We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole Murray. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Nicole, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I am the co-founder, alongside Paige Henderson, of Svelte Dog Productions, a queer-led production company that seeks to defy the boundaries of both genre and industry. We mix playful storytelling with the visceral complexities of the human experience while focusing on uplifting hindered stories. We work to advance representation in the film industry, both through the stories told on screen and with the team behind the camera.
Our most recent short film, 3 EASY STEPS, was one of the most difficult, technically challenging, and rewarding films we have done yet.
The short is a playful yet raw look at mental health, told as a stylized dramedy-turned-horror. It follows Jane, a queer woman with debilitating ADHD, who, after a break-up, takes a self-help trip to the woods where things take a dark turn when she manifests another version of herself.
It was a fiercely independent production with a total of nine women and non-binary folks in cast (minus background) and crew. We were small, but mighty and the crew was up to the challenging task of shooting twelve pages in two and a half days in a forest, then a cafe, then a cyc stage complete with a colorful build (more on that later).
Paige and I both wrote it and starred in and… I produced while she directed. So, many hats were worn! There were a lot of technical components to the film that we hadn’t explored before as creators. Jane’s “other self”, a fierce character named the Silver Woman, appears in colorful windows projected in standing mirrors in the forest. On the technical side, this required a lot of green screened mirrors (at least five different ones) where the colorful world would eventually be placed with VFX. We built these mirror/green screens, had a lot of rehearsals to determine their placement and lugged them all out with us to the woods. Due to the nature of the VFX and the two characters being in other worlds, Paige and I mostly acted to green screen: a challenge in its own right!
To combat these new technical challenges we were taking on, we did a lot of test shoots to decipher where the camera would best capture the movement of the scene without compromising VFX capabilities.
The colorful world mentioned was actually a stain-glass like build we created in a white cyc stage. That build may have been the bane of our existence for awhile… it took hours of mistakes, redos and frustration. The colorful build rolled up, and had to be built over-again in the forest and white cyc for different scenes. We did hours of prep and tests but budget constraints allowed for minimal rehearsing in the white cyc stage itself so we were still making tweaks during the shoot. It was a labor of love and much was learned along the way. We realized it was okay (and sometimes entirely necessary) to ask for more help. At our independent level, a creator’s best resource is their collaborators and friends.
We were lucky to have such an amazing team, especially our DP, Olesia Saveleva, who did many test shoots with us and offered her expert opinion. She helped us create the flow of one of the most challenging scenes that featured multiple mirrors moving in and out of the shot. Our director, Paige Henderson, editor, Lauren Skelton, and composer, Jina Hyojin An, all have ADHD as well and were able to bring their own lived experiences to this project to make the film both more specific and universally relatable.
This amazing team stepped up to each challenge this film presented and ran with it to make it the success that it was. The film is currently finishing up post-production and about to do its festival run. Even at the 95 percent completion stage now, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished from all the time, resources and ultimately love that we put in.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I actually went to school for Biology and was on a research path for awhile. Acting was a passion I had always had, but hadn’t really pursued other than plays and musicals in school. While working in a lab in Seattle, I was doing some side projects acting and booked my first pilot. I fell in love and went from science-brain to creative-brain real quick (I like to think I have now have molded myself with the best of both intertwined). I then decided to move down to Los Angeles to be more immersed in the film industry and explore my creative side further.
I actually met my co-creator, Paige, on a short film set in Seattle. We were both moving down to LA in a month and had this sort of “hey, I just met you and this is crazy…but be my roommate??” exchange. So, yea we both moved down as roommates and after a bit of time in LA, we decided to start making our own work. This was originally to create opportunities for ourselves as actors, but we quickly found that film production was a calling.
Since that time, I have produced and starred in a feature, various short films, and two seasons of a web series. As an actor, I am looking forward to a few projects that are currently finishing up post-production, including “3 EASY STEPS”, as mentioned, and a sci-fi comedy feature I had a small role in acting alongside Felicia Day and Danny Trejo. I am an avid writer as well, in the process of writing two feature films with collaborators. My work tends to focus in the comedy, horror or genre-bending spheres. I love working on projects that tackle the vulnerability of the raw human experience while using devices of heart-opening laughter or disturbing horror.
As Svelte Dog Productions, Paige and I work to defy the boundaries of both genre and industry. We focus on bringing a fresh and innovative style as we use magic and humor to produce films that are both relatable and surprising. We strive to advance representation in the film industry through the stories we tell and team we hire.
We help creators of marginalized backgrounds create their authentic stories and have collaborated on a few projects with other filmmakers, including a story following an undocumented woman as she searches for her family (“Nine Nights”); a non-binary person through a day of misgenderings (“Them”); or the tumultuous journey of a sexual assault victim when her story goes viral (award-winning short, “Entitled”).
My goal is to continue creating work that defies boundaries while bringing greater parity to film.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
There’s a lot of good ones out there at varying levels of affordability. An option on the cheaper side is the Rise of the Filmtrepreneur book by Alex Ferrari. I haven’t used his suggestions for making money necessarily but it was a really helpful resource for me to think outside the box about my film marketing and business style.
Another really great resource was a marketing and distribution class I took. I know multiple different places that have them but the one I took through UCLA’s Extension program was a thought-provoking mix of industry knowledge and creative exercise.
I try to watch webinars or go to panels whenever possible as well. Film festivals are really good for this but also the non-profit I volunteer for, Film Fatales, hosts monthly webinars which have been a wealth of knowledge. They curate industry-established panelists who share on their experiences in distribution, authentic storytelling, making the most of film festivals, and so much more.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Overall, there is a lot of resilience that comes with being an actor and filmmaker in the industry. Rejection of all kinds has been a tough pill to swallow, but it has taught me a lot about trusting myself and leaning in to the drive to learn more and practice honing my creative skill.
Paige and I created the first season of our new media series, Dead Friends, after crowdfunding, self-funding and securing small sponsorships. The season was eight episodes and gained over 77k views on YouTube. We shopped it around for awhile, trying to pitch it to various studios and platforms as a full thirty-minute episode series, using the first season as a proof of concept along with an updated pilot episode and show bible detailing through three full seasons. Some interest was garnered but in the end we didn’t end up getting it picked up.
We loved the project so much and felt like we still had more with the world we wanted to share, so we decided to do another new media season, this time fully self-funded and at a smaller scale. We brought back our lovable characters and introduced a few more while expanding on our supernatural spirit world. As with any independent project, it was a lot of work with many hats worn by Paige and I, but we had help from a talented group of collaborators, and eventually a six episode season was made. We were proud of the result and happy we brought the Dead Friends gang back together for another small, but mighty season.
We are still interested in eventually getting it picked up as a full thirty-minute series but for now are excited we got to share at least two seasons of the series we love so much.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sveltedogproductions.com
- Instagram: @lil_ginga
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-murray-8bbaba45/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SvelteDogProductions
Image Credits
Ella Anderson