We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alycia Ripley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alycia below.
Alycia, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
There has never been a time where I didn’t want to write, create, act, and make films as a career. I was thrilled to discover that it COULD be a career. In 1982, I saw ‘E.T’ at the theatre about ten times. I was entranced by the characters, the acting, the production design, the special effects, the way the music swelled at all the perfect moments. It was the magic of it all that a four-year-old me wanted to create and the fact that it was someone’s or multiple people’s actual JOBS blew my mind. I never thought of filmmaking as glamorous or financially lucrative: I thought of it as magical and felt it’s what I was here to do. Seeing ‘E.T’ all those times made me understand that other people shared my fixation with plot, characters, places, and the sewing them together to make something wonderful. I lived, breathed, understood, and went crazy for that movie, for the friendship between a boy and an alien, for the very idea that intense creativity happened off screen to create the onscreen magic. I wanted to create magic for people to experience, relate to, and be inspired by. I wanted to write the story, bring the vision to life, and perform in front of the camera when possible. A few years after that, the same thing happened with the Tri-Star logo. I loved all the film distribution logos but the original Tri-Star logo (circa 1984) had exciting, triumphant music playing as a Pegasus runs toward the viewer and jumped over and above the Tri-Star logo. I re-wound VHS tapes countless times just to keep watching that logo because, to me, the logo was the entire point. It was the harbinger of excitement; it made you wonder what you were about to see and how potentially awesome, magical, and dramatic it would be. That logo cemented what I wanted to do with my life: make films (and have a production company of my own) that would make you excited to count down the seconds to watch what we created for you. When I need inspiration, I always watch that vintage Tri-Star logo clip. It reminds me of who I was then and what I always wanted to become.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY and after graduating from Syracuse University, I moved to NYC, worked in the arts for a year, and applied to NYU’s Graduate Program for Creative Writing. Had I known how competitive it was, I might have been too intimidated to apply but thankfully I’m sometimes naive to the odds and just go ahead and do the thing and this was one of those times. It was a wonderful program and after receiving my MFA, I went on to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, performed on stage, and finished my first novel which was published in 2005 and called ‘Traveling With An Eggplant.’ That was still in the times of book tours. I loved meeting readers and discussing their favorite parts of the book. It seemed like a roundabout way to move into the film industry but I felt my writing skill would be what legitimized me. Books were difficult to write, they took years, and I felt that if my writing skill could be shown through published novels, it would give me a leg up and a name when networking and writing scripts. In 2011 and 2014 I published ‘The Final Alice’ and ‘Alice’s Army.’ respectively, and worked in both Hawaii and LA. Also in 2014, my stepfather passed away very suddenly which paused my world. I had a difficult time processing what had happened. I began writing a letter to my stepfather once or twice a week. It was a way for me to process what happened but these were letters to him, encompassing all the time we spent together. What emerged was a memoir not only about growing up in my hometown in the 80’s and 90’s but about the lessons he taught me through hilarious anecdotes and mysterious moments. This memoir was released in 2017 with the title (and nautical reference,) ‘Wind Over Tide.’ To my surprise, it’s used in grief therapy and book clubs. I’m thrilled it has touched so many people, that I gain opportunities to meet and speak with those who read it, and feel I’m keeping my stepfather alive by sharing so his wisdom and love with others.
Shortly thereafter, I began working in social media and engagement coordination for clients while also gaining a monthly column in Stroll magazine. My essays give me the opportunity to reach people and capture what’s on my mind. These vary–they could be about how I compare Valentine’s Day 2009 in Venice, CA to current day and how social media posts often make people feel, to a mediation on creativity and new ways to express it. I’m thankful to have carte blanche to write about what moves me…..and what I want to bring out in others. It also helps me save time in the writing process because I’m planning for a new memoir and peppered throughout will be essays that correspond to a particular time in my life. Writing short versions of these essays for the magazine helps me get the main points articulated so that it’s much easier to lengthen for the magazine version. Also, it helps me to increase interest in my name as a brand before that book is released. My essays are some of my favorite things to write– instead of worrying about craft such as in fiction, I can focus on language and structure. I’m touched by all the DM’s I receive from people who read the essays–there’s no better feeling than knowing my work affected someone and taught them something I’ve learned from my ups and downs.
