I feel like there's a lot of that happening now for things that we can't do at this time. I feel like we've all had a couple of struggles. Really, really good. And I want to see a really great level. And I think the reason why we are on Monday is that, you know, it's not for that, that struggles could be, uh, for them to be involved in their age. And that's what we're trying to do. So, I think it's really important for us to be able to do that. To be involved with their age. And that's not the end of that. If there's anything else that you'd be able to do. Absolutely. I've been seeing ginger snaps. I was going to say that. That's one of the good ones. That's one of the good ones. Um, and we're showing the house. What are we doing? I'm going to say it wrong. Right there. The house in America. We're showing the howling in the American open. I'm doing that. We're showing the house in the school. Um, I also love, I thought people were afraid to, like, to tackle all of the plastic monsters. Um, even vampires. You can say a lot of things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, you're fine. Thank you for being with me. We, um, I'm looking at you. I feel like you know, you know, a lot of things don't matter. I wish you would. I'd like to tell you. I'd like to tell you a whole time. Yeah. Yeah. See, I have a question from our live stream. Hey, Jill. When can we see your next film? And what will it be about? Oh, my, um, I wish that I knew. Um, I'm, I'm not making another film right now. I have a couple of films, couple scripts that I'm attached to a director. Right. Um, and then. I'm working on it. Not for at all. Uh, but nothing I can really talk about yet. I wish I was supposed to create something. Um, considering making another film. I mean, kind of specifically. So around. What are you doing? Directors or producers or people like you, do you ever write things and be like, hey, I have a lot of work to do. I would love to pitch this too. I mean, that's something people do in the filmmaking industry. Or is that, I mean, I know there's writers, but you know, like as somebody who's more in the direction, producing films and directing films and the creativity. I think it, um, I don't do that. I just don't write usually as much as I did. Um, but I do get a script which means, um, I don't do that. Um, I don't do that. Um, I don't do that. Um, I don't write scripts. Which means, um, and I was lucky if I got an agent last year after the film came out and like they're talking. These are some of the scripts. And one of the projects I'm a caster right now, came through them. Um, Co. I just know that game trace amount, writer director and producer together. And it's the whole phase of it being sent out. To the acetate within that process on for years, unless you just decided how we're going to do this by ourselves, straight along. It's a hard world to keep doing it and not give up by seeing what film you've heard. It's challenging to just be facing that. Yeah, I saw those films in my fifth convention and I came home and I was like, I just started to talk about it while I was down there, but I just don't make this film and I don't want to start sound it. I didn't know how, I didn't think about making my own films, and I had experience putting on events already, connections with people who I own bars, and one of my friends already wanted to start living like that sort of bar. And so I pitched this and at the time, I don't know, maybe I had like two or three movies I could like to show and I was like, I don't know, I'm going to do that for two months but slowly starting to ask me, those filmmakers, they might suggest like to reach out to you and it was all just like reaching out to somebody that's going on and on, and you feel like films don't have this relationship at all. Way early, we also had the screening series where we didn't have a budget, we were paying to like work the show films that were bigger, so it was just like a straight go along and I would go to other conventions and try to find this. And then that's how I actually discovered short films. So impressed by the quality of the same kind of people to make something that was like five, 15 minutes and it looked like, you know, like a holiday project compared to, especially where a lot of the little budget features are nice and different. That's where we maybe want to make something like that. It makes me think that it actually looks decent, no offense. I've seen a lot of stuff that look very low budget and so I just went going away with that. The biggest difference is as far as like the writing or the... Really good. Yeah, so everything, I feel like my say it sounds obvious but like everything is just like getting behind and seeing our work and the time. Even just like that, I was shocked the first time I sat down with my costume designer and so I came planning one outfit for a short film. The lead character has like 20 looks. And I'm like, I wonder who this is. Oh, my money! But yeah, it's like really everything going through every department which all, you know, needs to be in like half of those things. I'm like my own costume designer and props person, all these things on the short film and then seeing how someone else keeps organizing. Like, which one person has that many outfits? And then going through like all of