Katherine Brooks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Katherine Brooks | |
|---|---|
 Katherine Brooks, 2006 |
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| Born | Katherine (Kate) Hill March 15, 1976 (age 32) Covington, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer/Director |
| [www.katherinebrooks.com Official website] | |
Katherine Brooks (born March 15, 1976) is an American film writer and director.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Katherine ran away from her small town home in Louisiana to pursue a career in television and film when she was just 16 years old; with only 150 dollars, Katherine slept in her car in the parking lot of a Hollywood motel. Now, a decade later, Katherine has directed some of television's hottest shows and has recently finished filming her second movie, Waking Madison, in New Orleans.
Katherine’s extensive list of film and television credits include three seasons of the Emmy Award winning show “The Osbournes”, the highly-acclaimed show “Newlyweds” starring Jessica Simpson, and MTV’s groundbreaking “The Real World”. She helmed MTV’s “There and Back”, the latest season of “Meet the Barkers” with Blink182 drummer Travis Barker, and directed and produced “The Simple Life” starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
Katherine moved into directing feature film several years ago, after gaining critical praise for her short films, Finding Kate and Dear Emily. Dear Emily can be seen on the compilation DVD entitled Watching You. Since then, Katherine’s work has been screened at over 100 festivals around the world and she has garnered dozens of awards, including “Emerging Filmmaker Award” at the Italian Film Festival and the “Grand Jury Prize” at the Chicago Film Festival.
The debut of Katherine’s first feature film, Loving Annabelle (writer/director)—starring Erin Kelly, Diane Gaidry and Academy Award Nominee/Golden Globe recipient Kevin McCarthy—made its premier at the prestigious Cinequest Film Festival in 2006, and won both the Audience Award and Best Actress Award at Outfest. Other awards for Loving Annabelle include Best Feature Film at Melbourne Film Festival (2006), Barcelona Film Festival (2006) and Atlanta Film Festival (2006), and the Jury Award at Paris Cinema Festival (2006); the film picked up six audience awards and four Jury Awards over the course of the six-month festival run. The film was released on DVD in December 2006, and is now the number one selling film of its genre on Amazon.
Katherine wrote and recently finished shooting her second feature, the indie thriller Waking Madison in New Orleans, a film which stars Sarah Roemer (Disturbia), Academy-Award nominee Elisabeth Shue, Will Patton, Golden Globe winner Frances Conroy, and Taryn Manning. The film explores the journey of a young women suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Katherine is a member of the Directors Guild of America, a Jury Member for Samsung Fresh-Films 2007—the largest teen filmmaking program in the USA, and has recently been the recipient of the LACE Award for Arts and Entertainment, which honors women who have made a difference in the entertainment community. Her cult following on MySpace has also garnered a huge number of fans, in part due to her inspirational blogs that promote a refreshing outlook on life.
Katherine is currently moving to New Orleans where she will be directing three films there over the course of the next seven years. The first movie, The Boys' Club is about a female jockey. The second, Curse on 1140 Royal Street, is a true story based on one of the most haunted houses in America. The third movie is an as-yet untitled comedy.
[edit] Career
Katherine has written and directed two feature films, Waking Madison (currently in post production) and the multiple award-winning Loving Annabelle (2006). She has written and director a further 5 short films, including Finding Kate and Dear Emily. She is currently working on her next feature film, The Boys' Club (2010).
[edit] The Boys' Club
The Boys' Club is a feature-length film about a female jockey determined to find a path into the male-dominated sport of horse racing. The movie is being written by, and will be directed by, Brooks.
Whereas previous horse racing films have centered around the trials, tribulations and glories of the racehorse (think Seabiscuit, Dreamer), The Boys' Club will, for the first time on the big screen, take a deeper look into the complex and dangerous lives of jockeys - in this instance, a female jockey, a supposed paradox in the horse racing world.
Katherine was inspired to make The Boys' Club by her love of horses, and from the sheer lack of great horse racing movies on the market; it's difficult to believe that horse racing is the second largest spectator sport in the United States, and a multi-billion dollar industry, but only two mainstream movies have been made about the sport. The Boys' Club will portray the horse racing world in an honest and open manner, tackling every aspect of the sport, whether good or bad, well publicized or carefully concealed.
But the focus will remain on our heroine, as she fights her way into...
The Boys' Club will be shot on location in Louisiana in the fall of 2009.
[edit] Waking Madison
Waking Madison is the provocative story of a young woman’s battle with mental illness. Madison Walker (Sarah Roemer) is suffering of Disassociate Identity Disorder – or, multiple personality disorder. Living in New Orleans and working as a sex phone operator, Madison is doing everything she can to lead a normal life.
When a series of events leaves Madison suicidal and desperate, she locks herself away in her apartment for 30 days. Using a video camera to document herself like a visual journal, Madison clearly states of her first entry that if she does not have the answers to her questions and feels more at people with her life on the 30th day, she will kill herself.
With the help of Doctor Elizabeth Barnes (Elisabeth Shue), Madison begins to slowly piece her life together. Determined to find a cure for herself, Madison hostages herself in her apartment for 30 days and embarks on a journey to discover: what is real? The climactic twist at the end will leave audiences with the very same question.
"I’m intrigued by the challenge of telling a story from the perspective of a character suffering from multiple personality disorder. Visually, Madison will take on an innovative style of mixing narrative with documentary- realism." [Katherine Brooks]
Waking Madison was shot on location in New Orleans in Winter 2008. It is currently in the final stages of post-production.