in 2019, two things changed my life. I was frustrated and confused about how to move into film and felt I was getting farther away from my goals. Through a strange course of events, I was hired as an actress (and body double) for ‘A Quiet Place 2’ which was filming in my hometown. I played a waitress in the ‘prequel’ section of the movie, and although my climactic scene had originally been much longer and was cut down in the theatrical version, I spent hours with John Krasinski while filming my close up as an ‘alien’ approached and I began crying on camera. I could go on about how supportive John was. I learned so much from him about simultaneously directing and acting a project and the way he conducted a set. When I went to the NYC premiere of the film, he was very encouraging of my writing and that it was time for me to move ahead with that part of my career. So, my experience acting opposite an alien who wasn’t really there was Part 1 in my life finally changing.
Part 2 was working in a film festival and meeting one of my favorite writers from my hometown, Brian Sacca. I had planned to ask him if he knew of any managers I could audition for but he gave me a surprising response– that instead of focusing on that, why not finally capitalize on my writing name: write some short films, direct them, put myself in them, so that I was in creative control of the process? He knew that I was a writer prone to direct because I had a strong vision of what I wanted my work to be.
Towards the end of the pandemic I enlisted some terrific crews in my hometown to help film what I called ‘my triplets.’ I wrote, directed, and starred in three short films in nine months. I couldn’t be prouder of those crews and the films we made with very limited money and resources. Making them look beyond professional was the Toronto studio, Coma Edits, and during the film event showing them for charity and donors this past May, I was stunned by how the sound design came through on the cinema audio speakers. The three films are: “Watercolors,” “Mary Lou Attends A Wedding,” and “Midnight Postman.” In addition, I enlisted some of my crew to help film a teaser trailer for a feature film I’m gearing up to direct in Montana once we achieve our budget. I’m excited to finally have physical films to show people what I can do in terms of writing a story, realizing a vision, and performing in front of the camera. Books are wonderful but it took far less time to create the story, procure the crew and money, and just make the films.
I love promoting the films and my brand through social media. Instagram is my favorite- it allows me to be creative and make photos, videos, add music, by myself. My goal is for people who enjoy my books and films (or You Tube Channel or monthly column) to learn more about the authentic me–my inspirations, daily work, photographers I collaborate with, etc. I love being able to tell a story, daily, on social media, connecting with my network, friends, people I’d like to work with, etc. I want my brand to be creative, poignant, authentic, amusing, nostalgic, etc. I want to inspire or make them laugh or realize that while the work that goes into creative careers isn’t a walk in the park, it’s so worth it. I share my struggles as frequently as my wins.
I also help clients access their own brands. It’s a fulfilling opportunity to analyze a person and their work and discover the best way to promote them to the world. I always tell my circle that, “People see just what I want them to see, whether that’s inside the box of the camera and if you turned slightly to the left you’d see the crew and a reflection, or words on a page, or specific photos of me for social media.” I love creative direction because it’s making magic to show what parts of you and your work and your product will tell the story and captivate your audience. Whether through a camera or words or an Insta post, I work deceptively hard to show you want I want you to see on behalf of my own brand or someone else’s.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
There really is a time for every career to take hold. We all have lessons we need to learn and some people who explode with success earlier have difficulties later, and vice versa. The universe knows what’s best for you and I fought this for years. I was never good at making money through a day job as I came up in my career. I always made the choices I thought were best but then looked back and said, Why didn’t you study photography in college? You could have worked as a DP and made money while writing everything you wanted to write? I knew I had talent and would get somewhere, I just always felt overlooked with the changing times. I studied and prepared for the writing and film world back in the late 90’s, having no idea how things would change with technology and the zeitgeist, etc. I always seemed to move one step forward and two steps back. I’m sure many people feel this way. I just never seemed to make the right move. That is, until the universe aligned with my timing and I realized that now was the time to make my own films and that the years of struggle gave me tools, confidence, and experience. Looking back, I don’t think I’d be the same kind of artist had I had it easy years earlier.
