Meet Cami Wickenhauser of Roswell, GA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cami Wickenhauser.

Hi Cami, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Hi, I’m Cami! I’m an actor, voice actor, and stunt performer currently based in Atlanta, GA.

I have been acting, dancing, singing, performing, and creating for as long as I can remember. I graduated with my BFA in Acting from Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles and eventually followed the film industry to Atlanta.

During the pandemic, like so many others, I found my way back to reading for leisure. Moving to a new city is hard, and finding community during a pandemic is even more difficult. That’s when I stumbled upon a community of readers posting online and talking about books.

I have always loved books like “The Hunger Games”, “Chronicles of Narnia”, etc, and being an actor in the film/television industry, I have always been fascinated by book-to-film adaptations. In an attempt to stay busy and work on our craft during the pandemic and the subsequent strikes, I started to engage with this community of book lovers online. I rediscovered my love of fantasy books, and with the help of my husband, Jeff Mayfield (a fellow actor and stunt performer), we started taking fight scenes from our favorite books and bringing them into reality.

The turning point for me was seeing a large group of readers online admit that they skip the fight scenes in books because they found them boring or difficult to understand. How could this be? The fight scenes are some of the best parts of fantasy books! At least in my opinion. So I figured, what if we brought them to life? Would it get readers as excited about fantasy and sword fighting as I was?

Ultimately, I wanted to see what it would be like to see my favorite characters on screen. I wanted to challenge myself as an actor and grow as a performer during a time when the industry looked different. And we wanted to learn for ourselves what it takes to bring a scene from words on a page to the big screen.

We have grown with each project, each video, learning so much throughout the process. The goal has now become to create the fantasy content we all crave to watch, and along the way, show the world that the city of Atlanta is FULL of talent and creativity.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Being a performer in general is rarely a smooth road. It takes a lot of dedication and a toll on your mental health — on a good year — but especially through the last five years. We’ve been through a pandemic and three union strikes. Productions have been halted and/or cancelled, budgets have been significantly cut, and actors and crew members alike have had to find alternative means of income.

Not to mention, it has hurt influencers and cosplayers as well. We couldn’t create any content on some of our favorite TV shows and movies because it was considered promoting struck work or struck companies.

Creating content from books was seemingly a perfect niche during this time, as it kept us away from struck content. But this came with its own challenges. For years, I have heard the ever-popular statement, “the book was better,” but the demand to see our favorite fantasy and dystopian stories on screen was ever present. So we started on a journey to figure out how we could possibly bring fight scenes to the screen in a way that fans would actually enjoy. What works in film adaptations, and what doesn’t work? What is it specifically that makes fans think that the book was better?

The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is all well and good until you have to portray a very specific set of words, previously written by another artist, with only one frame. Some authors are more specific when writing action scenes than others, and some use more descriptive language. We also have to think about the fact that we each interpret and see scenes play out in our heads differently. I am extremely detail-oriented, and I find that a lot of these challenges can be overcome by pulling specific details from the text to highlight in the piece. We cannot include everything, but including easter eggs from the text — maybe it’s something from the character’s background, or something referenced elsewhere in the book — those unique details are what draw in the audience.

Being a part of the bookish community has been super helpful because we receive feedback directly from the source. These are the exact people book-to-film adaptations are being marketed to. We are able to understand the audience because we are the intended audience, and we are interacting with people about these topics daily. Throughout our journey, we have been able to have conversations with readers and even authors to discuss storytelling — what makes stories successful, what works in storytelling, what doesn’t, and so much more.

Before we are able to film anything, we spend full days analyzing the script and playing around with choreography. “Does ‘this move’ portray better on camera or ‘this one’?” We also talk a lot about fighting styles and which styles inspire certain tropes in the fantasy world. Knowing more about someone’s fighting style influences the type of choreography that we choose. This is a challenging stage because we want to get it right, but it is also where we get to have the most fun. This is where we get to pull out all of our training, puzzle solve, and see what works and what doesn’t.

How do we, on a budget, make someone look like they are running at super speed? How would someone with supernatural abilities fight differently from a normal human? How exactly would this female main character overcome this six-foot-tall supernatural being? How would these things work on a big-scale project, and how can we condense them to work with the skills and the equipment we currently have? These are all challenges that we have to consider when making new videos.

