Grace Kelly

I've been working in film and TV production for 8 to 10 years, and my journey has taken me through various roles before landing in my current position as production manager at Great American Media, where I've been for almost three years. Great American Media is a faith-based television network and streaming platform, and it's been exciting to be part of the fastest growing segment of the industry. Before this, I worked on indie films in various capacities doing project management, and I also spent time at a digital marketing agency. My main area of expertise is producing - I really love the process of prepping and developing stories, packaging them, and guiding them in the right direction. Day to day, once our movies and TV shows are greenlit, I work with the production companies to ensure we're collecting all the assets we need for promotion, managing the post schedule, and keeping everything on track so projects make it to air on time. The industry is always changing - we've had to navigate strikes, the introduction of AI, and constant evolution, especially as the faith-based side of entertainment has really taken off and carved out its own space. What inspired me to get into this field was my desire to tell stories. I started my own media company, Kharis 1060, about three years ago, which really took off last year. At heart, I wanted to tell stories of people that are uplifting, authentic, and reflect themes of self-worth and faith. I believe stories have the power to penetrate people's emotions and break barriers. The main challenge I face is finding unique ways to raise funds to produce the stories I want to tell, especially since many of the creatives I work with don't have a lot of representation, so I try to find creative ways to amplify those stories and those voices. Right now, I'm working on what I consider my most notable achievement - a visual album/documentary hybrid called Open Heart Poetry that blends music, spoken word, and dance. We're about halfway through and on track to finish in September 2025. We've been releasing parts of it little by little, and we recently won Best Original Music Video for one piece called Jeremiah 29 at the Denson Black Film Festival in January. Beyond my creative work, I'm also launching a nonprofit this year called the Gardens Collective, which is like an artist incubation program that will raise funds to help artists at various stages of their careers push forth their creativity and bring out whatever they have inside of them. We're planning a launch event in August that will feature an art gallery and spoken word.