It’s time for The Women’s Film Festival, with its screen offerings and festive events, including a burlesque performance, dancers from Indonesia, moving films, funny films, documentaries … and they’re not finished yet.
The evening of March 23 brings two films on sex, “The Foursome” and “Bookends,” and several shorts that cover the #MeToo movement, among other topics. On March 25, “The Feels,” starring Constance Wu from “Fresh Off the Boat” alongside a cast of female comedians, will be screened as a joint collaboration with the qFLIX Festival, along with a powerful film on domestic violence called “Blindsided.”
This week, we get to know filmmaker Caryn K. Hayes, originally from New Orleans. Hayes has a passion for storytelling, with fiction published in the New Voices Literary Journal. In 2007, she began producing new media content for Showbiz Shorts and BrevityTV.com, ultimately taking on directing responsibilities at the latter and getting appointed head of production. In 2009, Hayes launched Hardly Working Entertainment to produce her first short film, and got into online content with the popular, award-winning relationship dramedy “Entangled With You.”
In 2014, Hayes had a successful festival run with her short film “Clean Hands.” Her current film, “Brannan and the Monosexuals,” will be screened March 24.
PGN: Where did the idea for “Brannan and the Monosexuals” come from? And do most of your projects have a comedic bent?
CKH: [Laughing] I am very much a dramedy writer. I’m most comfortable not having to write the typical “three jokes a page” that you’re supposed to do. That’s torture to me, but I love witty banter, so even in a dramatic scene, like the feature I’m working on now, it is supposed to be a drama but it has a lot of comedic elements. Tone is a fine line to walk. I consider myself a funny writer, but not a comic. Though I love drama too, I don’t think there’s a single joke or funny moment in my piece “Clean Hands.” I like things that are real, and real things can be funny.
PGN: Speaking of getting real, when did you come out?
CKH: I’m a late bloomer. When I was 25, I started falling for someone and didn’t even realize it was happening until I was already there. It was new, but the funny thing was that I had already created a lot of content with LGBTQ characters. One of the leads in my first script, “The Ridge,” was lesbian, so maybe those feelings were there, just not acknowledged yet.
PGN: If we filmed “The Caryn Hayes Story,” what would be the theme song?
CKH: Jennifer Hudson’s “I Got This.” It’s my Twitter handle.
PGN: You write a lot about relationships. What was your worst date?
CKH: I was on a date with a guy and he didn’t have a car, so we spent most of the time running errands for him. When I mentioned that I was hungry, he was like, “Well, I don’t have any money,” so I wound up going to my house to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I refused to make him one because I was so mad.
PGN: That’s pretty bad. So is “Brannan and the Monosexuals” based on your experiences?
CKH: Not double-booking myself for a date, but yes, in that she’s trying to navigate a world where most people are monosexual. In my life, most of my friends either identify as straight, lesbian or gay, and it can be hard sometimes.
PGN: We don’t see too many well-done, funny films about bisexuals in the community.
CKH: No, and I’m very disappointed about that, so it’s one of the reasons I felt it was important to make. I’ve had a lot of films with LGT characters, but this was the first bisexual lead, so it definitely has a special place in my heart.
PGN: What was fun is that you touched upon a lot of the myths or stereotypes about bi people and called them out.
CKH: Yeah, it covers a lot of the silly things and the micro-aggressions, those things that make you grit your teeth as you decide if it’s going to be a battle or if you’re just going to let it pass and move away.
PGN: I loved the lead actress, Vana Bell. What a natural.
CKH: Yes, she’s someone I knew from “Entangled.” She didn’t get the role she auditioned for in that, but I loved her — so much, we put her in another role and she killed it. When I was searching for Brannan, I wasn’t finding what I was looking for. I remembered Vana, and she was perfect for the role.
PGN: Talk about growing up in New Orleans.
CKH: I grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, so that was fun. We weren’t near any of the tourist attractions, so it wasn’t like the New Orleans you see in the brochures. It was a very urban environment that was great at the time, but got problematic after we moved. We lived in a nice house and we used to love to skate on the street in front. Unlike kids today, we spent a lot of time outside and it was pretty great.
PGN: Siblings?
CKH: I have two. A brother and a sister, they were 7 and 10 years older than me, so I had to speak up to get noticed.
PGN: Tell me about your parents.
CKH: My mom raised us primarily — my dad was around but not in the house — so she raised us pretty much as a single parent. She was a great inspiration to me as I was growing up and I think she’s the reason that I’m so independent and determined. She went back to school when I was in first grade and got her master’s degree. She went to school after working all day.
PGN: What was her degree in?
CKH: She got a master’s in social work.
PGN: What was your favorite book?
CKH: The first novel that I enjoyed — because school makes you read a lot of things that you don’t necessarily enjoy; at least I didn’t — but the first one I really got into was “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. I fell in love with reading. I always had a book in my face. I actually wanted to be a writer. In college, I took a class called Principals in Visual Media and fell in love with the camera. I never wanted to be in front of it, but I loved the idea of merging my two favorite things, writing and television. That’s when I started writing scripts, not just fictional stories. That was my second writing start, so I basically started at 11 and 18.
PGN: What were you writing about at 11?
CKH: It’s funny, I was just thinking about it because I included the story in an application I just filled out. It was about a set of twins who were always trying to help people, kind of like a Babysitters Club, and it was really terrible! [Laughing] I still have the story in the notebook where I originally wrote it, so I know this for a fact.
PGN: What was your first professional gig in show business?
CKH: I was a page at Paramount Pictures. So, like you saw in “30 Rock,” we would seat the audiences and give tours. It was a great job. Well, at the time I kind of hated it because I’m a bit of a misanthrope. I’m not really a people person, so having to entertain people for two hours at a time was painful for me. I like to be home alone.
PGN: What was a first production job?
CKH: I worked for a production company that did corporate videos and short films and that really piqued my curiosity. It was right before web series really became a part of the zeitgeist. I realized, if this production company can do a film for $500 with six people, I can make one myself. That was the spark for my independent productions. “The Ridge,” which I also wrote, was my directorial debut, and I won the 2007 TV Pilot Award from the Organization of Black Screenwriters, so I thought, Hey, I must be on to something.
PGN: I guess so, since your comedic web series, “The World of Cory & Sid,” was nominated for Best Television or Web Series in 2009 by the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival.
CKH: Yes, I loved working on it and enjoyed the people in it, even though it was not a series that really reflected me like my more-recent work does. I was still figuring out what I wanted to say as a writer/director. I think the first project that was more representative of what I want to say was “Breaking Point,” which is a soap about people in L.A.; friendships, passion, love and betrayal.
PGN: I’ll have to find that online.
CKH: Yeah, I’m super proud of it and really hate that we weren’t able to continue it, but I was very ambitious. I had a huge cast and crew. The second season we shot in 37 different locations; it was great, but crazy, and hard to sustain. We just didn’t have the budget to keep going. So for the next project I went back to the basics, something a little more simple, with fewer people and shot in one location. “Entangled With You” was originally set in my apartment, but fortunately we found a place to shoot where you didn’t have to step over my couch to get the shot.
PGN: That series has been described as a “queer and quirky dramedy that will give you more than a few giggles.”
CKH: Yeah, “Entangled” ran from 2013-15. It was about two women, one straight and one gay, who are each having trouble in their prospective relationships. It revolves around the exes who continue to drive their former partners nuts.
PGN: Outside of reading, writing and making films, what do you like to do?
CKH: I love being active. I did Taekwondo until I messed up my knee, but I go hiking and rollerskating. Anything that will make me sweat. n
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