Making movies isn’t an easy thing. I have been around enough movies to know that it’s a long game of wait and see. It’s a game of move fast, move slow. It’s a game, but it’s definitely one that is worth playing. Why? Because there is nothing better than seeing characters come to life and dreams coming true.
Hallmark and Ashley Williams are making dreams come true with the Make Her Mark: Hallmark’s Reciprocal Mentor Program which launched in 2023. The first movie under that program was Shifting Gears, which was directed by Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe.
From the moment you get on the phone with Lowe, you can feel her passion for film making. You can feel her passion for making a story come to life. She didn’t care that the movie had been out when we spoke – she was still thrilled to talk. I have a tendency to apologize a lot and when I did, she said, “I’m happy to talk with you about it. Everybody’s lives are busy, so if you can’t watch it the first night, watch it again.”
I’d watched the movie a few times and well, I did love it. I assured her that I had watched it because I loved it. I said, “I felt like the movie was, it was a romance, but it wasn’t your typical romance, because in my opinion, it was about finding the love for yourself first, and then finding the love that you can give to others and receive from others. Is that what it’s supposed to be about?”
“The bones of it, of course, are a rom-com that we’ve seen a million times where two actors run into each other, the plot, but we really wanted to infuse, I specifically wanted to infuse an empowerment story for her.” she said, before continuing, “It was interesting because I’ve been listening to reviews all over the map, because I can’t help myself, and I thought, somebody made a point recently, and they said, why does a woman always have to be insecure and grow into herself?”
That is very true and something I hadn’t really thought about, but then again, I don’t think I ever saw Jess as insecure. What I did see her as is a person that needed to grow past her pain and the things that really hurt her.
She continued, “I really wanted to see a journey with her internally and growing and going from a place of not really know if she could be as extroverted as she wanted to be and then finding a partner that actually pushes her to be the best version of herself, which is what we all want.”
It’s true, we all want to have someone that pushes us to be better. Someone that makes us feel better, but allows us to see that power was within us all along.
So many romantic comedies feel like they are about the man figuring out that they are falling in love and with this movie, it wasn’t that. It was everyone finding some form of love in their own way.
At least in my opinion.
When I voiced that to Lowe, she said, “It’s a very good observation. It was about her letting in love again, and for me, look, could they have both existed on their own? 100%. Together they’re better, and together they help each other grow, and that was really what I wanted to see, that somebody who– it’s not that we need somebody else, it’s that we deserve and we’re allowed to have somebody. That’s okay, and she can accept love again. That was really where I was going with it.”
One thing that spoke deeply to me was the imagery around the movie. When speaking to Kat, I had spoken about how her look in the movie reminded me of Rosie the Riveter, so I wanted to ask Lowe about the same thing. She instead offered me a secret.
“That opening sequence where she’s standing there, and it cuts to her, and then we have a shot of her going all the way up, and she’s just standing in her power?” she said, referring to Jess, “When we shot that, I had some other of my male counterparts going, ‘Oh, shouldn’t she pop her hip out?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want her to pop her hip out.’ They were like, ‘Oh, but don’t you think aesthetically it looks better?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t. I want her to stand straight up, and I want her to come up her back and see that she’s in her power.’ He’s like, ‘Oh.'”
She made me laugh, but also admire her even more, when she added, “Then he watched it, and he was like, ‘I get it. I get what you’re doing.'”
“It made me very proud to be able to give a voice, and also so sad, because aesthetically we’ve been following male gaze all our lives that even something simple as having her not pop her hip out to create an S-curve was jarring for some people. They’re like, ‘Oh, wait, a woman just standing there?’ Like, ‘Yes!'”
Lowe makes no apologies, but rather she embraces all of the decisions that she made. I actually appreciated the fact that she wasn’t willing to compromise on these things. She was building a movie that came from the female gaze and one that didn’t make women just out to be who they would typically need to be in order to be a fawned over in a movie.
You could be beautiful for just being who you are.
She continued, “Also, she can wear makeup because she’s a mechanic. You know what else she can wear? Snickers and makeup. She could do both. She doesn’t have to be a tomboy. She can do all of that. We rewrote one of the parts where she talked about her mom because originally it was written that my mom always wore makeup. I wore no makeup, which is fair, but I just was like, ‘No, I want to be deeper than that.’ I would gather her mom who’s an extrovert and she was an introvert, so that we’re talking about internal stuff, not external stuff. Which again is what women are more interested in talking about. Yes, the empowerment, it was forefront in my mind for everything.”
I was fascinated with the Make Your Mark program, because it’s something so innovative. Ashley Williams had been working with Hallmark for years when she approached them with an idea about putting together a program about putting more women behind the camera.
“Hallmark is a brand built around giving to and connecting with others, and The Make Her Mark program is our gift of opportunity experience, coaching, and guidance for such deserving and talented women in our field,” said Wonya Lucas, former President & CEO, Hallmark Media in the 2022 announcement. “I hope one day, when she accepts her Emmy or Peabody or Oscar, that she fondly remembers that Hallmark Media gave her that first shot…and then she pays it forward.”
So how did Lowe become involved with the program? She said, “I had been begging, pleading with everybody and their dog to let me direct, but obviously, I’m part of the Hallmark family. I had been continually reaching out. Now, that being said, I also was doing all of my own stuff on my own. I was raising funds on my own, I was directing shorts on my own, I was writing on my own. I was going to classes and taking anything I could to show that I was going to do this no matter what. I had heard of rumblings of this program, but it takes a lot of time to get a program like this going.”
She then talked about how Williams had invited her for a hike after they met up for an event. Little did Lowe know that it was actually an interview.
“I didn’t know I was getting interviewed.” she said, “Which was way better because then I was really honest. I told her everything I was trying to do and how I was going to do it. She was super encouraging, and then she said, ‘I think I might have an interview for you.’ Then I came in, and they reviewed all my materials and all that stuff, and then I got it. It was crazy.”
I commented on it sounding like it would be the best interview ever. Lowe chuckled and responded, “I think that it was very smart of her to do that because– Again, I love living in La La Land, is probably why I’m in film, but I wasn’t really thinking about how high the stakes are for the very first person. If my job had gone terribly wrong, that could have maybe hurt the program, and I wasn’t even thinking about that, to be honest. I was like, ‘La La Land, making my movie.’ That’s a lot on her shoulders to find the right person. I’m honored.”
