Rianne Pictures Turn 5!
This month marked a special anniversary for both me and Rianne Pictures. It’s been five years since I started the production company! Through Rianne Pictures I have strived to support women in film, promote female led projects and continue to work towards more opportunities in the British independent film industry and without the support of the incredible people involved in the making of our films, our website and our events we couldn’t have made it this far!
2018 has been a year of growth and we couldn’t be more excited for the next year with our dedicated team. But here’s a little trip down memory lane to reflect on how far we have come in the past five years….
Caris Rianne and Ashton Clarke working on prep of the party before the guests arrived.
Our story begins with our first film Sister. Putting together a quick shoot with my best friend and my younger sister, this led to outreaching to acting students for our next film Why Are You Sad. We filmed and edited both these films back to back, working with friend and singer/songwriter Lauren Bird on the soundtracks. When it came to festivals, we had little experience on how this worked. So after some crowdfunding on Kickstarter we secured some funds to send to some festivals in the UK. Unfortunately this didn’t go anywhere, but it did land us an opportunity to appear in a TV pilot featuring up and coming film directors.
Motivated by this recognition, we moved onto a longer short film format for our third film Coming Home. Where we worked with a large amount of actors, leading us to make the jump to feature film making…
Actors Lydia Lakemoore and Arman Mantella who were in attendance.
We planned our feature film Demi on a low budget with a team of people working for experience, a cast with a varied amount of experience from stage, television and students within their final years of university. Our crew was small, including friends from school. We shot in Essex, Hertfordshire and a day on location in London. By the end of the shoot, we were over schedule, over budget and over tired. But we cared about the project and pushed on with post production and campaigned for additional funding through Indiegogo.
Actors from our films Coming Home, Demi, Extra Time and Foxhole turned up to celebrate the five year achievement.
We crowdfunded the remaining funds we needed to send Demi on a worldwide festival campaign once it was finished. Leading to our first film festival screenings ever! Demi screened in Florida, Sweden, New Jersey and Canada! Picking up six award nominations and winning two! Receiving that crystal trophy in the post all the way from Canada was a surreal moment. It now sits on my bedside table with pride.
Actors Adam Sabatti and Eloise Rust.
What I love most about the work I do with Rianne Pictures is the determination and loyalty from the people we work with. Moving onto our next short film Extra Time we had a difficult shoot but our cast and crew were committed. Which worked out amazing as the film picked up another eight award nominations and had it’s premiere screening in NEW YORK!! These successes gave me the confidence to try something completely different - a documentary.
Erica Lee Martin and Eleanor Ring came second in this years Rianne Pictures film quiz.
With Like a Girl we launched a whole never level at Rianne Pictures. Filming was longer, but more care free. With less schedules and more creative freedom it felt like a passion project with a difference. Meeting young girls who would go on to play for professional academies and gain scholarships in America. 1000 people watched the series in the first 24 hours it was online, finally it felt like people were watching our work! I spoke in schools about the importance of the documentary and tried to highlight the changes needed in equality not just for this sport, but all of them. Due to it’s popularity we created a second season that is out next year, where we filmed with the Women’s Super League.
The Rianne Pictures team, without Cagla Demirbas who was in Budapest at the time.
Then last year came along Foxhole. Receiving full funding from Indiegogo backers we were able to create our cult thriller exactly how we planned it….well with a few hiccups along the way. Foxhole had it’s UK premiere at the Sunderland Shorts Film Festival where I was finally able to attend! Finally a part of the directors Q&A panel and not the just girl interviewing the other directors.
Make up artist Olivia Dench with partner Daniel.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for supporting Rianne Pictures and our message of supporting women in the film industry. As hard as we work, none of this would be possible without you, and your encouragement means the world to me and my team! It’s been an incredible five years, and we can’t wait to see what’s next. We have our Christmas film to shoot next year and some exciting projects in development as well our hosting more articles and reviews on our website.
We shared this video of our five years of hard work at our celebration event, you can watch it below. All photographs from the event can be seen on our Facebook page, taken by photographers Zoe Birkbeck and Kira Dhaliwal.
Caris xo
