PLATFORM On Camera is a fully inclusive industry development program for young creatives, established during the pandemic in 2020. Owned by Breanna English, the initiative aims to guide like-minded and dedicated creatives into the industry by offering insight, information, and experience that accelerates their careers in the Film and Television industry. For dancers with a strict stage background, making the transition into TV and film can feel like stepping into the unknown. The heightened speed of the rehearsals, the ever-changing structure of the sets, and the somewhat alien nature of the cameras are enough to make even the most seasoned professional a little apprehensive. We caught up with Breanna to discuss PLATFORM on Camera in further detail.
Breanna, it’s a pleasure to catch up. For readers unfamiliar with you and your background, what drew you to a career in the arts?
What drew me in was music first. It’s the soul of everything, and as a result, everything creative including dance followed from there. Growing up, my brothers and I were always watching my father play with his band or listening to him play records. From Tina Turner to Hall and Oates, we always had a wide variety of music to dive into and explore. If I wanted to take it even further back, my grandfather was both a music producer and owned supper clubs that always brought in musical acts, so it seems like it was simply in my DNA to be an entertainer.
I fell in love with movement as a child and trained in all areas of dance. While on a family holiday in California most children would want to go to Disneyland, but I wanted to spend my vacation hitting up the professional dance studios in LA. At the time we could only afford one class, so I chose Choreographer Michael Rooney’s Funk class. Very fortunately for myself, this led to him inviting my parents and I to meet producers and directors in the LA industry while I was still at quite a young age.
I’ve now spent over 25 years in this business, helping to shape the lives of both children and adults through the dance and entertainment industry. I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to nurture my own creative pathways as a choreographer, producer, talent agent, event coordinator, and entrepreneur. When you are a creative mind you may start with something such as dance but in many cases that’s just your base to all of the other creative layers to your success ahead. As creatives, we could potentially be your next architect, designer, or film director, but many of us found our first layer of creativity through dance. We are designers at heart.
I have had many creative opportunities but the most profound career choice I have made recently was to help guide our next generation of creative talent in the film and TV industry.
My goal is to offer everything I wished I had when I was their age.
Who were your early influences and how did they impact your career?
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many creative geniuses throughout my career and understand the impact that meeting your idol or role model can have on a young mind.
One moment that will forever stand-out, was meeting famed actor/singer/dancer/entrepreneur Debbie Reynolds. I respect any woman that can lead with laughter, especially while working with the older generations of the film industry. Another powerful creative that has been a big influence is the one and only actor/dancer/choreographer/singer-songwriter/director/producer /entrepreneur, Debbie Allen. If only one day I can achieve a smidge of what Debbie Allen has achieved, I will be complete.
I always found inspiration through my peers. I used to watch other dancers in my community, at in-person auditions and be blown away by their talent. It gave me the energy and push I needed to go even further in my craft. Not in a competitive way but rather just straight-up inspired, “big-ups” moments.
To name other artists that I believe are currently game changers in our industry…Heather Laura Gray, Carlena Britch, Meisha Lee, Megan Lawson, and Taylor James. All started as dancers in our community and are now moving forward to gain additional new titles and heights to their own creative greatness.
I’ve had many mentors, which is the reason why I’m so willing to try something new. I’m of the mindset that it takes a village, more than idolizing one individual.
You have a long list of film and tv credits. Can you share with us some of your most memorable experiences, and what did you learn?
One of my credits that has been most memorable, though most may not recognize me, is when I played the role of the dancing Scooby-Doo in the feature film Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
Working alongside actors Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seth Green, Neil Fanning, and Alicia Silverstone, being directed by Raja Gosnell and choreographed by director Anne Fletcher was a dream.
But the most incredible memory from my Scooby-Doo experience was working on a night shoot with the late Peter Boyle. We chatted about the industry together and he shared some pretty amazing behind-the-scenes stories with me and Neil Fanning that night.
During Peter’s appearance on the Sharon Osbourne show, much to my surprise Peter decided to tell the audience about his encounter with Scooby-Doo and how he was actually a talented female. That was simply a standout moment in my career that made me feel special, and to be honest I’m not sure he was even there to plug the movie!
One incredible director I personally had the pleasure of working with recently was writer/director/producer Roshan Sethi. I really admired Roshan’s directing style and how he made every individual cast or crew feel heard throughout the production process. It really made an impact on the scenes itself because all creatives in front of the camera and behind the scenes felt invested in the storytelling. Roshan understands how to work with a movement team and found this extremely helpful to bring his full vision to life.
Oh and did I mention Roshan is also a physician??? I personally watched Roshan compare tools/camera equipment used in both professions to be similar. Think we can all learn a thing or two about achieving many goals in one lifetime from Roshan Sethi.
Which three traits define you?
Driven, kind, adventurous.
Please tell us about PLATFORM on Camera and its origins
PLATFORM On Camera was a passion project created during the pandemic to help guide primarily dancers into the film and TV industry. We’ve noticed a gap in the understanding of our entertainment community when artists, especially dancers, go from the pre-professional to the professional level. I noticed this constantly when I was an acting agent, from seeing the sheer amount of poorly put-together submissions to a consistent lack of understanding in the fields these creatives wished to work in. So, when the pandemic hit, I saw a clear time to help nurture our local creatives and accelerate their careers merely by educating and guiding them on how to properly enter the film and TV industry.
PLATFORM On Camera is a designed-for-you one-day industry workshop for young creatives.
We bring working industry specialists to the community with a leveled system that is based on our creative’s knowledge level that encourages community support vs competition. Finding your individuality is key in this industry and we are there to offer support in finding one’s on-camera confidence.