The best resilience story is that I moved out of my comfort zone and moved to NYC, LA, Hawaii, and Australia without knowing anyone. Whether I was there to book tour or make a film or work in some creative capacity, I kept my eye on what my goal was and realized there will be temporary discomfort while growing. I was willing to leave what was comfortable for what was educational and important. I was sad at times and worried and sometimes stressed/overworked but tried to keep up a good attitude. If what I wanted was the artistic connection, then I needed to feel it regardless of success and on a smaller scale with my audiences and people who cared enough to follow me. I suppose what resilience really is, is the ability to stay upbeat and focused while doing what you need to do to survive and network, but keeping your end goal active, even if it’s slower progress than anticipated. A quick anecdote here is what I call the Harvey Weinstein story. He spent much time in Buffalo in the 70’s and back in his heyday, I wanted nothing more than to meet him and work for him. I honestly thought he seemed like a decent person. I begged my stepfather (who always knew the right person to ask) if he had known him back in the day or knew who I could contact about working at Miramax in my early 20s. My stepfather always said that he didn’t know anyone who knew him. I had a gut instinct that he wasn’t being honest and I felt this might be because he didn’t believe in me or think I was ready. After my stepfather passed away is when all the terrible things Weinstein did, began to come out. Not just the sexual assaults but the insane behavior toward film industry professionals, screaming and calling them horrific names for wearing a pantsuit to a premiere. The more stories that came out, the more I knew that had anything like that happened to me, I may have been so demoralized that I’d have given up my career and went home. Why does this stay with me? Because I truly believe my stepfather deliberately made it so that I was never introduced to that man and right when I was ready to begin my career, that’s coincidentally (or not) when Weinstein went to jail. It might be just a big coincidence, but I keep it in my mental pocket as a reminder to trust the universe. If you’re putting in the work and focusing and doing a little each day, then things will happen in the time and place they should for your particular journey. You might feel the universe is holding you back when actually, it’s protecting and redirecting you from something you aren’t equipped to handle at that time. It reminds me that sometimes, there’s a reason for the timing of each of our stories. Just keep learning and trying and working and things usually align when the universe feels it’s the right time for who we are and what we want to achieve.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I truly love Instagram because it can inspire and utilize creativity. The photo itself, the caption, the location tag, the music choice, the hashtag, it’s all your particular vision. It was refreshing that, although I love working with crews on films, etc, I don’t need anyone for a social post. I encourage others to think about who they are, what they want to promote, and I say promote as opposed to sell. I don’t like selling and selling to people is not the way I’ve found success. Entice people to enjoy your authentic lifestyle along with you.. For me, it’s humor and intrigue. I love being funny in captions or with musical choices. That, or mysterious. People see what I choose to show them and I prefer to supply a mood or humor or a behind the scenes look. I like people to see my large maine coon cat who loves to wear clothes and pajamas. I love them to know I collect vintage items and that my mom bought me a traffic light for the holidays. I love posting what book I’m reading or a photo shoot but instead of direct promotion, crafting the shout out into something unique and funny or vague, to entice someone looking to wonder or read further. My advice is always, take photos weather or locations or other people you work with or cocktails, keep a portfolio at the ready and see what you feel inspired to post. Take the time to think about humor, a bit of mystery, never make yourself an open book, more a chapter at a time. Be authentic. Keep the photos crisp but be authentic in the why you’re posting it. I suggest limiting photos of significant others or children at the beginning…you want to build a brand that’s about who you are and what you do, not personal life details yet. Be yourself. But my biggest suggestions? Try to keep your captions to two or three lines. Only rarely will someone feel compelled to read a massive paragraph. Keep the photos to you, your interesting work, collaborators, etc. Create carousel posts and reels when you can but if intimidated, stick to what feels right. And if you need help, message me! I love to help clients find themselves and create a brand that is authentic without “selling.”
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @talentedmsripley
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyciaripley/
- Youtube: TalentedMsRipley https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD-bNL76Zhxq6SCDQjU-4cQ
Image Credits
Lauren Kaufman (Lauren Ashley Photography) for the main photo and photo of me in front of cinema marquee Jeffrey T Barnes (for the black and white photo)