Meet Hannah Rice

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hannah Rice. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hannah below.

Hannah, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

I always look across different art mediums to find sources of creativity. I am an avid reader, particularly of fiction, and so use this to spark new ideas for my own work or just simply to escape into another world and character. I also love music of all genres. I listen to alt. rock, hip-hop, prog-rock, classical, new wave, electronic-pop, anything that has a distinct identity that I can draw creative inspiration from. Music is such a great vehicle for understanding human emotion and for creating compelling stories in a limited amount of time. Even music with no words tells a story and evokes an emotional response in listeners. I often create playlists based on what I am currently writing that encompass the tone or feeling of the work.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a writer and actor originally from Aotearoa, New Zealand (the great land down under down under). After studying Economics and Cognitive Science at Northwestern University, I pivoted to a more creative path. I worked as a theater actor and writer for a number of years in Aotearoa, New Zealand, where my one act play Blood Business was shortlisted for Playmarket, NZ’s Playwrights B424 competition in 2021. Following this, I attended the American Film Institute Conservatory where I earned my Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting and was able to hone my craft as a writer.

My work is predominantly comedic, occasionally traversing sub-genres such as mockumentary, dramedy or romantic comedy. I have penned a number of professionally produced short films and have also worked as a comedy writer for hire. In these circumstances, directors have come to me with ideas or an outline and have sought my help in bringing this vision to fruition. Most recently, I was a co-writer on the narrative short film Shangri-La which has played at LA Shorts International Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, Boston Film Festival, AFI Fest and Ridgeway Film Festival. Other collaborative work includes the short comedy films Finessin and The Invite, which both premiered at the Indie Nights Film Festival in Los Angeles. Being able to creatively collaborate is one of my favorite aspects of working as a writer and I always approach the work with a sense of play and fun.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Humility, you are never above a particular job or person.
Gratitude, always be grateful for how far you have come and who has helped you along the way.
Asking for help. Understand where your strengths lie and what areas you find challenging or have room for improvement. Then, learn how to identify those qualities in other people in your line of work. You can then use this information to use the strengths of others to help better yourself and in turn, use your own capabilities to support others.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am always looking for film producers to collaborate with, particularly those in the independent film space who are experienced and hard-working whilst always maintaining a sense of enthusiasm. Filmmaking is a team sport and it’s always exciting to find other creative folks who are aligned in terms of what stories we are passionate about telling. People can message me directly through my website www.hannahzrice.com to chat more about working together!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hannahzrice.com
• Instagram: @hannahzrice
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-z-rice-5baa8017b/

Image Credits

First two images are on set of the narrative short film, The Chop, which I wrote and stared in.