5 Questions with Kady Ruth Ashcraft
The goof on positive thinking, “Affirmations,” cycles through a group of young Brooklynites on the verge of breakdown and introduces us to a guru trying to help. We asked director Kady Ruth Ashcraft where the project came from, working with her cast, and whether she partakes in affirmations herself…
1) Can you talk a bit about your background? And how you came to start making films/videos?
I started making videos through doing comedy and I started doing comedy through writing poetry. So, I’ve always identified as a writer and while I loved making people laugh, what I really liked was cultivating a specific emotion or atmosphere through a story. Filmmaking gave me the control I couldn’t quite capture with live performances (a testament to my performing abilities more than anything else.) At first I was making mostly straight comedy sketches and slowly branched out from the genre. So it’s partially about the control, like I said, like creating a visual story terrarium, but then there’s also so many possibilities with film it feels very expansive and exploratory.
2) How did this project in particular get started?
A little over a year ago I started The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is a book that helps you evaluate your relationship to your creative practices, and in one of the stages she has you list out affirmations. I swim laps regularly and found myself reciting these affirmations with every stroke but sort of tweaking them almost demonically. I worked out all of the scenes while swimming and eventually wrote them down. Eight months later I actually filmed them.
3) Can you talk about your cast? How did you enlist them, what was your process working with everyone?
Tallie Medel plays the new age Billy Mays guru and she came to mind as someone who could totally nail the tone I was going for. And she did. She’s incredible. We shot her scenes in one day over the summer after having previously met up to discuss the tone. Directing her was so joyful and playful and she’s so smart, it was really great. It’s a luxury to focus on one actor for a full day. The other roles were friends and actors I love working with who were down to meet us in a train station or a random gym for twenty minutes to crank out their line or two. James Folta, the man with the gatorades, came through after an actor bailed last minute and we filmed his scene literally right outside his apartment within like 15 minutes of asking him to be in it. I didn’t have to explain too much of an emotional arc with this piece, so my go to direction was “say this line like it’s the deepest thing your character believes to be true.”
4) What’s your personal relationship with affirmations? Do you partake?
I never finished The Artist’s Way. I have a little list that hangs above my bed that I look at whenever I lay down with goals I want to accomplish. But that’s sort of it?
5) What else are you working on at the moment?
I’m doing pre-production on my next film RAMSEY, a surreal comedy about memory and gaslighting and I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign for it. So keep an eye on my twitter where I’ll post about that and ask very very nicely for you to donate money to help it come alive. I also have a fake mom blog launching at the end of March, www.oliveandlark.com.
Contact Info:
Twitter: @kadyrabbit
Instagram: @kadyrabbits
Email: kadyruth@gmail.com