Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Scoggins.
Erica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Not even my brutal very British English teacher could break me from drawing during class in high school. I hope she read that study published recently about the superb knowledge retention of “doodlers.” So I’m thirty, on the other side of a BFA in fine art and an MFA in Film Directing, living in Chattanooga and pulling from the vast talent of actors and fellow filmmakers in the Atlanta area.
A bout of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy in college pushed me onto a path that had long felt inaccessible. Girls from East Tennessee didn’t make movies. I grappled with these otherworldly, Alice in Wonderland-like seizures through drawing, photography, printmaking, and poetry, but it soon became clear that I needed to control narrative, sound, color, and time itself. I needed cinema.
During my study at the California Institute of the Arts, I became obsessed with recreating the feeling of the seizures, which led to my thesis film, THE SACRED DISEASE. My work as a whole deal with psychophysiological shifts, taboo, mythology, and stigmatized biology. My latest short, THE BOOGEYWOMAN, premiered in the U.S. at Atlanta Film Festival, and I’m currently in development on the feature version. I’m committed to making films that deal with the specific cultural, psychological, and geographic landscape of the South and bringing strange art to the empty walls in your house.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’m not sure any creative person’s road is smooth or any person for that matter. We’re jagged at heart, existentially inclined, and usually carving our own specific path through the world. I’m lucky to have had support along the way, but there are a lot of gatekeepers saying “no” in this industry. I just have to keep believing in the work and know that “yes” is right around the river bend.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I live a double life as a visual artist and narrative filmmaker. As a writer/director, I’m known for crafting stories about young women as they pass through cultural and psychological thresholds into a more free existence. My last two short films have played in festivals around the world, and I’m currently in development on the feature version of THE BOOGEYWOMAN. I’ll be casting in the area in the coming months so actors, stay tuned.
I often work with Atlanta actors and the superb Moonshine Post Production house and Bare Knuckles Creative sound. In the coming months, I’ll be working on a public art project in Atlanta, though I can’t say any more just yet. As an artist, I’m known for line and ink drawings of gaunt, delinquent ladies I lovingly refer to as “evil women.” While I have some work for sale on my website (www.ericascoggins.com), I’m also taking commissions for paper-based works, tattoo designs, and hand-drawn “wallpaper.” Show me your painfully plain wall, and I’ll give it an accent.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Drive and perseverance. Level-headedness and the ability to take the right notes from trusted collaborators. I fight for what I know in my gut is the right decision for the film, whether it be casting, a cut in the edit, etc. For visual art, it’s discipline. Luckily drawing is compulsive for me, but I have to force myself to address my weaknesses to improve.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ericascoggins.com
- Email: theboogeywomanfilm@gmail.com
- Instagram: @redhairredpants
Image Credit:
Headshot: Seiji Inouye
Film Stills: Albrecht Von Grünhagen
Drawings/prints: Erica Scoggins
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