There aren't many people who can sum up their passion for film by pointing out that they sold their house to get one made. But that's precisely what producer Stephanie Allain did when faced with the reality that a little script she was passionate about might never make it to the big screen. That script was Hustle & Flow and the success of that film placed Craig Brewer, its writer and director, in a long line of talent discovered by Allain, a line that includes John Singleton and Robert Rodriguez. And if that doesn't qualify her to be one of the world's coolest women ever, consider this: she was also President of Jim Henson Pictures. That's right, she's worked with Muppets. Currently, Allain is in the thick of a film about legendary seventies country singer Charley Pride and has just written her first script, which she hopes to direct for the big screen.

EP: Did you have a mentor?

SA: I did have a mentor. My mentor was Amy Pascal. I started in the story department at Fox when she was a V.P. there working under Scott Rudin, and I think I covered a couple of things for her. She called me and said, "Look, I like the way you think, I like the way you write, I want you to be my personal reader." And then she brought me into all the meetings so that I could sit and listen and write the notes and that was really an education... when she left Fox to go to Columbia to work for Dawn Steel, [she] told me that if I worked another year for her as a reader that she would promote me and she made good on her word. It was actually in looking for a replacement for myself in the story department, because there were so few black readers, [that] I interviewed John Singleton and found Boyz n' the Hood...

EP: "Producer" is a title that gets thrown around a great deal. What is the biggest misconception about the role of the producer?

SA: If you haven't experienced a good producer you kind of don't know what you're missing. Because the title is an umbrella title for everything from writing a check, to sitting up with your director late at night pouring over his shot list... to talking to the actor who won't come out of the trailer, to really pre-planning... A good producer on set doesn't really have to do that much and so nobody really sees what [he or she does]. If you planned right, and your director's comfortable, and you've hired the right crew, and you've allotted the right time and your locations are locked, and your actors are happy, you can really be in your trailer making calls and don't have to be there. So it's an invisible job I think to a lot of people.

EP: Diversity is not just about what's right, it's also about reaching new audiences. Do you think the business side of the industry gets that now?

SA: That's a tricky question. I mean I think that when it happens, when it's evident, yes, for that month, for that moment in time, it becomes a savvy business decision. I mean when we made Boyz n the Hood for $5.8 million in 1990 and it made $60 million that was a good business plan and I think it spawned a sort of cottage industry of urban films done for a [limited] budget. Some of them were good and some of them weren't, but it was a model that was reliable because it was milking a community that nobody was making movies for... [The] emphasis, especially at the studios, is on bigger and flashier, more expensive movies, [so] those are the movies where it's definitely going to be more difficult to say, you know, "I think Batman should be black," you know, unless he's Will [Smith] probably... I think diversity like everything in Hollywood, is really just about, is it going to make money?

EP: You produced both Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan both of which explored characters and communities that for the most part get ignored. A lot of people would have passed on that kind of risk.

SA: When I read Hustle & Flow I had that visceral experience where my heart started beating fast and I thought, "Oh my God, I'm very excited to do what I can to make this movie happen." And it wasn't until a couple of years later when I had been having difficulty trying to get it set up, that I realized why it was so important for me to not give up. And that's because that movie to me is about the upside of creativity. It's really about the satisfaction that comes from stepping into your creative energy and regardless of who you are and regardless of what you've done, that is pretty much everybody's right and privilege and responsibility to do so... to me it was such a truthful and honest movie because the images of pimps up till then had really been glorified, you know, wish fulfillment, video fantasies and this was the real dirty truth which is sweating in a cheap car, you know, for twenty bucks. And that this character had the audacity to dream, to believe in himself as a creative force and to try and realize that, I just loved that and I loved Craig. Over the course of four years, which is what it took us to get that movie made, we became very close and I just felt like it was his time and I wanted to be part of that and I wanted to help him. And I lost my mind! I sold my house during the steepest upslope in history in the real estate market but it didn't matter because it was the right thing to do.

EP: People who give great advice usually got great advice. Can you think of something you were told when you were coming up that stuck with you?

SA: Well, I think that what Amy taught me was: what's the movie about? We would go through tons of scripts and we'd have tons of meetings and at the end of the day, it's, what's this movie about?...That's why it's important to me to produce in a way that creates movies that have something positive to say... It's a powerful, powerful medium and unless you're honest and forthright in terms of what it is that you're doing, you know, it's a big responsibility. So I always think about that: what's it about?

--Emily Poenisch

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It was almost midnight Taiwan time when Wendy J.N Lee, the twenty-eight year old writer and director of the film Three Times Me, called to discuss her Project:Involve experience. Lee, who was in Taiwan visiting her family, had just returned from the Himalayas where she had participated in a 400 kilometer Drukpa Charitable Foundation trek led by His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, the head of the 800-year-old Drukpa lineage of Buddhist monks. The foundation is devoted to preserving Himalayan culture and focuses on issues of education, health and environmental awareness. Lee, who serves as the foundation's Director of Art & Media, is currently working on a documentary about the pilgrimage, its goals and promoting the role of women in society. Lee's short Three Times Me teems with a spirit of joy and playfulness, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that she connects with the core teaching of the Drukpa school of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism: live to love.

