I walked through the doors of Second City Hollywood, up the stairs and through the hallway where I caught a glimpse of a photo of one of my favorite all time actors Mike Meyers playing on the Second City stage. A stage that was no more than five feet away, a stage that I was going to get to play on one day. The butterflies grew. This school is steeped in comedic royalty and the power of that is not lost on me as I enter my classroom for the first time. Being on the road last year and realizing…
Author: Jenna Edwards
Jenna Edwards
With a passion for acting and the business of show-business, Jenna moved to Burbank, CA in 2000. Soon after, she appeared in UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE. In 2008 she produced her first feature, the award-winning film, APRIL SHOWERS. Building on the success of April Showers, Jenna produced the first narrative feature film exclusively for Hulu. Jenna helped create and was the “resident producing advisor” on the Movie Maker Magazine top ranked podcast, FILM METHOD and wrote an advice column called the Film Method Mailbag. She also taught producing at New York Film Academy. Years of teaching, consulting and coaching filmmakers made Jenna want to do more so she started her company, Indie Movie Mastery which focuses on teaching producing through an online course and encouraging filmmakers to think outside the box though her podcast and blogs
Well, it’s February. The month of love and I have been thinking so much about it lately. I am one of the lucky ones who has an epic love with another person and I am eternally grateful for it. That said, I have, in the past had an epic love-hate relationship with myself. In the recent past, it has been a growing hate relationship for sure and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get the self-love thing to work. I did the mantras, I read the books, I took the baths, I went to the spa…all of…
My past few articles have been getting you ready to dive into your project and really get it going. I honestly feel like if you don’t know who you are, what you truly want and why you want it, you’re going to spend more time floundering around than you are accomplishing your goals. Harsh, but from my experience, true. As most of you know, in 2018 I went on a yearlong cross-country road trip. It was life changing for so many reasons but the biggest reason it was life changing to my career was because it got me back in…
As I write this, it’s an early fall morning and the sun is just waking up, stretching her beams in hues of orange, yellow and blue. It’s going to be a beautiful day in more ways than one for me. As I do each time I begin to write this column, I am contemplating my topic. Today it is WHY. Specifically, why do we do what we do? As I begin to think about it, my thoughts wander to my beautiful new nephew who is coming home from the hospital today. He will certainly be a big why for my…
If I were to tell you my dream for those in the entertainment industry (well, really, for EVERYONE because I think if everyone had this, the world would be a much better place), it would be that everyone has long, sustainable, fulfilling careers. And, I believe it’s possible. The key, in my humble opinion, is identifying what that looks like for you. Creatives are blessed with the ability to do many different things. Sometimes that blessing can become a curse when we’re not really clear on what it is we want to be doing. We’re also blessed with a curiosity…
Last year my husband and I sold all our stuff and headed out on the road for an epic year-long road-trip. #lifeinateardrop As uncomfortable as it was for this producer, we decided we wouldn’t really have a plan. We just knew there were some places we wanted to go no matter what. Maine was one of those places and last month, we accomplished that mission. Today, as we were making our way back home to Los Angeles (a task that will take several months), our drive brought us to Erie, Pennsylvania along Lake Erie and past one abandoned factory building…
There are a million ways to do anything. Yes, there are certain things that have to get done, but, there are a million ways to accomplish those things. I think that we as artists get caught up in the “rigidness” of the business parts of making our projects happen to the point that a lot of us stop doing them for one reason or another. But, if we shift our perspective, the business end (producing end) of the creative process can be just as creative. I think the key to producing a successful project is a combination of (1) knowing…
I had a conversation with a friend about the gender gap before the election that has stuck with me ever since and I think it applies to all of us in the entertainment industry. We were standing in my garage talking about the gender gap in film (and in life in general) using the analogy of a sandbox. She was explaining how men have more sand than women. As she was talking she raised her arm and put her elbow in the air and pointed to indicate that this was where the men were and then she put her hand…