Alum Celia Hubbard Produces Trailer for Professor’s Documentary Film

This is what it means to come full circle. It's been six years since Celia Hubbard ('13) was a student in Garland Waller's Hothouse Productions class, collaborating with a team of fellow filmmakers on an intensive, client-driven production. She produced a behind-the-scenes video highlighting the experience of creating a PSA for The No Project: a global educational campaign raising awareness about human trafficking.

"Celia was masterful as a young student, talking to the client who was based in Athens, Greece," says Garland. "She would wake up at 2AM so she could call the client and work out details of the shoots." Celia left such an indelible mark on her professor, that when Garland told her about the her idea of the documentary, Celia said, “If you make it, I will do the trailer for you.” 

“I thought Celia might have forgotten or didn't have the time, but she found time in her busy work schedule at Open Road to create the trailer for The Silent Soldier and the Portrait.”

On Friday, February 1, Garland and Celia will present both the screening of the full-length film and the trailer—discussing the process of how 25 hours of footage was distilled down to an hour, and how an hour-long film was then turned into a two-minute trailer.

We chatted with Celia to hear more about her career as a producer, and how her experience at COM helped her get where she is today.

Let’s start from the beginning: When and how did you know you wanted to be a film and television producer?

When I graduated from college I knew that I wanted to work on television shows, but wasn’t totally sure in what capacity. It wasn’t until I met up with a friend for some career guidance that I learned about creative agencies and how they partner with studios and television networks to produce campaigns. I loved producing and editing, I was obsessed with movie trailers, and I was a television junkie…it seemed like the perfect fit for me and a couple months later I started as a production assistant at Open Road.

As a PA, I would go to each office collecting lunch orders from the editors and producers. While they would browse the menu, I would use that ninety seconds to find out what they were working on and see if there was anything I could do to help them along in the process. I mentioned to one of the producers that I was really interested in a new show that they had brought in from E! and would love to help if they needed anything. Well…that conversation turned into the opportunity to go through 10,000 production stills, to pitching a concept for a launch spot, to then working with an editor to execute the promo. The clients liked my spot and I got my very first finish and an order to do four more. It was in that moment that I realized I had found my dream job and I could not wait to keep producing.

How did COM, particularly Garland Waller’s class(es), prepare you for your career?

Creative Producing and Hothouse prepared me in more ways than I ever could have imagined for my career. I will never forget pitching a reality show to Andy Cohen at Bravo over Skype as the final for Creative Producing. Professor Waller not only taught me about what it takes to pitch a show and garner interest– which is essentially what I do every time I work on a campaign, but she also taught us so much about what it takes to market yourself in a pitch. Do you understand your audience, do you know who the network is, what are they looking for, etc.

Hothouse was unlike any college class I have ever experienced. Professor Waller held us to the highest standard when it came to working with our client. We operated with a real budget, production schedule, a cast and crew of twenty-five, and had to work through several unexpected complications with our PSA for The No Project. There were several times that I had to wake up at 3am to Skype with our client in Greece because we were on a tight deadline and we were working with a significant time difference – it doesn’t get more real than that!

Can you tell us about Open Road?

Open Road is an award-winning creative agency that specializes in theatrical, broadcast and streaming marketing. Campaigns used to be all about the trailer, but today, it’s an industry that is consistently evolving and changing – think of all the marketing you see when you are scrolling through Instagram. We create everything from trailers to TV spots, social, digital, and micro creative specifically designed for the platforms you see them on, like Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat. We’ve done reels for the Emmys, a main title sequence, graphics spots, and even had our creative go viral. Our team of producers, editors, copywriters, graphics designers, music supervisors, and support staff are incredibly passionate about the work that we do. We love film and television and we love being creative and challenging ourselves to create content that cuts through the clutter.

In your role, do you focus only on one specialty area (such as trailers)? Or do you work on a bit of everything?

I work on all elements of a campaign including trailers, launch spots, episodics, social, digital, and micro content for network, cable, and streaming shows. One of the most exciting things about my job is the ability to work on projects that vary in genre across different networks and platforms. I’ve worked on comedies, drama, children’s programming, animated, reality, sci-fi, horror, and documentary series for networks including: ABC, Bravo, CBS, CBS All Access, The CW, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, E!, FOX, Lifetime, Marvel TV, MTV, NBC, Netflix, Oxygen and many others. It’s exciting to challenge yourself to think in different ways and I love the ability to start my day working on a kids show and finish the day working on a comedy or heavy drama.

In this day and age, we are completely surrounded by marketing for everything under the sun. It’s rare that people want to be advertised to, but they do with movies and television.  I think that’s what makes this kind of creative such a unique and powerful medium.

Is there a recent project that you feel especially proud of? 

In my five years at Open Road, I have had the ability to work on so many exciting campaigns and partner with fantastic clients. I am so proud of everything I’ve worked on. I was a huge Disney Channel kid growing up and very recently got to work on the trailer for the Kim Possible live-action movie premiering on Disney Channel this year. If the ten-year-old me could see me now, she would be so impressed that I had worked on a DCOM. 

How do you approach producing a trailer?

It’s 100% a collaborative effort and I feel so lucky to be able to work with such a talented team on a regular basis. When diving into a new project, I enlist the help of an editor, copywriter, music supervisor, and graphics producer to watch the material and brainstorm. We develop the story we want to tell and tone for the piece, and then we get to work! The amazing thing about having so many creative individuals involved is that someone always has an idea that sparks inspiration for moving us forward. Sometimes it’s the song that really gets us excited, or a great line of the copy, or maybe the editor found a really interesting way to construct the story in a way you didn’t quite see coming. Everyone has something unique that they bring to the table that contributes to a one of a kind storytelling experience. My favorite part of a project is seeing the final product come to life in the edit bay. Seeing an idea that started out in someone’s mind or on a piece of paper translate to the screen is something that never gets old.

What was your overall impression and takeaway after watching Garland’s documentary, and how did that contribute to the process of creating the trailer for The Silent Soldier and the Portrait?

I was blown away by this documentary. The story and relationship Professor Waller has with her father were all things that contributed to a very genuine emotional experience for the viewer. I think she did a beautiful job telling her father’s story in a way that honored his experience as a soldier, while also celebrating the man he became after the war.

For me, it was a very personal experience to produce a project for someone I considered a role model. Professor Waller taught me so much about storytelling and did so very eloquently in this film. I knew how personal this particular project was for her and her father, so our goal was to create a trailer that would reflect how much love was in her film and the epic nature of this journey.

I had an incredible team to work with on this – the editor put so much care into constructing this trailer from top to bottom, our music team found the perfect track to match the tone of the film, and our graphics team created the motion graphics and main title. Professor Waller was a fantastic client to work with and it was an honor to be trusted with the responsibility of creating this trailer for her film.

Any advice you’d like to share with our film and television students and recent graduates?

Be passionate, go above and beyond, and treat every task with the upmost detail, no matter what is it.

You will probably start your career as a production assistant and while grabbing lunch or doing transcriptions might not seem very glamorous, it is an opportunity to show what you are capable of. Take entry-level positions as an opportunity to master everything there is to know about your job so that you are a reliable expert that your team can depend on.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined getting my first producing job from a lunch order, but that conversation changed my life. That producer is now the owner of the company and has been my mentor for the last five years.