Life & Work with Sahvannah Rae

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sahvannah Rae.

Hi Sahvannah, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Storytelling had been at the center of my life long before I realized I could make a career out of it. Books and films were the tools that opened my eyes to how big the world could be, so it came as no surprise when I became a storyteller myself. After practicing as a writer/director for the last several years, I learned how bureaucratic the business could be and soon decided that the only way to truly make the content that felt representative and authentic to my own voice was to start my own production company. So I partnered with my sister and producer in all things I do, and started Skye Film Studios.

Becoming a business owner is a challenge in itself, but to start a business in a creative field where there are little rules to the game is almost impossible. So we created a unique recipe for how we were going to use all our assets to create our own success. Since starting our company my sister and partner, Skye Bleu, and I have developed a slate of projects we are proud to call our own. By partnering with our sister companies, Skye Stages and Skye Rentals, we have been able to build a cyclical collaboration that allows us to throw events at Skye Stage venues with equipment from the production rental house, Skye Rentals. In turn, all profits we revenue from these events, whether they are from art shows, concerts, car shows, and everything in between, is able to directly fund our own film projects. With this model, we have been able to collaborate with filmmakers from around the world to build a company that at its core is authentically unique. This model has thus far been able to act as seed money towards filming proof of concepts, creating decks, and funding rewrites of scripts we are passionate about. Only then are we able to go out and pitch with well-prepared material and a confidence that our projects have been nurtured with all the right tools. As first-generation Mexican Americans, my sister and I have learned from our long line of familial entrepreneurs the value of hard work and thinking outside the box. That combined with our love of storytelling has brought us where we are today.

Stories have made me invincible, opened the doorways to unimaginable knowledge, expanded my virtues of empathy and strengthened my humanity. They made me hungry for a life of meaning and purpose that stretched far beyond my own self-interests. Stories became my connection to a larger than life feeling that I wanted to share with the world. In more ways than not, storytelling gave me the courage to start my own company because I knew that above all else if I placed real and honest stories in the center of everything the company did, there was no way we could fail. Creative work is vigorous and more challenging than anything else, but at the end of it, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing a project you love come to fruition.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road to success has been anything but smooth, but I think our biggest tool in dealing with the hardships is to surrender to it, and relish in the struggle. In the hardest moments, when we begin to question why we started a company in the first place, we stop for a moment to just be thankful. Thankful to have a struggle so beautiful, thankful that we get to call this struggle our own. My sister and I always joke about how we will look back five, ten years from now and wonder how we could have been so happy when we were so deep in the trenches of it all, and truthfully it is because we are just happy to be on this journey at all. That mentality allows us to trust in our process and focus on keeping authentic stories at the foreground of everything we do.

I think it is really easy to lose yourself and your creative voice in this industry, especially when getting lost in the logistics of everything. When we run into conflicts like a project rejection or feature funding falling through, we recenter and regroup. We remember why we started the production company in the first place and reconnect to the power of storytelling. We also have one rule, that above all we follow our intuition. Whether it comes to creative partnerships, financiers, and everything in the middle, we remember that our intuition is the strongest tool we have. It is what has brought us this far and is what will keep us successful. It has not failed us yet and has protected us from bad investments, unethical circumstances, and immoral projects. In many ways, there is no algorithm for success in the creative industry, so at the end of the day, we follow what feels right. Which stories speak to us the most, which collaborators spark the most inspiration, and always ask what qualities we want to be remembered for. We focus on the legacy we want Skye Film Studios to leave. We have found that if we stay true to that, everything else begins to fall into place.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Skye Film Studios was started as an independent studio dedicated to creating quality content with a diverse slate showcasing authentic and original female voices. Unlike other production companies, we have created a unique model by utilizing our sister companies, Skye Stages and Skye Rentals, to create a triad of tools that our creative partners can utilize for success. Our focus has always been to build a platform where people of color, especially women, can share their unique stories. Our company is involved in all aspects of filmmaking beginning from development and ending with the distribution. We work with our creative partners from start to finish including idea and deck development, pitch creation, script development, pitching, pre-production, filming, post-production, and distribution. Because we are a small team, we take pride in the fact that each project we decide to bring onto our slate is something that we feel incredibly passionate about.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
My advice to those just starting out would be to not second guess your creative voice. Stay true to it and when you have an incline of self-doubt, seek out your community of support. Find a team that wants to see you succeed as much as you want them to succeed. Making a film is an incredible thing because it is impossible to do it alone. So my words of wisdom would be to find people you trust and stick with them because creative collaboration is where the real magic of this industry is.

Being able to start a company and see it grow wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t surrounded by people I love and respect. Always be true to your artistic voice and the legacy you want to leave. When approaching a project you have to be sure you’re in it wholeheartedly, because at the end of the day, you invest everything you have in this singular entity and you want it to be something that you are proud to say you were a part of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://skyefilmstudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyefilmstudios/

Image Credits
Skye Bleu