Nicole Rodenburg is a filmmaker and writer based out of New York City. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theatre BFA Actor Training Program.
As Nicole thinks of where her journey to becoming a filmmaker begins, she shares “It’s been my nature to produce since I was a child. I was always directing my friends in plays as a kid and when I got older, I started making short films with my creative partner, Colin Froeber. The desire to start creating my own work professionally came out of frustration with being a professional actor. Though I love acting, I quickly grew frustrated with the process of waiting to be chosen to pursue my craft, and feeling like my role in the creative process didn’t line up with where my mind’s natural curiosity lies, which is in systems and wholes. I love being a part of someone else’s vision, but I also felt a desire to pursue my own, as well as give myself a sense of creative agency outside of acting.”
Her work of short films with Colin were far from over. Nicole shares how the next piece of her journey fell together alongside Coline, sharing “Colin did a two person children’s theatre tour much like the one that our characters do in our film (except the one he did was very functional!). He would call me from the road and tell me stories, and it was clear to us that the children’s theatre tour would be a great vehicle (pun intended) to tell a relational story exploring the difficulties and triumphs of deep intimate platonic connection. We also have had a long held dream of putting the landscape of our childhood onto film, so this story allowed for us to fulfill that dream as well.”
“Independent filmmaking takes years of your life and all the resources you have at your disposal – I feel like it would be a difficult thing to do if you did not feel in your gut that you had a story that needed to be told. Having a story that feels like it’ll chew through your insides if you don’t get it out not only motivates you during the dark times, but is the key to being able to shepherd a project that feels thematically cohesive. So put simply, the why is that I feel on a visceral level that I must tell this story or I’ll be unhappy.”
Nicole takes her “why” a step further, passionately explaining how she hopes her work will better serve youth and young adults also pursuing a career like hers, and to be a role model that she wishes she had growing up. She explains, “Beyond the “why” of my own personal investment in the work (which I think is necessary) I had a secondary desire in pursuing this production, which was to be able to involve young people from my hometown community. Growing up Colin and I got our greatest joy from making short films together, but pre-youtube/high speed internet, we had no idea how to pursue a career in film professionally. Combine that with the lack of representation of female directors, and it’s not surprising that filmmaking is something that I came to later in life. I thought that if I had seen someone like myself growing up, it would’ve made filmmaking seem much closer, like a tangible possibility. To that end, we created Young Filmmaker Workshops that ran alongside our production – which served two purposes. Number one, to expose kids to the process of filmmaking, creating a familiarity and vocabulary and B. to populate the world of our film – we needed crowds of children in many scenes, and we felt like everyone would be happiest if the kids had a reason to be there with us outside of just acting on set (while films can be glamorous, being on set is often a lot of “hurry up and wait” and even adult actors can struggle with it). We were able to bring kids in to film their scenes, and bring them back to the workshop where they worked on films of their own. Seeing all those kids so excited to be with us for the 5 days we were working with children was one of the best parts of the process for me.”
Nicole concludes with sharing how the community is able to best support her in the coming phases of her journey, saying “Please come check out our screening of Glob Lessons at the Fargo Theatre on March 19th, part of the Fargo Film Festival. And if you’re interested in independent film production and would like to know more about how to be a part of bringing our next project to reality, please reach out to us at globlessonsmovie@gmail.com.”
You can learn more about Nicole and Glob Lessons by visiting their website here or following them on instagram @globlessons.
