Radical Filmmaking with Emily Best
#### Do you feel like you see yourself and your friendships reflected in most TVs or movies? We sure don\u2019t. Emily Best tells us why we won\u2019t get more diverse representations of women on screen unless we change the way films and shows are funded and distributed\u2014and how she plans to do just that.\n\nEmily is a producer, director, and the founder and CEO of [Seed & Spark](https://www.seedandspark.com), a new crowdfunding and streaming platform that wants to change the way entertainment is made and distributed\u2014so that independent creators can actually _be_ independent. She started Seed & Spark after making her own first film, where she learned just how little Hollywood\u2019s middlemen understood about reaching women.\n\n> I started thinking of all the movies I had ever watched and everything that was available to me and I was like, \u201cwhere are my friendships? Where are the women I admire?\u201d And they were nowhere to be found. And so, that summer we started toying with the idea of making a movie that would represent female friendships the way that we understood them. And I didn\u2019t know that this was a radical idea. \n> \u2014 **Emily Best** , founder of [Seed & Spark](https://www.seedandspark.com), on why she made her first film\n\nWe talk about:\n\n- Why the film industry doesn\u2019t see women as a viable audience (spoiler: they\u2019re wrong about that).\n- Using a wedding registry website to create a crowdfunding campaign for her first film.\n- Why Seed & Spark is the only streaming service with a pay-what-you-can model\u2014and a community where creators and fans build real connection.\n- Why algorithmic content recommendations\u2014a la Netflix\u2014lead us to an unsatisfying place (and how to change that).\n- The importance of [creating a code of conduct](https://medium.com/@emilybest/conduct-yourself-1a26193abfeb) for online communities\u2014\\_before\\_ you\u2019ve got trolls and Nazis.\n- [Fck Yes!](https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/fck-yes-series#updates/20146), a webseries about consent that shows what happens when people actually _talk_ in the bedroom\u2014and how awkward moments can turn into extremely sexy ones.\n- What\u2019s next for Emily: A documentary project about the [Equal Rights Amendment](https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/) (which is _still_ not ratified).\n\n**Follow Emily** : [Twitter](https://twitter.com/emilybest?lang=en) | [Medium](https://medium.com/@emilybest)\n\nPlus: Sara and Katel get real about their own failures when it comes to diversifying who\u2019s involved in what, and talk about their fave subject: female friendship (and donuts).\n\n> By doing the thing that was easy, which was bringing in somebody who was already connected to us, who we knew would be a good fit, we weren\u2019t able to think about the benefits of bringing in somebody from a different background. \n> \u2014Sara\n## Sponsors\n\nThis episode of NYG is brought to you by:\n\n[](https://www.shopify.com/careers)\n\n_[Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/careers), a leading global commerce platform that\u2019s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit [shopify.co](https://www.shopify.com/careers)_