It’s Very Common

Synopsis:

Set in a queer collective house in Brooklyn, NY we spend a day or so with Amanda as she lives through the miscarriage of what would have been her second child. Led by her need to keep things light around her daughter we witness as she manages heavy feelings with her wife, roommates, and her signature dry wit.

Director’s Statement:

‘‘It’s Very Common’ is the movie I needed to make to share what it was like to go through an event no one ever talks about. It’s wild how many pregnancies end abruptly and yet it feels like a secret we’re not supposed to share. I had to share.

The main character, Amanda, doesn’t know how to react any more than anyone else does so she leans into her dry wit and deadpan attempt at making dark jokes. How do you react when your friend is making jokes about her miscarriage? That’s the genesis of this film.

It’s also important that these are queer people going through a normal event made more complicated by their queerness. They have to bring their sperm donor out of retirement, they have to face the extra costs of getting pregnant and it’s not mentioned but if they succeed in having a baby they will then need to go through an adoption. I needed to share a story where the characters are incidentally queer and yet their queerness plays a role in how they work through the problem. 

I hope that sharing these totally normal people having this completely human experience opens up lines of dialogue but also warms hearts because it is meant to be a story of hope. They will try again.

The Team:

Megan Hess…. Writer. Director

Nessa Norich, ‘Amanda’

Nessa Norich currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is a theater artist, producer, filmmaker and educator who produces immersive experiences and crafts stories that challenge audiences to remain engaged, embodied and vulnerable in trying times. Nessa has starred in several feature length and short films and has written, directed and performed in dozens of critically acclaimed original plays internationally at such notable venues as Joe’s Pub, NY Live Arts, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Louvre, British Film Institute, A.R.T and the Bushwick Starr. Nessa won a 2016 NY Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical for Steve: A Docu-Musical, which was featured and praised in the NY Times as, “a work of art”. The adaptation of Hamlet that she devised and directed, The Rub, was selected for the New Orleans Fringe. Huffington Post called it “the most innovative, gripping and intriguing version of Hamlet that I’ve see to date”. She was most recently seen in Diana Oh’s online reading of My H8 Letter to the Great American Theater. Currently, Nessa is Co-founder and Creative Director of Well of Wills, a collective that produces performance and film that is born in the intersection of social justice, Jewish spirituality and feminism. They recently released a short experimental doc called The Ark. Recent Highlights: Nessa launched a Creative Coaching business. She directed a new television series, called The Fae (Official Selection, Big Apple Film Festival). Her recent short film MAKE HAPPY was viewed over 10,000 times in the four days between its release and Election Day 2020. Nessa is an alum of Emerge NYC and the NY Neo-Futurists. She is a graduate of Jacques Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris and received her B.A from Barnard College. She currently teaches creative writing with The Generations Project and Crossing Point Arts.

Drae Campbell, ‘Hannah’

Drae Campbell is an actor and performer who has appeared on stages all over NYC and on the internet, movies and tv. She’s been spotted on the tv shows New Amsterdam and Bull and in two seasons of the web series Dinette directed by Shaina Feinberg. She can also be found online on Refinery29 , IFC.Com and BRICTV to name a few. Some fave stage acting credits : Only You Can Prevent Wildfires, Ricochet Collective, Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts, La Mama, My Old Man, Dixon Place, Oph3lia at HERE, The Nosebleed at The Public Theatre . Drae also appeared as a radical lesbian in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History Of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Drae’s been hosting and curating her storytelling show, TELL at BGSQD for 7 plus years. If you like queer stories, TELL is also a Podcast www.draecampbell.com

Frankie Hessenville, ‘Charlie’

Frankie Hessenville is an enthusiastic, budding performer who understood the concept of sarcasm at age 4. Her favorite color is pink, and she hopes to one day ‘perform’ soccer… on the stage!

Scotty Salame, ‘Steven’

Scotty Salame is a New York based performer, Emmy nominated production designer, and visual artist. Past stage acting credits include One Love (Theatre for the New City), Parker & Dizzy's Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow (TNC), Fat Asses (TNC), and HAIR (Salem Theatre Company.) You can currently watch him on screen in titles including the comedy series Cady Did (YouTube), Pride: The Series (Amazon Prime Video) and the 2014 family film A Little Game. www.scottysalame.com

Chanell Crichlow, Composer

Chanell Crichlow is a low brass multi-instrumentalist, Composer, and Performer residing in Los Angeles, California. She formed PitchBlak Brass Band in 2010 at the start of what became a vibrant brass band Movement in New York City and across the globe. The group received high acclaim in both Downbeat Magazine and The Source Magazine during their tenure.

A 2021 Sundance Composers Lab Fellow, Chanell had the opportunity to work closely with Film and Television composers on her craft. Creative Advisors for the intensive include Laura Karpman, Blake Neely, Heather McIntosh, George S. Clinton, Mychael Danna, Kathryn Bostic, Jeff Rona, and Christopher Willis. As a tubist, she has performed with Yuga Cohler (YEETHOVEN, K-POP), Ludwig Göransson, (Wordless Music Orchestra), Solange (Governors Ball Music Festival), Andy Grammer (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Today Show), Shamir (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), Pharoahe Monch (The Ecstatic Music Festival, Duke University), and more. Chanell has released two projects under the moniker tubafresh in which she composes using Jazz-Pop structures as well as incorporating vocals and a custom King 1130 Flugabone designed by Scott Sweeney. Chanell received her Masters in Classical Tuba Performance at Pennsylvania State University and her Bachelors in Classical Tuba Performance at The Manhattan School of Music.

Jeanette Bears, Director of Photography & Editor

Jeanette Bears is a queer, non-binary, Brooklyn based filmmaker, editor, and cinematographer. They have directed and shot several short film projects and love the art of storytelling. Their own short film, "Starters" was just completed and is entering festivals this year.

By day, Jeanette works at a film school in NYC, and in their spare time freelances on various film projects, and they are a cross training coach at their local gym. They consume and write copious amounts of fan fiction, and love nothing more than being with their wife and two pups in the great outdoors, making adventures of their own.