Ashley Nicole
Ashley Nicole was born and raised in south Texas, she began making short films during the Covid pandemic in 2020. Since then Nicole has gone on to win five awards including one for her short “The Screeching” at the Kraken international film festival.
What was it like being both the director and actress in the film Roxy! The Beginning?
Had to be jumping back and forth to put my makeup on and then press the record button, but overall it was worth it. I’m also one who’s very shy in front of a camera, so playing this character really helped me break out of my shell.
Well at the very very beginning, before we even had “Roxy! The beginning” the concept was going to be a lot different from this version. At first I envisioned her as being this wild out of control vulgar Singer, but eventually went with a more soft & Charismatic version instead.
Filming took a while to begin since I kept putting it off, due to the fact that nothing was going right. I just couldn’t figure out how to get Roxy off the paper and into the real world. Not to mention, the constant rewrites and reworking the storyboard until I finally settled on something.
Debbie harry wasn’t even a thought at first, originally I took inspiration from the singer Toyah Willcox. But that was in the first Roxy film that I did, by now I knew what I wanted Roxy to be and who she was going to be like.
That was Debbie Harry. Yes I am! What I like most about her is her style and personality. The fact that she’s the same height as me is cool because she holds a lot of power in what she does as a singer.
I film all of my shorts using my iphone, since nowadays phone cameras have crazy good quality. For the aesthetic of the film, from the start I wanted it to look like it came from the early 80s. So the color red was used a lot which really made things pop out more During editing.
While editing, I tweaked everything. The saturation, and added a filter on top of it in order to give it this old look that I wanted to have.
Well the first and second films for Roxy, didn’t include any Blondie songs. They included David Bowie & Elton John, but for this film, I found myself constantly listening to Blondie one summer & just got me so pumped up and made me think of this character so much. The song that inspired me more to do this film was “Sunday Girl.”
Feel like Sunday girl is her anthem.
The costumes were Thrfited from a local thrift store in my town, nothing was really planned for the look of roxy referring to the costumes. Just sorta threw on what I had bought from my last trip to the thrift store and what I had in my closet.
The makeup portion was planned out However, her makeup was inspired by Toyah Willcox as mentioned before. Although not Debbie Harry inspired, I really enjoyed the makeup look and wanted to keep it as it was.
Roxy’s hair was originally just going to be straight. But that was looking a bit plain, so I just decided to use my Natural curls. Add the star sunglasses on top and it all came together nicely.
The film industry back then also carried a lot of magic with it, there’s just something about an old 80s film that fills me with comfort and warmth.
My favorite artist would definitely be Michael Jackson for sure! He was just incredible, Definitely had a lot of charisma and Energy that just brought everything to life when he was on stage. Definitely take a lot of influence from him creative wise.
To name a few of them, would have to be Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Spielberg, & Tim Burton. They all have different but unique ways of telling a story with their work.
I’ve recently released a new short film titled “Red Skies Are Coming” which is an animated short, about a girl named clementine who finds out she’s a witch on her sixteenth birthday, but also draws attention to the witch hunter next door.
It’s in the style of 80s animation, I really wanted it to have the same feel and vibe that was familiar to people especially who grew up during that time. Took some inspiration from Don Bluth, whose films I grew up watching in the 2000s.
How did you get all the props from the set, like the star-shaped glasses? What references did you have for recreating the period?
The star shaped glasses were from Five below, went shopping with my mom one day and saw them on the rack. Just had to have them. They sorta remind me of the ones Elton John wore.
A few references I had, Were mainly for her fictional manager that’s mentioned. Although he doesn’t appear, he was actually inspired by Clive Davis. Who signed Whitney Houston.
For recreating the time period, I looked at photos from that time in order to get a better feel of how I wanted this short film to look like.
