FASHIONX

Role responsibilities: story conceptualization, screenwriting, camera operation, casting, post-production, editing, color grading, talent management, directing, production.

It was this production that won me the position of Director of Marketing and Media (2024-5) for FashionX. I had been commissioned by a member of Stanford Concert Network to create a promotional video for their first collaborative event with FashionX.

The concept of the event was a three-storied, triple-themed party to invigorate potential new members to join either (or both) of their clubs. They settled on three music genres and setups for the party - (1) afrobeats, (2) indie sleaze, and (3) german techno.

The first step was to think hard about my audience: college-age, fun-loving, chronically online kids and in desperate need of comedic relief. Stanford students arguably face the four most serious, labor-intensive undergraduate careers in the country - but that doesn’t mean that they are serious. It’s their work that is serious.

I conceptualized and pitched my idea: two meathead campus cops interrogating three partygoers, each representing one of the three themes, about what occurred that fateful night. I wrote the screenplay so that it would include important information about the event (time, date, venue) while also being a lighthearted parody of cop-student interactions. The Presidents of both clubs loved the idea. We immediately began production.

The video was an absolute blast to make, especially since it was my first go at solo filmmaking with zero funding, zero infrastructure, and zero equipment. I sourced everything I needed single-handedly and selected my actors from different improv and acting groups on campus. This was everyone’s first experience screen-acting, and I found the most important feature of my role was to encourage my peers and affirm to them their abilities.

Without creating a safe, friendly environment on-set, things would have gone very differently: it was my job to shepherd this production to completion, and more than that - to guarantee a final product that everyone would be proud of.