[edit] Loving Annabelle
Loving Annabelle is the controversial story of a Catholic Boarding School teacher, Simone Bradley (Diane Gaidry), who has an affair with her female student, Annabelle (Erin Kelly).
Simone is Saint Theresa's prized young poetry teacher who finds peace and security within the boarding school's walls. Surrounded by a lush atmosphere with little conflict, Simone has settled into a life of comfort and purpose educating her young female students. Annabelle is a charismatic and enchanting new student who quickly draws attention for her rebellious behavior. Fearing Annabelle will influence the other students, rigid Headmistress (Ilene Graff), instructs Simone to keep an eye on Annabelle and get her under control.
Simone, however, quickly learns that the real challenge is not Annabelle's behavior but the attraction budding between the two. As Annabelle pursues her teacher, she unleashes the passion that has been locked deep inside Simone, who must decide whether or not to enter into an affair that could cost her everything.
Loving Annabelle explores the complexity and controversy of love and struggle between two women who have every reason to deny their feelings. Blind to the world around them, the two journey into a love affair destined to change their lives forever. Inspired by the 1931 German classic, Maedchen in Uniform, writer and director Brooks gives a modern telling of the forbidden love story that continues to be controversial to this day.
Loving Annabelle was a labor of love. I wrote the script while traveling the world working on reality shows to pay my bills. While crews would be off sharing a drink after wrap, I'd be huddled in my hotel corner with Cocteau Twins playing on my computer while I wrote. It took five years to put it together. It all started when I saw Erin Kelly (Annabelle) in the audience of a play I went to see. For years we worked on the character together, developing her especially for Erin to play—much of the dialogue is from us work-shopping it together. Diane Gaidry (Simone) then came on board to play opposite Erin.
We were able to raise money for the entire production, through a collection of people which included ourselves, and set off to shoot the day after July 4th in 2005. We shot Annabelle in less than three weeks, with just twenty minutes to shoot some scenes, which for a director is frustrating. In most big budget movies you average a page a day of script; we were shooting, on average, seven pages.
We edited Loving Annabelle every day and night over a 12-week period. I then collaborated with the exceptionally talented music artists Aurah, who created a masterpiece of sound.
We premiered at Cinequest that November, and were subsequently approached by many distributors - some much larger and more well known that Wolfe, - but as filmmakers felt like Wolfe would get behind our film and give it the distribution it deserved.
Many people ask me how I feel watching it now and if I'm happy with the final product. I don't know if a director is ever really happy with their work, I just know I'm proud of what we were able to achieve with so little money and so little time.
Katherine Brooks
Summed up by Variety magazine as a "Guilty Pleasure", Loving Annabelle continues to win awards on the festival circuit, including the Outfest Award for Best Actress, and the Outfest Award for the Audience Choice. For some time, Loving Annabelle has sat in the top five list of videos rented by lesbians according to Wolfe Video’s web site (see www.wolfevideo.com). It is recommended by 100% of readers on scene-OUT.com, and is ranked on the bestseller’s list in its category on Amazon.
[edit] Finding Kate
“Finding Kate” was a short film part of a series called Virgin Memoirs, a compilation which narrated the “first time” experiences of women.
A very young Erin Kelly (Loving Annabelle) plays 17-year-old Kate at a wedding reception. When she sees Victoria (Jessica Lancaster), she quickly drops her boyfriend's hand to go and talk to her cousin. The two flirt and end up in the pool together, their eyes dancing until they begin to kiss…
In 2004, Erin Kelly and Katherine Brooks made an experimental short film called "Finding Kate” for just $1,000 in-between work-shopping Loving Annabelle. A very personal story for Katherine, and one which she never expected anyone to see, word got around about the film when the hype surrounding Loving Annabelle began to grow, and the filmmakers decided to share it with others.
[edit] Dear Emily
“Sara is going to visit her high school friend Emily. On her journey there, she recalls her last experience with her teenage crush, remembering a letter that she wrote Emily—a letter confessing her love for her. Following a painful flashback to Emily’s mocking of Sara after she reads the note, and recalling the hurt that Emily had caused her, as Sara finally reaches her destination at the finale of this short film, she decides to keep on driving.”
“Dear Emily” was funded by EVEO.com after Katherine won a pitch contest for her feature film, Loving Annabelle. Despite being given only 6 weeks from conception to completion, and just $1,000 to make it, the movie, to date, has made back over 500% of its profit. It is currently released on the compilation DVD entitled Watching You.
[edit] Television
With 14 years of experience in the film and television industry, Brooks was a lead TV director for five years before she moving into directing feature film. Working with networks which include MTV and VH1, NBC, FOX and Bravo, Katherine helmed some of reality television’s hottest shows, including the Emmy Award-winning “The Osbournes”, and the smash-hit series, “The Simple Life”.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Features
- The Boys' Club (in development)
- Waking Madison (2008)
- Loving Annabelle (2006)
- Surrender (2003)
[edit] Short Films
[edit] Television
- "There & Back: Ashley Parker Angel" (TV series) (2006)
- "My Own" (TV series) (2006)
- "Meet the Barkers" (TV series) (2005)
- "Love is in the Heir" (TV series) (2004)
- "He's a Lady" (TV series) (2004)
- "Wanna Come In?" (TV series) (2004)
- "The Simple Life 2: Road Trip" (TV series) (2004)
- "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica" (TV series) (2003)
- "The Real World: San Diego" (TV series) (2003)
- "The Osbournes" (TV series) (2002)
- "The Complex" (TV series) (2002)
- "Sexcetera" (TV series) (1998)
