Katherine Oostman

One year ago tonight, The Midnight Chapters opened off-broadway . . . I spent the last twelve months trying to find a way to put the experience of directing these two plays into words. I still haven’t. In my life, I have never been a part of something quite so electric, complex, and fulfilling. A process so brutal, yet transcendent. What I can say is that I will carry the passion, creativity, and generosity that radiated from every single person on this team with me forever. • CREDITS • Monsters Made in the Minds of Men by @improvbultrowicz Dean / Liam . . . @alexander_0nline Ruby / Camila . . . @like_a_ginger Kim . . . @bigbadvoodoomami The Truth About Whispers by 👻 Ro . . . @bridgetroseperrotta Gray . . . @heididanaecrane Wes . . . @charlesmeckley101 Bradley . . . @goetzperation Quinn . . . @bigbadvoodoomami Victoria . . . @like_a_ginger Han . . . @alexander_0nline Produced by @scanticriverproductions @nathanael_taylor @cjherchel @kellyoostman Directed by 👻 Stage Manager & Marketing by @dsklarz Sound Designer @kellyoostman Audio Engineer @benjiconlon Lighting Designer @welphingstone Lighting Assistant @pvaillancourt103 Intimacy Coordinator @maryberthelsen Videography & Photography by @philipalambert @crimson_chin @mcelweemedia

The album release show for SCINTILLATION is tonight! So in celebration, here are a few images from my photoshoot with @modkiddo a few months back. This is just one of many looks we explored while looking for the right imagery for the EP’s cover art. I’m eternally grateful she trusted me to help her capture it. Please check out SCINTILLATION on Spotify for some moody, ethereal, transcendent sonic pop goodness.

Creating high concept, fantastical imagery was what originally drew me to pick up a camera — but that eventually evolved into filmmaking and my photography became more naturalistic snapshots of life by default. Lately, I’ve been missing the focus of creating something so curated, emotional, and visual within a single image. Out of the blue, an amazing up & coming artist contacted me to help create album art for her new EP. The words she gave me were “moody, ethereal, sparkly”. How could I resist? (Insert shameless @modkiddo plug here). Here are two frames I took of myself while testing lighting setups before our shoot last month. Collaborating on such a stylized level again felt like coming home. 🖤

“A triptych of unnamed woman contemplating the artistic process” — painted on sequins with self doubt . . . In all seriousness, these were test images for a new lens and star filter I was playing with the other day. (I recently made a return to digital photography and this was what I had lying around for a test shoot). For those who follow my other account (@katherine.oostman ), you know I mostly shoot 35mm. That decision came because, after 15 years of digital photography, I was burnt out on the workflow. I missed the magic of capturing images, of feeling like I’d found a pocket of the world no one else could see. Instead I was bogged down in editing and chasing the idea of perfection. Film gave the magic of photography back to me. You have to intentionally choose every image because it will be weeks before you see a developed frame (some of which never turn out). By flipping my approach to photography on its head, I was challenged. I struggled. I discovered. But more importantly, I fell in love with creating again. Over the last month, I’ve been implementing a similar process-reversal approach — only this time with my writing. Lately, I’ve found myself avoiding writing, choosing to fill my time with every other task instead. I even use laundry as an excuse to procrastinate doing the thing I love! If that’s not a warning sign, I’m not sure what is . . . I think there are a combination of reasons why, but mostly I can trace them all to not giving my brain space to create without self-inflicted pressure. I had cut out jotting down silly short story ideas or daydreaming in stream of conscious form because they didn’t advance a project with a specific output (i.e. a marketable script). In doing so, I made the act of creation into constipation. So I’m trying something new. I’m giving writing unstructured time and priority. Daydreaming. Learning. Discovering. Writing by hand again with no imposed structure. As a completionist, I’m reprogramming how I perceive personal progress. And letting childlike inspiration and curiosity carry me. It’s hard. It’s stop and go. There are a lot of old habit relapses. But I feel myself changing for the better.

I am truly humbled to be a judge for the @gccluxmeafilmfest this year. Anytime someone watches one of my films, they are choosing to give their time and attention to my perspective. That’s an immensely powerful, important thing. To be asked for my perspective on films made by other people magnifies that feeling of responsibility ten fold. Special thank you to @profbandy for inviting me to be on this year’s panel (and for organizing this festival every year!). He was one of my professors back in the day, and has been an irreplaceable friend and mentor to me (and many others) over the years. And congratulations to all the students premiering at the festival next weekend!