EP: Three Times Me is such a joyful film; is that typical for you in terms of the stories you want to tell?

W: I don't know if I'd describe myself as a comedy filmmaker but the joyous aspect is really important to me... I'm not sure that I would make films if there wasn't an element of fun in the film itself.

EP: As a director you have to corral a huge amount of energy on set to serve a single vision. That takes a certain kind of personality. What's your style of leadership?

W: I've put a lot of intention into that... I think stereotypically, a lot of the sets that I've witnessed... you see a lot of strong personalities and I very much have reacted to having that high stress, kind of tense, sometimes brutal environment on set... I like to check in with everyone to see where they're at it and if they have anything to contribute, so for me it's really important that we're having fun... Part of the reason I love movies is the fun part, the magic part and I don't think you can make a movie that conveys that if you're not experiencing that on set.

EP: As a woman, as someone doing playful material and as someone who clearly isn't a bulldozer in terms of leadership, do you find people underestimate you?

W: Oh, absolutely. I'm very conscious that I'm a woman filmmaker because I think the field has been defined by men... in my case I tend to be a lot more nurturing on set and I think that it's easy for newcomers, for new crew members, to misinterpret that as weakness or misinterpret that as [being] a little bit more lax. I feel like people who I've crewed with before tend to work very, very hard knowing that they're allowed to make mistakes but they work harder because of it... My style, my process is so different that it's harder to gain credibility right off the bat but every time I finish a film I really feel like it's executed properly and I tend to really, really bond with my crew too.

EP: How do you react when someone's taking advantage of your leadership style?

W: I just get tougher with them. It's truly unfortunate. In a way I've really experienced kind of the struggle of being a woman who is forced to be aggressive in a way in order to command respect. [It's] something that I wish wasn't the case but I've discovered sometimes it has to be the case. I think as women also, people are quick to judge a woman for being quote difficult to work with... If you're a man and you're very aggressive it actually commands a lot of respect and if you're a woman and you're very aggressive it's a much more ginger subject because people are a little bit more apt to label you a certain way... Some people just don't get the way that I work and then I have to go back and be a little bit more aggressive.

EP: Your assistant director George Reyes said one of the reasons you got such a good performance out of Pat Srivatana, the child you cast, was that you showed her respect.

W: Actually this is the first time I've ever worked with a child so I can't say that I had a method worked out before hand. You know, I'm not huge into children to be honest; I've never been a babysitter, I don't really play with children. But that might be part of the reason that I had the relationship I had with Pat... I think there was an understanding that I was willing to speak her vocabulary. I had cast her over someone who was a very good actor and I had picked Pat because she was a very natural person and so when she got on set, I felt less like giving her direction so much as speaking with her. And so actually for a lot of the footage I'm actually on her eye line speaking to her, that's actually how we captured most of the moments. So instead of telling her to act surprised or instead of telling her to pretend she was feeling happy... we would actually talk about things that made her happy... She was really, truly just being herself, so for that I was really thankful for her openness to me and her trust in me.

EP: Where do you get your boundless optimism from?

W: My inner strength comes from the support I feel from my family. They believe in me more than I do at times and so it helps me to push on a lot of the time, just sort of knowing that they believe in me. Filmmaking is a field where you're constantly in self-doubt and so when the most important people in your life aren't doubting you; it's something that really pushes you ahead... I think a lot of the optimism comes from appreciation. I'm so glad that I found an art that I love so much, which is filmmaking. I don't think I've ever felt so passionate about anything else... So when it comes time to make a movie, I feel like there's nothing else I'd rather be doing and so if that's the case then I must really enjoy it and so I try to bring that enjoyment into it. And I have a hope again, not to be too lofty, that I can make movies that inspire and uplift other people the way I have been inspired and uplifted by other films and to me that's a very precious intention.

--Emily Poenisch

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Many of the young filmmakers who participated in Project:Involve juggled their work on the program's short films with their commitment to other film projects. One such filmmaker is Georges Reyes who was deeply involved in the filming of his feature documentary The Ugly Doll (La Muñeca Fea) with co-director Claudia López. The documentary follows the residents of Casa Xochiquetzal, a shelter in Mexico City for elderly female sex workers. The subject matter is troubling, challenging and, perhaps most surprisingly, inspiring, and Reyes, whose commitment to social issues is only matched by his passion for film, hopes that his work will help raise funds to support the shelter. It was through Project:Involve that Reyes found Nekisa Cooper, his producer for The Ugly Doll, and gained the invaluable advice and support of documentary filmmaker Doug Pray (Surfwise), who was his assigned mentor.

EP: You were the assistant director on the short Three Times Me and we'll come back to that but I'd like to skip ahead and ask you about the The Ugly Doll (La Muñeca Fea).

