Writing Samples
Home For The Holidays (Introduction)
Virginia Lotto / Holiday Season
December 25th, 2014, Richmond, Virginia.
I woke up to a world blanketed in snow. It was my first white Christmas, twenty minutes outside Richmond in my (future) husband’s family home, and it felt like TV-land, because where I grew up the most wonderful time of the year was also our hottest. Santa wore board shorts and instead of reindeer (way too hot for reindeer), every kid knew his sleigh was pulled by Six White Boomers*
But the real culture shock, and the real fun of the holiday, came from all the ‘totally-normal’ family traditions. Oversized stockings, matching flannel pajamas (dogs included), the plate of carrots left out Christmas Eve that always had bite marks by morning so everyone could plainly see reindeers had visited (inside?). These people, my in-laws, were (and are) holiday fanatics in the best way, and they immediately jumped to mind as the perfect characters for these films.
Our characters are the ones getting excited by the chill in the air mid-November and sharing that excitement with everyone they meet. No matter what. The joy of it makes me smile, and I think that’s exactly the kind of infectious humor we’re aiming for here.
*Boomers here means kangaroo. No association with the age group.
Tone
Our characters might be over-excited, but they own it, and their unabashed joy makes us smile. These are human stories, told with warmth and invitation, like a hug from Mom or Dad as you walk into their home after a long absence. Our characters and environments will feel accessible, with story-driven details that make our audience say, "oh! That's just like my sister / dad / mother-in-law. That's just like my home!"
In a world of Insta-perfect posting cluttering our social feeds, the perfectly-imperfect moments in your reference boards are a breath of fresh air. These moments work so well because they're honest. Just people being themselves, and being so unexpectedly relatable in the process. In the same way, our playful, earnest tone comes from celebrating the holiday odd-balls we know and love. Their joy is infectious because it's real. They're embracing their quirks no matter who is watching, and we love it.
Casting & Performance
I love casting non-actors with natural charisma whenever we can get real people with the relationships or some life experience in the scene's we're filming. It's so great to pull from their built-in backstories and pre-existing relationships, harvesting more of those real-life details for our films, especially for family traditions. Let's bring in family units – real life parents and children, grandparents and siblings with the true holiday spirit. Maybe they've all drank the cool-aid, or maybe just one person in the group is that bottomless pit of holiday cheer and everyone else has feelings about it. I love that, too, because only a true older sibling can give that look when the youngest plays 'It's a Wonderful Life' for the sixth time on Christmas day (real-life sister-in-law did this).
Our talent won’t need to ‘make’ anything funny or ‘ham it up’. These vignettes are real to our characters: they’re just being themselves, and it’s fun to watch. To set this up, I always try to prioritize performance in our production choices. I like to keep the set calm, with a nimble crew, and make space in our technical approach for the talent to stay focused and candid in their scene work.
Introduction
Pharma / Real Patient Story
No matter your goals in life, no matter what you’re wanting to achieve, it helps so much to find those who've traveled the path before you. For someone suffering the pain and isolation of this unseen condition, these patient testimonials offer role models for healing – the beginning of conversations long overdue and sparks of hope for a road to relief.
That’s what these films are all about. Hearing a person’s lived experience, told in their own words. We'll lean into a rugged, minimal aesthetic that pulls focus to our subject's story, and humanity, as they describe their journey from their prior, pain-constricted symptomatic life, to a life reinvigorated after regaining lost functions with AcmeXR.
Becoming your whole self again. That's a message I can get behind.
Tone
A human touch is key. It's not perfect angles or balanced symmetry in every shot. It’s more about energy, and a certain level of 'grit' or texture from intentional imperfections – a camera tilt in our b-roll, a patched rip in our character's favorite jeans, a lens flare when the sun hits the camera – that breathes life into the frame. It's genuine, in the moment, and it'll ground our patient stories in a visual style that feels relatable.
There's an elegance to the visual journey. We're moving from up close pain to full frame wholeness, from constriction to a deep breath of fresh air. We'll reflect this with how we frame our patients, fragmenting them with close ups and ECUs earlier in their journey, then moving to a steady full shots, ideally environmental portraiture with the subject in their environment, but most importantly – whole.
Wardrobe
A favorite fishing hat, a vintage dress from the 70’s, an old shirt they’ve had ‘forever’ - a person's clothing says so much about their character. I always lean towards starting our styling from our subject’s own wardrobe. It's generally less contrived, and helps our talent feel more comfortable, keeping them in some of their own clothes. We’ll have a stylist compliment their wardrobe where appropriate, but we do that around the style our subjects bring to the table.
In regards to their own journeys, we'll work within our patient's comfort levels when considering what wardrobe we invite them to wear.
(Hi / Hello ) (What If) (Science Fact) Introduction
Northrop Grumman / Action
Thanks for inviting me to share my ideas on this project. I enjoy these challenges the most – imagining all the what-if's behind Northrop Grumman’s closed doors while keeping in mind that these technologies seemingly plucked from the stories I read as a boy are real. It’s exciting. Enticing. It’s science fiction turned science fact, and I dig it.
I also enjoy the intensely collaborative nature of these projects. We're talking large scale practical effects, rigorous prep for safety and efficiency. I've found it at minimum helpful, other times mission critical, to hone in our creative early in the process. To that end, this treatment presents some initial ideas for that 'elevated look and feel' we discussed on our call, but let’s consider everything that follows a starting point. The fun part is the collaboration, bouncing around ideas until we find the best (funniest, hookiest, heart-string-pluckiest) option for each moment in the film. I’m excited at the shot to develop this together.
Northrop Grumman makes the future, now. It's the present changing into the future, real time, through a series of 'woah' vignettes extrapolating these technologies into visual set pieces that feel almost magical, not quite possible, yet still firmly rooted in reality.
Tone
Sophisticated and sleek. It’s Marvel without the comic book cheesiness. Sunshine instead of Star Trek. It’s a cinematic world, rather than commercial – we’re not selling burgers here, or any other singular product. We’re creating a feeling. Emotionally, we’re capturing the moment a film’s protagonist realizes there’s so much more to the world than they ever imagined.
The visual effects we build will seamlessly integrate with live action footage to create spectacular environments that feel real. We’ll live in a cool color palette of steely blues offset by warm lighting that’ll give our tone a serious tinge.
Humanity / Casting
Our most important early decision, in my opinion, come down to who we cast. Our humans are the story, even though we're focusing on the tech, our authenticity rooted in humanity needs to shine. Our employee is experience, not jaded. They're confident as they guide us through their job. When they show us the impossible made possible, their smile says 'yeah, we do six impossible things before lunch each day.'
We'll keep our employee's age, ethnicity, and gender flexible during casting, prioritizing energy and personality instead. Confidence. Positivity. Capability.