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When Alexxiss Jackson was little, she loved playing with Polly Pockets. But God help you if you touched those dolls.
“It was a soap opera, and nobody else could touch it. It was this whole elaborate set-up on my two dressers in my room, with a little paper bridge connecting the two parts of the town,” she remembered. “Nobody could touch it, because they had to be in their places for the next episode of the soap opera.”
And so, at a young age, this future cinematographer (or director of photography) was already thinking about the importance of continuity. But since then, Jackson’s work has grown in scale from those tiny dolls.
Born and raised in Detroit, her resume runs the gamut from documentaries to independent films to work with acclaimed filmmakers like Julie Dash. But, over the course of the past few years as Georgia’s film and television production has slowed down, Jackson – like so many others – has seen less and less work coming in.
“So many of my colleagues and peers that are super talented and super good at what they do, and they’ve put in years and years of work – I’ve watched a lot of them leave the industry and go to other industries or positions just to survive,” Jackson said.
Throughout this Indie Spotlight series, we’ve spoken with filmmakers and producers working hard to keep film in Georgia alive. But Jackson knows firsthand that the slowdown has hit Georgia’s crew workers particularly hard.
Working in the industry
Jackson first ended up in Atlanta during the summer of 2011, sleeping on a friend’s couch and working in the production office for a show at Tyler Perry Studios. The job threw a bit of a wrench in her plans. She knew she wanted to be a director of photography – the person who leads the camera and lighting crew on set, working closely with the director to bring the visuals of the film to life.
She went to film school at the University of Michigan, and in 2006 completed the intensive summer film program at the University of Southern California. The plan was to eventually go to Hollywood, but she never felt like she quite vibed with Los Angeles, and so she kept putting off the move.
Turns out Atlanta was more her speed. She’s been in the city officially since January of 2012.
“Atlanta feels a lot more like home,” Jackson said. “It feels more like Detroit to me, than Los Angeles does, in terms of the people, in terms of the personalities and the vibe.”
Read in full at RoughDraft Atlanta
Used with permission. Follow RoughDraft Atlanta here.
