Women in Film Spotlight: Elena Weinberg
Or Die Trying's Claudia Hoffman caught up with indie filmmaker Elena Weinberg to discuss her production company, Turtledove Films, along with all things indie filmmaking in Austin, Texas.
ODT: What initially inspired you to pursue acting?
Elena Weinberg: I've been acting since before I can remember. I have home videos of me putting on full fledged productions of Snow White in my living room while forcing my dad to play Snow White while I played everyone else, and then immediately switching to my mom playing everyone else while I play Snow White. I guess acting is just something that's always made sense to me. I've flirted with many other career options, but it always came down to: "Well, I could play that in a movie…."
ODT: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned being an actor in theatre/film?
EW: You are always going to work harder than the people around you, or it's going to feel that way a lot, especially when it's your project. It's okay to be the hardest working person on stage or on set, but don't let that build grudges against your colleagues. You need them.
ODT: Tell us about your production company, Turtledove. How did that come to be and what achievements to you hope to accomplish going forward?
EW: Duncan and I started TurtleDove Films back in 2013 kind of by accident. He discovered Trigger Street Productions' Jameson First Shot script competition and realized that if he was chosen as a finalist, he'd have to send them work he had previously completed before, and he had only produced stage plays at that point. Neither of us had ever even picked up a camera, let alone produced a film (we both got our degrees in theatre acting) but we decided to make a short film in case they wanted to see something.
We ended up embarking on what we now call "The 12 Month Project" that year and made one short film a month for the entire year, which became our own self-taught film school. We challenged ourselves to learn something new each month and use that developing skill to influence the subject matter of each film. He wasn't a finalist that year, but at the end of The 12 Month Project, he submitted again, and became a 2014 Finalist! That encouraged us to officially LLC and crowdfund for start-up costs for the production company, which is where my relationship with Seed & Spark began. We've since become friends with Emily and I've managed crowdfunding campaigns for fellow filmmakers since.
#ATown was our first project after upgrading all of our equipment and officially LLC-ing. We were fortunate enough to win Best Webseries in the Austin Chronicle after our kick-ass premiere party, as well as play a couple of local festivals. We hope that the series provides a great example of a proof of concept of what we're capable of with little to no money, and, hopefully, encourage future investors that spending their money with us is a risk they're willing to take. ;-) Moving forward, after two seasons of the series, we're finally ready to make our first feature, so much of our year will be dedicated to following through with that. Cross your fingers for some big festival premieres with that one!
ODT: Tell us about your series A-Town. What have you loved most about producing this project?
EW: #ATown is a female-driven comedy about friendship and fucking up in the greatest city in the world: Austin. My friend Mallory and I did a two woman stage show back in 2013 called "All About A Boy" that centered around the two of us fighting over a dude until we realized that each other was more important than any guy and #ATown came out of wanting to do more work like that. So, we toyed with turning AAAB into a short film and eventually decided we had too many stories to tell about our friendship for one piece, so we turned it into a webseries.
What I loved about #ATown, above all else, was getting to create an entire world around fun, messy, complicated women without apologizing. I love that creating a web series is still like the "wild west" of filmmaking - none of our episodes had to adhere to a specific length or structure, we just got to tell the stories we wanted to tell, and we were lucky enough that people liked watching them. And, to be honest, I loved being able to hire all of my friends.
This industry is so brutal, and nobody really gets enough chances, and I loved being able to create a project filled with opportunity. I was in charge, so I was allowed to hire anyone I wanted, cast anyone I wanted and distribute the project wherever I wanted. When people told me they wanted to work with me, I tried not to put them in a box - I asked them what they wanted to try, even if they'd never worked in that position before. Being micro-budget, you can't always afford professionals in every position, so why not make it a learning opportunity for people willing to do the work?
ODT: What other projects are you currently working on?
EW: I just finished of a crowdfunding campaign, as the Crowdfunding Campaign and Social Media Manager, for a short film called "Hard-ish Bodies." It was originally an improvised show that had two successful runs (and won Outstanding Improvised Production at the B. Iden Payne Awards, which is Austin's version of the Tony's) created by one of my best buds, Mike Carreon. He's written a short film version of the story that we hope to turn into a feature after a successful festival run.
It's a body positive film that takes place at 'Stoney's Rock Hard Palace,' a male strip club, and follows a few key dancers, Roxy, the MC (and the woman who really runs the place), their struggles with not being taken seriously as leading men due to their sizes, gentrification issues as their club's lease is threatened and finding love in places you'd least expect to. Think 'The Full Monty' in a 'Magic Mike' world - it's hilarious, humbling and above all, carries a powerful message about loving yourself.
Loving yourself seems to be a reoccurring theme in projects I've worked recently - I also worked on producing a feature film last year called Bona Fide Beauty (think 'Trainwreck' meets 'Save the Last Dance') that ended up getting turned into a short and will be, I believe, looking for funding for the feature version once the short has made a festival run. I am also in pre-pre-production for my company's first feature film, still Untitled, that we hope to shoot this year and finish up in time to submit for SXSW 2018. That one's being written by my partner, Duncan Coe, and I wish I could tell you more about it - I've been hounding him for a final script so I can start working my producer magic! For now, I can say that it's a dark comedy that's kind of mumblecore-meets-scifi (I know that doesn't make sense) about a guy who may or may not be the last man on Earth.
ODT: How did you begin to establish yourself in the women in film community?
EW: I began to establish myself as a woman in film online, to begin with. When I started making films, I also got really into social media and met a ton of amazing women online, mostly on Twitter. I got really into twitter chats (#FilmCurious, whattup!) and just started realizing how small the women in film community actually was. I didn't mean to become an advocate for women in film, it just kind of happened. When Mal and I started working on #ATown, it just made sense to become even bigger advocates for our gender, so it kind of snowballed from there.
ODT: What do you think is the most effective way to go about changing the systematic gender gap in Hollywood?
EW: Make your own work and hire each other. I mean, it's already so hard to get jobs in the industry anyway, why wait around for other people to provide opportunity? And talk about it, a lot. And don't apologize for specifically seeking women. The systematic gender gap is real, and it's not going to go away by not talking about it. Partner with men who advocate for women as well.