We are a full-service company providing support to not only help you enhance or start your demo footage, but also to add credits to your resume, gain more industry knowledge, as well as build your creative network. We also offer additional support in finding representation, private online consultations, parent support, career development, casting opportunities, and much more!
After creating our one-day workshops, we noticed a trend that our creatives kept coming back no matter the level. They started asking to participate regularly. So alongside one of our regular guest industry specialists, actor/choreographer/motion capture performer/producer Christian Lagasse, we created a career development program called “The COLLECTIVE”, which is a collective of like-minded individuals supporting one another to create opportunities & further their careers in the entertainment industry.
During terms 1 & 2 of The COLLECTIVE, our creatives attended weekly workshops from top creators & professionals across multiple industry fields. This includes workshops in: Acting for Film/Television, Audition & Self-Tape Techniques, Voice Over, Singing, Fight/Stunt Work, Motion Capture, Dance, Branding & Marketing, Career Development, Directing for Film, and more. What amazed us at every workshop was seeing that when our creatives were given the opportunity to see and learn about different aspects of our industry, how much their passion grew, and some even began to look for opportunities in other aspects of the entertainment world.
As their portfolios developed, we began to further their training and experience by creating on-set work opportunities. Immediately, we saw the power our creatives had built in coming together to work towards their goals. With fully developed portfolios, our creatives began signing with top Canadian talent agencies, while directors, producers, casting directors, and more were approaching our program looking to hire our skilled talent. To this date, our creatives have worked in front of and behind the camera on network TV pilots, music videos, commercials, motion capture projects, live stage events, and most recently a soon-to-be-announced feature film.
We are currently accepting applications for our career development program “The COLLECTIVE” Term 3, which will run from September to December 2023. We will also be traveling across Canada with our PLATFORM On Camera Workshops throughout this year. Our industry specialists are excited to be sharing their guidance in Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, and Saskatoon.
Stay tuned on our Instagram (@theoriginalplatform) and website (www.platformoncamera.com to reserve a spot. To give our creatives the best experience possible, our workshops have limited class-sizes, so be sure to register early!
I guess adapting a dance routine or executing any choreography on a set comes with challenges. How different is performing for film or television to theatre?
As dancers, we are naturally built from a young age to have many of the tools necessary to be successful when crossing over from the stage to a film set without even knowing that all of these beautiful gifts exist within.
One of our superpowers is the ability to adapt. From the forever changing set and blocking patterns to a scene can get tricky especially if you don’t know the on-set language and etiquette. Taking quick direction is a game changer, both on set and on stage, but being able to understand your surroundings such as which angle the camera is coming from or how to play around all the equipment is choreography all on its own. Also depending on the project’s budget, you are sometimes learning on the spot because the choreography needs to be set to match changes within the environment or project. Knowing your eyelines while delivering on the spot with a camera can feel foreign sometimes, even to the best technically trained dancers.
As dancers, we were taught the necessity of working hard by those who came before us, as with something like dance you only learn and improve through constant repetition and adaptation. However, when dancers of previous generations were taught, the focus was almost entirely on live performance. This has made the transition to on-camera performances much more difficult, as we are now a generation of creatives with ample new and trending ways to create a career in film.
Even live performances are typically being filmed these days for added revenue or promo materials, so it’s inevitable that every performer will need to learn the fundamentals of on-camera skills.
What other projects are you working on?
One beautiful layer that we didn’t anticipate when building The COLLECTIVE program was the insane amount of industry creators that would want to help and support the next generation. This has also allowed our PLATFORM team to be on set with our young creatives on their first projects to help guide them confidently through the process, prior to them tackling the industry on their own. This has been rewarding and beneficial not only to our creatives, but our creative team as well as the projects and companies we have been able to support.
Recently, we brought in international Choreographer Melena Rounis for a guest workshop to share with our young professionals, where she taught a dance combo to the Jonas Brothers’ new song ‘Waffle House”. Immediately after the workshop was finished, she asked a single question. “How do we make this into something”?
Well, after reaching out to our industry professionals to see who would be willing to collaborate with our creatives, we received over 40 responses in a single day from top creators throughout Vancouver. And in 8 days, with a team sparked by the goal of creating opportunities for these young talents, we made a full professional short film in “Brogan’s Diner”, owned by Shannon Brogan, where she donated her full restaurant to be able to bring our film to life. The IG post went viral after the Jonas Brothers liked and reposted it, receiving over 80k views in a single day.
Jonas Brothers commented in a recent interview: “”Waffle House” was born from a simple but powerful idea: When you sit down with the people that matter most, anything is possible. This song isn’t about a restaurant, it’s about coming together with the people you love and making your dreams come true.
And that’s what we at PLATFORM have found to be true at every moment of our film. Waffle House shows us that anything is possible when a like-minded community comes together.
Alongside Waffle House, our team is very excited to just wrapped a feature film where we were able to hire one of our union COLLECTIVE members as our skeleton crew.
What’s next for our PLATFORM team…well we are actively in pre-production for a new musical series, which will be heading to production later this fall. And while we wish we could share the other projects we currently have in development, we’ll have to wait until we are allowed to say more.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
We love helping out our next gen of creatives and parents that have those burning industry questions.
Please feel free to reach out to us directly on our:
PLATFORM On Camera Instagram – @theoriginalplatform
Or website – www.platformoncamera.com
Or my Instagram account @breannaenglish_choreo
Images provided courtesy of Breanna English
BTS Breanna English Movement Director On Set for Crawford Filmworks Pilot .heic cop
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