Music Video Directing Master Class

 

In partnership with Black Lily Film & Music Festival and Scribe Video Center, Leeway is offering a master class in music video directing--targeted at independent musicians and filmmakers. Sunday, January 10, from 2pm-4pm at Leeway Foundation. Registration is FREE.

As in all fields of filmmaking, women are underrepresented in music video directing. Often the image of women in videos themselves is misogynistic and sexually gratuitous. However, there are a handful of women directors making credible and innovative work. In this one-day master class three emerging independent filmmakers—Tchaiko Omawale (New York/Los Angeles), Nzinga Kemp (Los Angeles), and Roni Nicole (Atlanta)—who have all “cut their teeth” making compelling music videos for indie musicians, will discuss their process and provide tips on breaking into the business, making quality work with low budgets, and the uniquely collaborative nature of directing music videos which requires gelling with one’s subject—the musician! This class is open to filmmakers of all levels and anyone else interested in the medium. Intended for ages 18 and up.

The workshop is offered free of charge thanks to generous funding from The Philadelphia Foundation and Leeway Foundation. Presented in partnership with Leeway and Scribe Video Center’s Vision of Julie Dash.

 

INSTRUCTOR BIOS

Roni Nicole
Writer/Director; Founder, Moving Pictures, Inc.

Roni Nicole makes moving pictures.  Not just because they are pretty.  Pretty is nice, but for her, beauty is a means to reach another goal: the creation of change, even an inch will do. Through filmmaking, Roni strives to capture the profound in the everyday messages around us, a practice she learned at the foot of a master tale-weaver, her Grandmother.  Left to imagine the faces and the environments of her Grandmother’s dynamic characters, Roni decided that these dynamic and complex folks deserved a a life visualized, painted in ways that would carry their acts of heroicism, unconditional love, cowardice, and even confusion out into the world.  Armed with this mission, Roni packed up an English teaching career and headed for film school to harness her storytelling weapons of choice: the camera and a mastery of both light and shadow.  She now works with a team of truly anointed artists intent on rediscovering the mystical in our world, the high magic that has the power to truly move and restore us. Roni received her M.F.A., in Film and Television from Savannah College of Art and Design.

Filmography

Director, “For You,” Music Video    2009
Writer/Director, Grace, Short Film     2008
Producer, Beautiful Struggle, Short Film           2008
Script Supervisor, PUSH, Short Film    2007
Writer/Director, Sunday Kind of Love, Short Documentary   2007
Writer/Director, Sonya, Short Film  2007 Writer/Director, “King of Love,” Music Video  2007

 

Nzinga Kemp

Coming soon.

 

Tchaiko Omawale

Tchaiko graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor of arts in African-American studies. During her time in New York she interned for Spike Lee and Mira Nair. After graduating from college, she co-founded the youth-focused HIV/AIDS non-profit Conscious Movements Collective which gave birth to the documentary America’s Shadow’s…HIV Risk in Black and Latino Youth. Tchaiko has worked in various sectors of the film industry. She assisted entertainment lawyer Donna Bascom on several HBO, Miramax and Walden Media films. Tchaiko worked as an office PA and a Production Coordinator on numerous commercials and music videos in New York and LA. In 2007, she took a break from production work to assist executive producer Doug Claybourne and then the director George C. Wolfe on the Warner Brothers film Nights In Rodanthe. While working for various production companies and people, Tchaiko has always taken the time for her own projects. Her first producing project His/Herstory, was screened at several festivals including the Toronto Film Festival. She recently completed her documentary America’s Shadows…HIV Risk in Black and Latino Youth and her short experimental fantasy film Sita. Currently, Tchaiko is focusing on directing music videos, recently added to roster of RSA films/Black Dog as a director. In 2004 Tchaiko was selected as a Sea Change Resident by the Gaea foundation – for artists working towards social change. The residency encouraged her to explore narrative screenwriting. She is currently working on a short script and rewriting two feature scripts.  Her stories draw from her experiences of growing up in over 7 different countries, and her interest in the transformative powers of exploring the shadow, the pain, and struggles of the human experience.

NOTE: Registrations will be accepted online only.

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