I keep getting asked, “what’s next?” And the answer is complicated. With The Midnight Chapters, I had the chance to focus on one project completely for a specific length of time. Now, I have several things I get to pick up again, all of them in different stages of their own development / process. While they’re each incredibly cool, I can’t tell you about them just yet. So, instead of answering “what’s next”, I shall show you “what’s already happened”. 🤪 Please enjoy this throwback of Rin in grad school ™️, between setups as 1st AC on a thesis film at @fsufilm . I practically lived on that dolly for a week on this film in the Florida heat. It was glorious. 🫠 [Disposable Camera Archival Imagery Courtesy of @niktwon ]

I’ve spent the last week and a half trying to find the right words to encapsulate this project . . . This impossible, bizarre, magical show. But I’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never have them. I could spend a lifetime trying to pick them out and put them in the correct order to attempt to convey the wondrous agony it was bringing this show to life. Or the suffocating gratitude I feel toward every person who was a part of it. So, instead, I’ll share pieces, fragments of memories as they come to me . . . Chapters of reflections. (Which seems more fitting, all things considered). And maybe I’ll even try to tone down my predisposition toward waxing existentialism — and instead talk more about how this film director had to learn DIY theatre production for not one, but two off-broadway plays within a month — but no promises. 😉

One of the things I like most about directing is how, even if you’ve done it time and time again, every project will challenge you uniquely. Maybe that sounds obvious, but that experience is incomparable to anything else I’ve discovered. It’s exhilarating, exhausting, and everything in between. It’s creativity firing on all cylinders. All the while, the stakes are so high because, if you don’t figure it out, the production will fail. The Midnight Chapters has been no exception. It turns out that directing two plays over the course of about a month and a half (part of which is done virtually) while most of your cast and crew has full time jobs (because you’re creating independent art you love) and then moving to NYC and living out of a suitcase is challenging. 🙃 But the absolute wonder that comes from throwing yourself into a project like this is the moments where you see it coming together. Where the people around you take the spark of an idea and make it their own. Where suddenly it’s not blocking and lines, but people existing. And cues aren’t things to be built, but a dramatic punctuation to an emotional moment. Where the notion of sharing the project with an audience is equally as exciting as it is terrifying. This is my first time directing a play — and I’m directing two. It has been an absolute whirlwind, but I can genuinely say everyday has been a wonderful challenge. Please come see the show. Link in bio. 🖤

The Little Things is now streaming on YouTube (just in time for the Sunday scaries)! Link in bio. ✨ The Little Things follows Wilma, as she struggles to let go of what she *might* be missing out on (according to social media), along with battling a not-always-nice inner dialogue, in order to make some connections in her new job and life. Can she let the little sh*t go?

The Little Things is coming to an internet near you TOMORROW! 🗓️ So please allow us to introduce Emily, Wilma’s slightly eccentric boss lady who wears a fabulous periwinkle suit. She desperately wants to be her employees’ friend, but her enthusiasm for her job always comes on a little too strong. Emily is played by the wonderful @harleybronwyn who was an absolute light from day one. She brought so much nuance and spunk to Emily that we often couldn’t get through a take without losing it behind camera. This girl has more talent and kindness in her pinky finger than most will ever have. Also, fun fact, she found the killer “Leslie Knope” inspired suit she wears in the film. It’s iconic. ✨

2 days until The Little Things premieres online! 📧 When @kwokibear first invited me to direct a short, she was looking for a horror director. But by our second conversation, she asked me how I felt about doing a comedy instead. I didn’t have any comedy samples, but Chelsea didn’t care. She believes talented people are multi-faceted and is determined to create opportunities for those people to step outside the categories the industry may have shoehorned them into. As a result, she produced a film that isn’t only eclectic on screen, but off. Making this short with so many female filmmakers (with a wide range of experience levels and backgrounds) felt more like a workshop than work. We laughed, we experimented, we solved problems. And yes, there was stress, but there wasn’t ego. And the lack of that brought immense collaborative freedom - the like of which I hope I can find ways to bring into future projects.

The countdown to The Little Things’ premiere on YouTube is nearly up! ⏰ In honor of that fact, allow me to introduce Wilma, our protagonist! She quirky, eager, awkward, and loves her coffee. @kwokibear brought so much spunk to this already incredibly relatable character - and she did it all while co-producing the film AND being pregnant with her first child. She’s truly a powerhouse who radiates positivity and passion. Set a reminder for 9am PST / 12pm EST on Jan 8th to see Wilma get up to some antics! 🙃