the props. Like, how do you feel about that look? Like, I went through everything. Now I understand why this is all going out to like the people and I'm not doing it myself. Another redemption from you. But yeah, one person can have that many outfits. She is afraid of my outfit. And our hairstylist and half of the hairstylist. And how did that experience tie in to your concept for this film? You know, other than the kind of idea to come with me because of that it was, I was excited to make a film about hairstylists and show them these things that you would, because it never really was in films made about hairstylists as a lead character. There's so many specific things to that world that we could show in the deep ways like this, the relationships between the hairstylists and clients. They'll share with someone or even how much the stylist will share because there's this, like, layer. We're really excited to represent hairstyles. I was like, I'm like, it's important to me that hairstyles are part of what's in this movie. And hopefully realize that they're just like, they did this film as right as possible on film, which became very actually complicated with the background action and all of the hairstylists had to sew on was a nice and effective issue that came down to this. This is why they never made a movie about hairstyles or in and so on. It's like, all that needed to match every time they moved the camera around. How are they going to remember the whole movie? I write down the scene in like section one, section three, section three is where you're doing this section. Now we're sure it's, well actually, there's so much that's not really in the background yet. You can listen to now when we're doing what the film is about, what the film is about, how they were actually doing this one scene. I think they had to stop and redo it. They realized that there was a way that it was fine was to look at the outside side. And I can imagine now, you can listen to that now, you can listen to that later. Yeah. This isn't really something like that, as I'm saying. So I'm sure some of us can find an experience that will make the film sense. I don't know if you can see that, but it's not going to make the film sense. You, and we'll probably get extremely long. So do you have any light with one's thin or something that the outside world might perceive as a quality film that actually seems to be a nice place but that we might lose them. You're good at that. That's a hard one. How, for those who mentioned health and psychotic, that then the dog will be out of it. How back at both Margaret's he said, number of systems of harm and excitation, you know he was doing it for inspiration for you And we talked about it. So if you want to go ahead and create a few thoughts, a little bit more about helping the community outside of the status itself. Yeah. The writer Kayla, she has done so many different things. She's headed a lot of ways around vegetables in the world. And it's also not that we see people talking about the woodlands right now, about before. But the book is so great and so smart. It's her autobiography, which is very, she's been through a lot and she's incredibly candid and open about the stuff she's been through. And somehow, I know I have to give this the next section of her life to certain types of films and goes into those films and how different views on the film in that never followed in certain ways. And I feel like the whole book should also imply a little bit of the year-long class when you go through and like read it and watch the movies. There's so many things I haven't seen in that book still. It's just so incredible. He talks about possession films specifically and how they're often a metaphor for domestic violence or assault and how often so many of those films, they're starring a woman who isn't believed by anyone and I've never thought about this metaphor, it's so obvious. And then, especially when she talked about an even terrible activity of film, that I would just brush off with nothing more than found footage of a paranormal film. But really how a woman with characters is quickly asking for other than her voice and whatever, it's just like stop filming, it's not provoking and you can never stop, you never believe in her, that like this has happened to her. I'm really interested in how we frequently look into a film and what her view on it is that she's just incredible. Every time I see her, I feel like I just look like a lonely musician. Especially on films that we don't often see analyzed. Yeah, super cool. But when we look at that in general, I'm sure that's because it's not necessarily the same with different films, but we want to support them as well. So I rent movies and it's really helpful to spread the word about the person on social media because I don't think that's happening in the way people see movies anymore because so much content comes out of all the different screening channels we have now. I don't know how many movies come out every week by hundreds of them. So there is also quickly forgotten. We need to go up first. It's like we can keep the people talking about it. So I'm very thankful to stuff like this. It keeps the lives of the film going and people talking. So we are thankful for you. And we wrap up. Everybody here still another round of applause.