Taylor: Can you talk about who or what has influenced you as a documentary filmmaker?

Lizzie: What really influenced my filmmaking was the environment that I grew up in, and I mean environment quite literally. I've been blessed to have been born and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It's just a beautiful place; we've got some amazing ecology, scenery, and wildlife. My parents practically raised me on the beach and taught me to be very eco-minded growing up. I had been messing around on my parents' digital cameras with film and video since I was 10 or 11 years old. When I got older and figured out that filmmaking was and what I wanted to do, I felt called to make films about the world around me. Overall, I'm still being influenced as a filmmaker and I don't think that really ever stops. As you grow older, learn new things, and meet new people, you're influenced differently. 

Taylor: How does your experience with writing inform your filmmaking?

Lizzie: You know, it's kind of funny because I studied creative nonfiction writing and film studies at UNCW. I was a double major, and at the time the two didn't really seem to relate to each other. But I've found that once you start putting documentary filmmaking into practice, the skill of nonfiction writing immediately comes into play. Everything I've learned about writing has really helped me organize the pieces of a documentary: how one scene flows into another, how to most effectively arrange an interview and edit, and even writing interview questions.

Taylor: What are some everyday challenges you face in your profession?

Lizzie: I think when you're young and when you're a woman, people have a certain assumption of you and your skill level the minute you walk into a room. So the biggest challenge I've faced is that hurdle where you feel like you have to prove yourself and prove that you know what you're talking about--before the camera and the gear even comes out. You kind of have to ‘boss up’ a little bit and puff your chest more than a man might have to, just so that your client knows who you are and knows what you're capable of. 

Taylor: How did your documentary, Dead in the Water, develop and change?

Lizzie: The biggest development that we went through with Dead in the Water actually happened before it was even Dead in the Water. The film started as a short documentary for Shannon Silva's 302 class, and at the time we only covered the environmental impact part of the story of the industrial farms. We didn't even go into the social justice component because there was no time in the short format. We got to the end of the semester and the whole team  knew that it was incomplete without that component of the story; we just didn't know where to go with it. It was actually Shannon who suggested that we take it all the way through to 495 and make it longer. We were extremely lucky that we had professors and mentors who encouraged it and even got invested in the project with us. In the end, it was four semesters and about two years of work.  All the time, all of the team members were UNCW film students, and it was a huge undertaking. But it was so worth it because, in the end, we got to be a part of this really amazing thing...and a huge thanks to Shannon and Andre Silva, Georg Koszulinski, and Mariana Johnson for encouraging and helping us!

Looking back, it's an interesting--I don't want to say trade-off-- but it was a choice we had to make to continue it. I think all of us felt like we just had to do it, and I was really passionate about the topic and couldn't shut up about it. People weren't talking about the issue, and it felt like if we're not going to do it, then who will. But at the end of my UNCW career, I'd only made two films; I'd only made the short and the feature. I had friends that I graduated with who made a handful of shorts. So, it's a choice that you have to make, but at the time, it just felt like a no-brainer. I would say to a lot of the UNCW students who are in the film program right now, if you think something's too big and it's not going to get done in a semester, talk to your professors because you never know. Sometimes you have more time than you think.

Taylor: How did you manage your budget, fundraising, and grants for Dead in the Water? 

Lizzie: I did a Kickstarter campaign to raise money. I applied for a few other smaller grants as well. We were fortunate enough to get a few of those, but Kickstarter was our bread and butter for our budget. Crowdfunding is great, but it's a full-time job. You kind of have to approach it like you're running for president. You have to be posting on socials and engaging with your audience every day. The weird thing about crowdfunding- that always made me uncomfortable throughout the whole duration of the campaign- is that you're asking strangers for money. That's just weird to me, but it's something you have come to terms with and get over so that you can get your film made.

I would also say when you're in the early stages, and you know you want to make a documentary, approach it through personal connections rather than through professional connections. If you can do an internship or take up a volunteer opportunity where you're going to meet people who are experts in that field or are the people that you might want to interview, get to know them a little bit first. Get involved in that community before you say, “hey, I want to make a documentary about you.” Then, make friends who own gear, that's always good. Again, personal connections. People are more inclined to rent you or donate you their gear for a certain amount of shoot days. If you do have to rent gear, factor that into your budget and then factor it into your grants or your crowdfunding campaign.

Taylor: Congratulations on your film, Lynnhaven, for winning first place at the Virginia Environmental Film Festival! Where did you get the inspiration to make it and how did you do the producing side of things?

Lizzie: The situation for Lynnhaven was really unique because at the company that I work at now, I actually started there as a paid intern after college. They have a really great internship program where every intern has to complete an internship project. My boss was telling me about it in my first week there, and he was like it can be anything you want. This was August of 2018. I had come home to Virginia Beach the summer of 2017 and did a different internship at an environmental nonprofit where I met this man named Chris Ledford, who's a fisherman. He was one of the coolest people I'd ever met in my life; I've never met anybody more passionate about oysters. I just remember thinking, oh, I really want to work with him when I come back. Flash forward to my internship, and my boss says it can be anything, it can be a short film and I'm like, ding! Got it. 

I was extremely fortunate. I got to use all of our gear, and I worked with this woman named Carla Spino, who was working at the same company. Bless her heart, she was kind of  “voluntold” to come and work with me on this internship project. She came out on the boats with me and these strange fishermen at five in the morning and helped me make this film. I was extremely lucky in that there was no budget to manage because it was basically all in kind services. The biggest thing I had to manage producing wise, was the timeline of getting it done within the field of my full-time internship. I was working nine to five, 40 hours a week, so it was a  balance of when am I going to have time to edit? When am I going to have time to make these shoots happen? I had to make sure I didn't plan a shoot when the actual company needed their gear to do our jobs. Then I got in touch with Chris Ledford and he was so passionate about it. He essentially became a producer himself because he put me in touch with other people who could speak on the topic. So that was an extremely unique situation where I put my name down as a producer, but I really didn't produce much.

Taylor: What advice would you give students who want to become documentary filmmakers?

Lizzie: For me, you need two things to carry you through the process of making a documentary: a good team and passion. Even if you're making a short, find a like-minded team that you trust and that you enjoy working with. Then band together and go make a film about something that really just lights you up and ignites you. If you're going to make a documentary, you need to be making it about a subject that you will be passionate about for months, if not years. Make sure that that passion will feed you for the entire pre-production, production, and post-production process.

Also, ask questions!  Even if you feel like you're being annoying, even if you feel like you're asking too many questions. Ask anyone because that's your time to learn when you are just starting in your career. People expect that you're going  to have a lot of energy and you're going to have a lot of things that you haven't learned yet. Be the first in and last out, if you can, and let your work ethic just speak for itself.  Hustle until you're irreplaceable at whatever job you're doing.