Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Avery Looser. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Avery , appreciate you joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

If it were not for my parents, I would have never dreamed of becoming an artist.

Growing up, they immersed me in theater, film, music, literature, visual art and so much more. I was notoriously the youngest person in the audience receiving judgmental glances from adult theatergoers who I then proved wrong with my stellar behavior totally silenced by and engrossed in the experience. From seeing A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at age five, to singing Prince on the way to Kindergarten, to reading Disney books on my potty chair, to proclaiming Meret Oppenheim’s furry teacup as my favorite piece of modern art on the local news before I could barely form a sentence, I understood the importance of art as a transformative and informative experience early on. And I owe this understanding to my parents (who — fun fact — actually met doing a play in high school).

Almost more importantly, they taught me how to dream. And they showed up for my dreams by doing all they could to make them come true. In the sixth grade when I came home and announced I wanted to be a filmmaker, my parents were overjoyed. There was and has never been a discussion of the so-called artist “backup plan” because they have always believed in me and my passions. And I recognize how blessed I am to have such supportive parents. And while they still play me songs I’ve never heard and share books I’ve never read, I now get to show them things in my world like they did for me when I was a kid. A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC is now a ROSEMARY’S BABY/EXORCIST double-feature, Prince is now the playlist I’ve made for a feature, Disney books are now film criticism, and Meret Oppenheim’s furry teacup is now the production design of 2001.

Avery , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a writer, director, and producer with a strong focus on women-led stories and productions through my company, BraveMouse.

My interest in movies began when I was in sixth grade when one of my childhood friends asked me to do a two-week summer film camp with her at my future high school. There, I wrote, directed, and produced my very first short about my experiences with bullying which was later accepted at the National Film Festival for the Talented Youth. Simultaneously and serendipitously, Baz Luhrmann’s THE GREAT GATSBY was released, and the visuals, performances, direction, music supervision, etc. absolutely blew my mind. The combination of my short and this movie ignited my passion for filmmaking.

But as time went on and I started seeing the realities of this industry, forming my own opinions on its inequality, and voicing these opinions in my art, I quickly realized how intolerable I would become to certain men in power. I came face to face with their intolerance during my senior year of high school. I produced a short about being the only woman in my film class that was then banned from the school for not being an “accurate representation” of the film department despite my first-hand experience. And the banning process was so intense that it eventually led to a legal investigation led by another man who found “no evidence of gender discrimination” again despite my first-hand experience.

It was from that moment forward I decided I would make it my personal, professional, and artistic mission to empower women in my stories and productions. I believed in this mission so much that I founded my production company, BraveMouse, on these principles. BraveMouse strives to tell uniquely women-led narratives while empowering the women behind the narratives with women-led production teams. By supporting every woman who tells our stories, we believe they have the power to change the narrative for all.

Since founding BraveMouse back in October 2020, we have produced over 25 women-led creative endeavors. From film and television productions, music videos, websites, writing and photography projects, BraveMouse has put women at the center of our storytelling, in front of and behind the camera, as we like to say.

And this is simply the beginning. When I started BraveMouse, I did not think many people would be interested in working with me and my company. So, I attempted to run it alone. Now that we have grown and entered our fourth year, I am proud to have found a strong team of creatives who push BraveMouse to be the best it can be and ensure that all of our projects are done right. Lizzy Walther (Creative Producer), Brock Looser (Creative Coordinator & Co-Producer), Julia Kruger (Co-Producer), and Truman Hanks (Director of Photography), make me and BraveMouse better, and I am so grateful for their dedication to this company and their passion for our mission. We have big plans for the future of BraveMouse and this industry: a future where women’s stories are told authentically by the creative voices behind them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I first started BraveMouse, I thought I could do it alone, and that is simply false. I think I believed I could do it alone because I had had many previous experiences in which people who I had relied on failed me. Some examples are…I made a short in 24 hours as a part of a competition that was disqualified in the final hour because someone pulled the hard drive during the export and corrupted the file. The short I made about being the only woman in my high school film class was praised by men in power on a Friday and then banned on a Monday. A feature I had developed and written on was stolen from me with zero creative credit in a month’s time because of differences of opinions on the production timeline.

Because of these experiences, and many others, I truly believed I could not rely on anyone else to produce the quality of work I aspired to create. But that is simply false. Everyone says being creative is the most collaborative profession, and they are correct. But what they often neglect to mention is the intense process of finding the right people you can trust with your work. I have been so lucky to find four incredibly talented and trustworthy individuals who help me run BraveMouse, but it certainly took me a while to find them. And I still have to be cautious about with whom outside of my team I share my work. But when you find your people, you will know. Trust your gut, follow your heart, and they will come your way because we cannot do this alone, and we need people who will better us and support us along our personal and professional journeys.

Bottom line: I had to unlearn the protective thought that I could do it alone.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being on set with my collaborators is the most rewarding and fulfilling experience. While we have spent months, sometimes years, preparing for a shoot, there is nothing quite like being on set, actively creating in the moment, coming up with new ideas and ditching old ones and making new discoveries, and then getting to all hang out after a long days work. I had never truly experienced this joy until one of BraveMouse’s more recent shorts, INDIGO. Our whole team traveled to Indiana and shot on location in a roller skate factory from the 1880s that we dressed as an attic of a church. We all worked together seamlessly as a creative unit and deeply believed in the distinctly female narrative we were telling with a majority women crew. It was a beautiful set where everyone felt respected, empowered, and heard. And I couldn’t help but think to myself how much I would have loved to have been on a set like this when I was younger and how amazing it was that we had created the set safe haven I (and many other women) had never had.

And that brings me to another rewarding aspect of being a creative. There is nothing quite like a total stranger reaching out to you and telling you that your art meant something to them. My very first experience with this was at my very first film festival with my very first short on middle school bullying. I had a young guy come up to me and tell me that my short touched on a lot of what he experienced being bullied at a young age for simply existing and thanked me for voicing that experience in such a direct way. It floored me and reminded me of art that I had experienced that gave that feeling to me. I just never thought I could ever do that for someone else. But that is the power of art, and I have gone on to experience this through people reading my screenplays, watching more of my shorts, and even simply finding BraveMouse. It’s a reminder of how we are all really the same on a human level. And sometimes it takes someone else to say something through art for you to recognize those feelings in yourself. It’s truly remarkable…almost like a superpower we all share.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bravemousellc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bravemousellc/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsU60P3Dyo5wg-yjQh63JhA?view_as=subscriber
• Other: https://averylooser.wixsite.com/mysite https://www.instagram.com/averylooser/ https://vimeo.com/bravemousellc