We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jackie Schwartz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jackie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I have worked on is a limited series called MASHED. This story was brought to my production company Besties Make Movies by writer and lead actor named Madge (she/her). It’s her personal story about dealing with a pelvic condition called Vaginismus, in which any type of penetration from sex to putting in a tampon is extremely painful. The minute my business partners MARS (they/them), Stacey (she/her), and I read this, we knew we had to make it. Madge’s voice in this was very strong, writing with both pain, humor, and vulnerability. Part of my production company’s mission is to create art where it meets advocacy, but not hit you over the head with it. This did exactly that.

Right after making this series, I started experiencing prolonged period bleeding and was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Making MASHED gave me the strength to talk about this out loud when I wouldn’t have been able to afterwards.

Not only was I proud to share a story about pelvic issues when they are so underrepresented and a source of shame for so many people, but I was extremely proud of the project itself. It’s now gone to a plethora of film festivals and won multiple awards. Madge created a TikTok (@projectmashed) as well to share her experience with Vaginismus and continue to break the stigma that has videos with millions of views. People at both festivals and online have shared their stories with Vaginismus and some had never heard of it before but were experiencing similar pain.

We are currently developing a longer form series and a documentary surrounding this topic.

Jackie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up plus-size, I never saw myself in any form of media unless my body type was the butt of a joke. Which was a shame, because I was one of those kids who was completely in love with film and tv. I still have a binder of magazine cutouts from tv show couples I loved. As someone who also dealt with mental health issues from a young age, I found a lot of strength in the messages I would get from the content I was consuming, but I always recognized I didn’t look like anyone I saw. A lot of my worth (or lack of it) was shaped from that.

I ended up going to college for English and Creative Writing, and it never crossed my mind that I could make a career in the entertainment industry. I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to intern for a film production company which turn into a job once I graduated. I worked there for a few years on films like Margin Call and Kill Your Darlings as an assistant producer or product placement coordinator.

After I left, I took a full time job at a non-profit booking talent for events, but always produced content on the side. What became important to me was to create content about the world in which I lived in – people who looked like me or my friends. I also had been in enough degrading work situations to know that my sets would be run with kindness and support.

In 2018 I was lucky enough to meet my future business partners MARS and Stacey. They shared the exact ideals I held in this industry and it was love at first sight. They already had a production company called Besties Make Movies and couple years after working on a few projects with them, including our Apple TV streaming feature film Triple Threat, we made it official. I now, along with producing commercial content and podcasts, run Besties with them full-time.

We are all multi-hyphenates who bring unique skills to the table. Stacey is a director, actor, writer, and producer. MARS is a writer, actor, and producer. I am a producer and writer. Within our company we can do production soup to nuts. I love that we can create multi-million dollar budgets, negotiate with distributors, and teach ourselves some AI skills for awesome-looking VFX on our new film.

We also pride ourselves on creating that same content about the world in which we see around us, but commercial to everyone. Triple Threat I think is a beautiful example of this – Our characters are queer but that is never explicitly spoken about. It just exists. These characters are trying to figure out adulthood like everyone else and are just queer at the same time.

As someone once told us, what we are creating is the future of what entertainment looks like from culture we are fostering to the content we are writing ourselves to optioning of others.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of my favorite stories is how we ended up selling my musical feature film Triple Threat. We finished making the film right before the pandemic and everything had to be done virtually in post. We also went through most of our film festival experience virtually too. When we were getting ready to sell our film, we were told that we wouldn’t get an a minimum guarantee (MG). This just basically means paid upfront for our film by a distributor. To those not in the industry that might sound crazy, but this is pretty much the norm for indie films if you want a distribution deal.

I couldn’t fathom this actually being the case, since we had put at this point YEARS of blood, sweat, and tears into the film. Plus, I knew what we had was unique from the production value, to our original songs, and the script itself. We ended up holding out on certain deals that came our way because we just believed in the product we had and our own value.

We were about to make a deal with one of the bigger distributors (which didn’t involve an MG) when an offer from a newer distributor came in for money. Based off that, we went back into negotiations with the original distributor and was able to get an MG.

That taught me a lesson to know your worth and not be afraid to walk into what could be a tough negotiation or outcome. I had remember reading something from Shonda Rhimes right before that where she said never go into a negotiation you aren’t willing to walk away from. If you do, you already have lost. (Or something like that.) Those words rang in my ear right before that conversation and it paid off.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My company Besties Make Movies has spent years building our reputation in the indie world. You realize just how small it is when you see the same people over and over again at festivals, industry events, and more. When I first started out in the industry, I would go to a festival like Sundance and try to network solely with the people in the room with the most credentials. It was exhausting and didn’t get me very far. After awhile, I started doing networking with my peers which was not only rewarding, but also helps you build your reputation and following much more. All these people I’ve spent years building relationships with are growing alongside us and have also made some incredible connections for me over the years. If I could give advice to any indie filmmaker starting their festival journey, it would be to enjoy it and connect with the people around you instead of looking around the room.

Also, individually, each of us in Besties have our own voices. We function as a unit, but it’s our individual crafts and interests that make us stand out and bring more audience. For me, it’s being a plus-size activist with an eye for size inclusivity on screen. I’ve done some modeling work for plus-size brands, been featured in Teen Vogue and an upcoming book project with a NYT journalist, and recently spoke on a panel at the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media’s Bentonville Film Festival. People look at me as someone with an expertise on this topic.

Contact Info:

• Website: bestiesmakemovies.com
• Instagram: @jschwartz00 ; @bestiesmakemovies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jackiems
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-schwartz-she-her-9b369556/
• Twitter: @jschwartz00 ; @bestiesmovies
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@bestiesmakemovies?lang=en

Image Credits
Credits in images: MARS, Stacey Maltin, Brianna McDonnell, Britney Young