Kacie Anning: The Next Step series

Writer/director Kacie Anning talks about her journey from AFTRS to Hollywood.

Needing advice on taking the next step in your screen career? ‘The Next Step’ series will showcase a selection of creatives who have made or are making the transition from short form (short films, web series) to long form content (TV series, feature films). Subscribe to Screen Australia’s newsletter for additions to the series.

In this episode, Kacie Anning explains how short films and the festival circuit wasn’t her path to working in long form narrative. Rather, she embraced the web series format.

“What I always tried to do with Fragments of Friday, my kinda ‘calling card’ web series was to create a mini TV show,” says Anning.

With two seasons of Fragments of Friday under her belt, Anning felt it was easier to then pitch herself to producers – using the web series to demonstrate what she had achieved with very little time and money.

“In terms of pitching yourself, you just have to be confident and you have to come in with a take. You have to have a version of what you see is the show… But I think tone is everything in a pitch.”

Anning also discusses how she pitched to land the directing job on Stan’s The Other Guy and how a casual breakfast in Los Angeles with legendary showrunner Greg Daniels (Parks and Recreation, The Office) led to her directing episodes on his new Amazon show, Upload.