"Julia is a gem. Period. There are few that can operate at such a high level with both sides of their brains. She's a creative writer with the ability to seamlessly float between styles, incredibly detail orientated with expert organizational skills, and also a wildly capable technician. Julia's ability to learn complex tech ridiculously fast is genuinely impressive. She's been indispensable onset as part of our live action team, helped with media management and assistant editing for our post team, and has been a great ideator/writer with our creative team. She's positive and lights up every room with her infectious smile and laugh. 10/10." - Justin Kanner, Cinematographer & Head of Post-Production
We all start somewhere. This is where I began, editing music videos for my friend, educational videos for ESOL students, and quirky, experimental films as an undergraduate. From there, I dove off the video editing diving board and landed in the writer/producer pool. But my foundation as an editor developed my technical abilities - a skillset I utilize as a producer to work more closely and collaboratively with editors. Need me to jump in and make a stringout of the script? Looking for a producer that can get in the mind of an editor and envision what they're dealing with in the sequence timeline? I got you.
The abstract pieces in my editing portfolio also seasoned my taste as an artist and taught me how to push the boundaries of conventional visual storytelling.
When I departed from this freelance editing work into writing and producing, I simultaneously expanded the breadth of my craft to include a new role and new exposure to more structured stories. The start of my career worked both storytelling-muscle groups in different ways - the concrete, cleverly-formulaic writing that forms a promo and off-the-beaten-path editing that is based off feeling and avant-garde traditions.
As a student, I studied avant-garde traditions of female auteurs like Agnes Varda and used my film projects as a way to express my quirky sense of humor.
In "So It Returns," we begin with a conflict-driven narrative: do I keep the shot that reveals my nipple? Or do I throw it out of the cut? Do I want to be seen and heard (Bob Dylan, pay attention to me, please!), and to what extent? After hearing the opinions of my friends but still feeling doubt and embarrassment, I, along with the narrative, turn into abstract explorations of that which I allow to be seen and that which I hide. Women are taught to reveal or cage parts of themselves in different situations. I unearth images of myself and footage of me dancing while I wrestle with the need to blur components of my appearance or dance in dim lighting. In the end, I stare down the camera. That's my face, unhidden.
So it returns. Think you're escaping, and run into yourself.
"Snake the Usurper: A Puppet Show among Friends" is a lo-fi, comedic puppet show playing out an awkward situation. The cool kids (Unicorns) sit comfortably with their drink and hand-rolled cigarette. The Snake wishes to join, but they resist his advances and walk away. In the end, he usurps their place, but is left to imbibe by himself alone. We chose to ground this puppet show in reality, so the puppet masters are visible and the set is clearly a lived-in environment. The viewers may ask themselves, is this about the puppet masters or the puppets? Am I watching a weird slumber party activity, or a social dynamic exemplified through the actions of Unicorns and a sparkly Snake?
Playing around with a drawing I made over footage I filmed.
What do you do when the client sends you iPhone recorded footage/audio with loud construction ongoing in the background? Voiceover! The client and I wanted to maintain his personality and presentation even while I dubbed his voice, so I aimed to strike a balance with the voiceover to have it be informational and still maintain his turn of phrase.