Creative Producing with Mary Jane Skalski (AMERICAN ANIMALS) & Natalie Qasabian (SEARCHING)

Mary Jane Skalski began her career at Good Machine where she worked on the early films of Ang Lee, Ed Burns and Nicole Holofcener. As a producer, her credits include four films with director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor, Win Win, and The Cobbler); Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, Wilson directed by Craig Johnson, Todd Louiso's Hello I Must Be Going, Adam Salky’s Dare, Peter Callahan’s Against the Current, Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying, Jem Cohen’s Chain, and Naomi Foner’s Very Good Girls. Mary Jane was an executive producer on Pariah, Trick, and Putzel. Her most recent film is Bart Layton’s narrative debut, American Animals which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and will open later this year.

Natalie Qasabian is an independent film producer based in Los Angeles. After producing three films for the Duplass Brothers including “Duck Butter” directed by Miguel Arteta, she went on to produce "All About Nina" starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Common. Most recently Natalie produced "Searching," a thriller starring John Cho and Debra Messing which was acquired by Sony at Sundance in 2018 and went on to gross $75M at the box office. Currently she's producing "Run," starring Sarah Paulson for Lionsgate. Natalie studied film at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and recently earned an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Artist's Chosen Interviews:

• Dear Producer
• Screen Queens
  

Artist's Chosen Resources:

• Shooting to Kill (Book) by Christine Vachon: I read this when I first started producing about 4 years ago and I always remember her quote - I’m paraphrasing - about how indie films are like childbirth. They’re incredibly painful in the moment, but you soon forget and then jump in and do another. Very true! 
• Scriptnotes (Podcast) by John August & Craig Mazin: I love hearing fellow creatives who are at the top of their game chat about script related topics. It's fun but also enlightening and they tend to always inspire me. 
• The Lounge Chill Playlist (iTunes): If I'm not feeling productive or creative, this playlist has yet to fail me. It gets my juices going and into a productive creative vibe. 
• Save the Cat (Book and also website): I visit the book or website (Tools < Beatsheet tab) often when developing projects, especially ones that lean more genre than not, mostly to brush up on structure. Sometimes this book gets a bad rep, but it was instrumental for us when developing SEARCHING.
• Cactus Tacos: sometimes you just need a good taco and some good people watching in Hollywood.