Episode #51 with Kendra Monet, a filmmaker from Harlem.

Kendra Monet is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied Film & TV. She creates personal narratives about individuals that dare to use their voices and imaginations to discover themselves. Her student short films have been selected at numerous film festivals including an honorable mention award at the Denton Black Film Festival her coming of age short film "The Walk Home." She was a finalist at the Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Festival, and she was interviewed by Bronx News 12 about her documentary film "Pulling the Evidence That Remains", a personal narrative on mental health. Kendra is currently working in publicity at Searchlight Pictures, where she has contributed to Academy Award winning campaigns such as Questlove’s "Summer of Soul" and most recently the Academy nominated and acclaimed film: Jesse Eisenberg's "A Real Pain." At the same time, she is in post-production for her short film ATTACHED, a psychological thriller about a struggling actress whose past continues to haunt her that forces her to confront her sense of control.

https://www.thekendramonet.com/

https://vimeo.com/kendramonet

https://tisch.nyu.edu/film-tv/news/2019/ugftv-student-kendra-brown-interviewd-on-bronx-new-12.html

Chapters:

- 00:00

Intro

- 00:56

Kendra's Introduction

- 01:15

What does it mean to be an independent filmmaker?

02:22

- How did your experiences at NYU prepare you to become a filmmaker/visual storyteller?

04:27

- What was your experience like working in Searchlight Pictures, publicity, and now working in the industry?

07:18

- How has your view on being a filmmaker changed over the past three years?

11:34

- What is your inspiration in making the short film "Attached"?

15:16

- Technical approach to the film

19:55

- What is ShotDeck?

22:41

- Kendra's past with dancing

24:48

- What was it like finding the right production designer?

31:18

- What made you choose to do a backstory and how did it help production?

34:30

- How often do you rehearse prior to production?

37:04

- What was the intention behind utilizing 180 degree shutter angles?

49:26

- Ad break

50:16

- First project co-writing/producing/directing

59:36

- Did people talk about the story potentially taking place in D.C.?

01:03:49

- What was it like confronting someone who you thought wasn't doing their job well?

01:20:08

- How did you come up with the name "Attached" and how did the final script work for you?