On the second Tuesday of every month Creatives Alliance, an organization dedicated to bringing creative people together, holds a speaking series at the HIVE on the third floor of John F. Germany Library. It's an excellent networking opportunity for all artists, professional and aspiring alike, and a great chance to listen to different creative perspectives.
I recently attended this series in support of my friend, Monique Guggino, local filmmaker and co-founder of Wicked Window Productions, who was the featured speaker for the evening. One of the most interesting things that happened that night came before Monique even took the stage. Everyone in attendance (there were only about 15 of us or so) was asked to introduce themselves and share what art discipline we practiced. There were writers, composers, professional sound designers, even a former Microsoft employee, making it clear what the evening and Creatives Alliance would be all about: coming together, sharing, and collaborating with other artists.
It was in this spirit that Monique took the stage and shared with us her story. She detailed how her love affair with film began by watching classic horror films like Poltergeist and The Fly at a young age. She relayed the difficulties of emigrating from Brazil to the United States when she was eight. We laughed as she told us of her first experiences as a filmmaker in the fifth grade trying to organize and plan everything. We saw how she was able to take a small group of high school friends and grow it into a twenty-five-member-strong organization (myself being one of those members since January) of talented individuals who value collaboration, creativity, and community over a paycheck. After she was finished, the audience was given a chance to ask questions and even offer advice as to how Monique can make herself and Wicked Window Productions better as film makers. We were even given a sample of Wicked Window's work, a short film called The Cure which you can see for yourself below.
The final part of the evening gave everyone a chance to stretch their legs and snack on some cookies and Doritos as well as find out more about each other. After talking with a few of the other artists who were there, I pulled Monique aside for a quick Q&A about her film making experience and Wicked Window Productions. You can read the interview for yourself below.
In your own words, what is Wicked Window Productions?
Wicked Window is a group of talented people that come together to create fun and entertaining films.
Of all the projects you have worked on, which has been your favorite and which are you most proud of?
The one I’m most proud of is Soulless. I think that that one was a huge project for us where we had a lot of crew members, we had a giant cast — we had an actual main cast of 6 people, which is pretty challenging managing the time and preparation, and we had about 20 different extras that had to have makeup done and there was just so much coordination to pull that off that I think it was definitely a huge challenge for the entire team to do, but it’s one of those things that because we did it and we survived it makes us so much stronger.
What are some of the difficulties you’ve had to face and how did you overcome them?
Difficulty I think is overall just finding crew members that are willing to volunteer their time because we are not currently for profit — we are nonprofit I should say — it’s keeping people engaged, making sure they feel challenged enough and giving them an opportunity to learn and grow and to express themselves creatively, so it’s figuring out a way to make people feel valued and using that versus pay at this time. I think that that’s always a huge challenge to make people want to stay, even without pay. And considering we have over 25 people in our team, I think that says something about the way that we’re doing things.
The creative rewards, that’s why I’m here. What is the most valuable thing you have learned as a filmmaker?
Valuable thing — the most valuable thing that I’ve learned is how to collaborate with people. When you should fight for what you believe, when you should give in a little bit, when you should find win-win situations, when — it’s just overall collaborating with other people, accepting feedback graciously, giving feedback in a positive manner, and just respecting people and their ideas and creativity.
And finally, what big things can we expect from you and Wicked Window in the future?
Right now we are working on a new web series Everyday Spooky. We have released episode 1 and we have four more episodes, we’re showing one a month, we’re posting them on YouTube and that took us about six months to film and even longer to do the post-production. We are still finishing post-production for Everyday Spooky but it was something that we really got the entire team really excited. It was a fun — very fun — project to do where we spent a lot of time laughing and we had to keep coming back and “OK, get focused” but those are sometimes the most fun things you can do plus rewarding when you can have fun as well as be productive at the same time.
Monique Guggino is an active member of the film community. Her film Soulless was nominated for 13 awards at the 2014 zombie film challenge and another film, Resurgence, was nominated for three awards at the 2013 action film challenge. Monique has been nominated twice for best director at the Tampa Underground Film Festival for both films. Everyday Spooky is the second web series produced by Wicked Window Productions, the first being Ghostfacers – Tampa.
If you're an artist or creative looking for others to work with or you just want some more information follow Creatives Alliance's Facebook page or visit their web site creativesalliance.com to get added to their email list.
To learn more about Monique Guggino and Wicked Window Productions like them on Facebook at facebook.com/MoniqueGuggino and facebook.com/WickedWindow or follow them on YouTube where you can watch short films such as this one:
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2015.