GR: There was an article in the Los Angeles Times about this shelter for elderly sex workers and I was fascinated by it and I couldn't stop thinking about it because it just seemed like such an amazing, sad thing and I'm very interested in issues about the elderly; I previously had done a film about a home for elderly nuns. So I called a friend, a former student of mine in Mexico, and arranged to meet with the woman who created this place who is also a former sex worker.

EP: A number of people tried to get access to this story. What made these women trust you?

GR: I think because we actually spent time and were really respectful of them... And then in terms of the woman, her name is Carmen [Munoz], who is the director of the house, I showed her the short film I'd done previously about the home for elderly nuns... I told her this was the sensibility I was looking for, which was more of a sisterhood of women taking care of each other. I think she understood that I wasn't trying to do a story of salacious content, it was much more about the women and how they supported each other because they've all been abandoned by their own families and their own children who, for the most part, they all went into sex work to support.

EP: You've spent two and a half years with these women, what about them surprised you most?

GR: These women had such incredibly tragic, difficult lives and the fact that they made it into old age was amazing to me. And I thought: what is that they all have in common that has kept them alive, despite all the difficulties they've had? And I think what I found is that they're all pretty positive... very often people are like, "Oh my God, this film that you're doing must be so deep, dark and depressing," but it's not. The women are so joyful and so funny and so witty and fantastic.

EP: How old are these women?

GR: They range in age from 60 to 95 and many of them are still working the streets; if they can walk, they work. Very often that's the case because they were given the house by the previous Mayor of Mexico City but they just had the shelter and then since then they get really very little support... When I first read the article I couldn't sleep that night, just thinking about, you know, these women and how they still have to do this. And then also the rejection... people sometimes ask, "Why can't they just go to a regular home or shelter?" and it's because if they do, they get beaten up... this space is so important because it gives them a safe space. And it's constantly in peril because there's no money to support it so part of my hope is when I've finished this film I want this to be used as a fundraising tool.

EP: Reading your bio I notice that much of what you've done is in the realm of education from leading youth programs to working with children who have learning disabilities and autism. It seems like social issues are as important to you as filmmaking.

GR: It's true, I've always had these two big interests, which is public service and filmmaking and it's been kind of hard to make them both fit... I'd like to get to the point where I can spend all my time making movies, doing documentaries and having them somehow linked to sort of social activism and education, but in the meantime I still want to be involved... I think the danger sometimes with documentary film is you spend all your time doing a project and I think that's important but I also have the need to feel like I'm doing something else in the moment and that's why I teach and that's why I'm working with kids with autism.

EP: I understand that your Project:Involve mentor, documentary filmmaker Doug Pray (Surfwise), has given you great counsel on the film.

GR: It's funny actually, right around the winter break a friend of mine gave me this documentary and said, "You know what, I think you really need to see this."... I watched it over the holiday and I was like, "Wow. This is great."And it was Surfwise. So when I get back I get this call from Francisco [Velasquez, Film Independent] and he's like, "Guess what? I found you a mentor. His name is Doug Pray," and I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it!"... [Doug] loves the editing process... so we talked about that... he said, "You know, I definitely want to work with you but you have to really be sure that if we work together... you edit this the best way that it can be"... he told me [about] other projects that he had mentored, people had really great projects and then... to wrap it up quickly, they kind of compromised the integrity of the film. It's good to have someone in your corner who's actually telling you to do that because very often people are telling you to do the opposite because everything's about deadlines.

EP: You were the assistant director on Three Times Me, which must been such a welcome counterpoint to The Ugly Doll because it's such a playful story. Can you explain the division of labor between you and director Wendy Lee?

GR: It's funny because I remember telling her, "I'll do anything for your film but I don't want to be an AD [Assistant Director]." I can tend to be kind of disorganized... so I had to really focus and I had to keep everybody on track... it was a good challenge for me to really keep myself focused.

EP: When you're dealing with an adorable child it's easy to fall into cutesy territory but Three Times Me avoids that. What do you think was behind that sense of authenticity?

GR: It was really interesting for me to observe Wendy... seeing her working on the set with the child... some adults work with children and talk to them in a cutesy way and a patronizing way and what we have to remember is kids are people and they pick up on that and they resent that... Wendy was always just very respectful and would talk to her and would climb under the table with her and just make sure she was OK... she actually showed this child a lot of respect, which is I think why the child responded.

EP: Sometimes working on smaller projects can clarify something unexpected. Was there anything you learned during the filming of Three Times Me that you didn't anticipate?

GR: There was something very fun about the shoot... everyone had a good time and everyone was very respectful and nice and had a good attitude... there was a period of time when I first moved to L.A where I was in situations where people weren't like that, and I started getting really turned off the filmmaking process because of that, fiction film I mean. And then being in this environment, I realized, you know what? It is actually fun, and that's the way it's supposed to be... it kind of reaffirmed my belief in fiction filmmaking again.

To see the trailer for The Ugly Doll visit www.munecafea.com

--Emily Poenisch