We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dawn Austin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dawn, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I knew as a child that I wanted to be an artist. I remember being selected in fifth grade to attend a convention for young authors. At the convention, they gave everyone a blank book to write a story. I remember holding that book and saying to myself, “This is what I am going to do when I grow up.” I knew then that writing was the journey I wanted to pursue, but I wasn’t sure if it was a financially viable option. So, after I graduated from high school, I went to college for information technology. I knew that computers were on the rise and that this field would be a lucrative pathway. However, my heart wasn’t in it. Eventually, I decided to go back to school for writing to pursue my original childhood plan. From there I networked and was able to meet the right people that allowed me to intern on film sets and eventually become part of the writing team for different online content and web series.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Dawn Renè Austin- writer, director, and jewelry designer. I attended Union Institute and University’s Bachelor of Arts department with a concentration in Creative Writing and Literature. From there my writing journey/career focused on freelance journalism, copywriting, and co-writing. Although I was finding success in these areas of writing, it didn’t fulfill the creative aspirations I had. I changed my focus to spoken word poetry, novel writing, and the launch of my jewelry line Very Royal Designs. In 2019, my theatrical play Shooney: A Suicide in Three Acts, was adapted into a film and is currently in production with Noir Diamond Films. This opportunity opened up doors that allowed me to gain experience working on independent film sets, writer’s room for online web series, and expanding my knowledge of the publishing industry.
As a natural progression in my writing journey, I wanted to turn my creative writing into visual art. So, in 2020 I launched my production company Dawniverse Films to create thought-provoking entertainment from the world I created as a child. Our first project was the theatrical adaption of my play Shooney. Our next and biggest project to date is our film Before Dark, which is currently in the editing phase of the project.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There is a saying in filming, “Whatever can happen, will happen on set”. A week before filming was set to start for our film Before Dark, one of the actors tested positive for Covid. Since he wasn’t a main character we didn’t have an understudy for that role. We were on pins and needles waiting to find out if the actor would be well enough to film. Luckily, he tested negative two days before filming, but the following day; the day before filming a different actor had an accident and was in the hospital. This actor was scheduled to be on set on day one of filming. He was in the majority of the scenes planned to film on day one. The actor was hopeful that he would still make day one of filming, but he didn’t make it and wasn’t sure if he would be available for day two. We had to scram to find a potential replacement. We didn’t find a replacement so, as a fix, I had to redo the filming schedule to film the scenes that didn’t include the actor. This caused a snowball effect on filming, but we were able to rearrange things to keep production moving. It was imperative that I stayed calm, utilized all the lessons learned from the previous film sets that I worked on, and leaned on my crew and cast to find innovative ways to keep production moving.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, it’s being able to bring your thoughts to life. A lot of my stories and ideas have lived in my mind for a long time, so when I am finally able to bring them forth and share my vision with the world, it is an amazing feeling. My first surreal moment happened during rehearsals for my script Shooney. To see the actors bringing your words to life left me speechless. I hope that every artist gets a chance to experience a moment like that. Rather, it’s an artist seeing someone wearing something they’ve designed or a sculptor’s first art gallery piece. The enjoyment of presenting your art to the public is an exhilarating moment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dawnreneaustin.com/
- Instagram: @dawniversefilms
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/dawn.austin.58760/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-austin-9b1b6b171/
- Youtube: @dawnreneaustin4977
Image Credits
Dawn Rene Austin