We also have to be strategic with what scenes we pick based on our editing skills. Our background is in acting, stunts, and directing, and these are such small parts of the whole it takes to create good content. We can accomplish a lot from just the stunt perspective, with wires and air rams, but we are still working toward editing magic, animals, wings, etc.

Everything we do has sprung out of our love of fantasy, our previous knowledge, and from our own pockets. We are learning cinematography, editing, special effects, and building on these skills each time we film a project. We are meeting other creatives as well, and partnering with people who specialize in these other areas. These partnerships make us stronger so that we can make a product that is as professional as possible.

*Special shout-out to our team of dedicated stunt performers and artists. We truly wouldn’t be able to keep creating these videos without them!

Budget is always a big challenge in film & TV. We do not currently have the budget to put together full fan films, complete with set design and costumes, but I think there is something to be said about learning this craft on a budget before growing towards bigger-scale productions with lots of money. Of course, our goal for the future is to continue to grow, but learning all of these skills along the way has made us better creators. How are we learning? We started by creating what we in the industry call a previz. This is where the stunt team will design the action and film it to show to the director or the producers for approval before officially filming the scene. And each time we put together a short, we add more details based on what we have learned.

Then there is always the mental battle that comes with creating content online. Constant struggles with the algorithm aside, we want people to enjoy the content we create. This community is so important, and more than anything, we want to connect with other people over these stories we love so much.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We started our journey adapting scenes from our favorite books, but this eventually led us to start creating all sorts of other fantasy and D&D video content as well. We are not the only ones creating fantasy and bookish content, but our background in live performance, stunts, and film production has given us an edge that not many other people have. My husband, Jeff, and I are working towards developing a production hub for the stories and genres that would ordinarily get pushed aside due to budget constraints or difficulty factor. Over the years, the two of us have built a growing pool of information and resources that allow us to take these concepts and stories and bring them to life. We want to help bridge the gap between imagination and possibility.

As a creator and lover of fantastical stories, one of my favorite parts about reading is the way it makes us feel. This translates to the screen as well. When we are working on these projects, the one thing that is always at the forefront of our minds is the audience. We strive for all of our projects to elicit emotional responses from those who are watching, whether that emotion be strength, determination, respite, romance, grief, etc. We want to draw audiences in, allow them to escape, and feel that magical moment of being transported to another place or time.

Something else incredibly important to us is safety. We want to wow our audiences with impressive stunts and deliver a quality performance while keeping our team safe. We will always advocate for their safety to be a priority so our performers can have long, successful careers, and we can continue to bring entertaining content to the screen.

We love working and collaborating with other creators. I truly believe that this experience is meant to be shared with others. This online community has brought me to people that I never would have imagined getting to know, including people from all around the world. If you’re reading this and you ever want to connect and create something magical, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Living life in community is so important, and I owe so much to the book and cosplay communities. Please come join us, everyone is welcome!

Outside of these projects, I call myself a collector of hobbies. I have always been a person driven by creativity, and I am blessed that this journey has allowed me to explore many facets of that creativity. I taught myself to sew and used my love of cosplay so that I could create costumes for our projects. We used our background in art and theatrical set production to create stone wall castle facades and props for our most recent project. I used my background in voiceover so we could add ADR, some foley work, and sound design to our projects when needed.

You know the common phrase, “A jack of all trades is a master of none”? It always used to make me worry that I would fall behind, or that I would never be enough in the film/TV industry. I love so many different kinds of art, but I wasn’t masterful at anything. But did you know that the full phrase is actually, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one”? I didn’t, not until a few years ago. I now believe that being multi-faceted is a testament to all the hard work I have put in over the years. My drive to continue learning, growing, and creating is something that sets me apart from others. I am so proud of all that I have learned and accomplished so far, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
The best thing about this city is the people I have met along the way. Not only is there so much talent to be found here in Atlanta, but also some of the most generous and kind people as well. I have been so blessed to be around some great groups of people whose goal overall is to lift each other up, instead of compete with one another.

Ooo, also the trees. Spring in Georgia is a very specific shade of green that you can’t often find in other places in the United States. It’s so beautiful.

My least favorite part? The heat and humidity. The summers here are no joke! I am currently doing my best not to melt.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.camikayevo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damesanddaggers/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@damesanddaggers
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@damesanddaggers

Image Credits
Underhill Imagery Alexandra Lee Studios Sara Keith Studios EyeKool Photography