April 12, 2018

Alumni Spotlight: Kate Rhamey

NFFTY has grown into a wonderful community of over 2,500 filmmakers from around the world. Alumni have experienced successes in many areas of the media industry. To celebrate these achievements, we are highlighting NFFTY alumni here!

First up is Kate Rhamey, a NFFTY ‘13 alumni whose film Eternal Springs captivated audiences with its dramatic tension. Since screening at NFFTY, Kate continued growing her Los Angeles-based production company KR Squared Productions and recently got involved with an exciting opportunity through the CW network. She pitched an idea for a TV series based off of the popular book Cupid’s Match and was selected to produce a pilot based on her idea! Additionally, Kate's production company did a short film for Lionsgate for the PR of the film Wonder. The short is nominated for a Digiday Content Marketing Awards for Best User Generated Content. 

OUR INTERVIEW WITH KATE RHAMEY

NFFTY: How did the Cupid’s Match opportunity come about for you? 

KATE: We’ve shot quite a few narrative commercial spots for Tongal. So when they opened up this project for pitch submissions we were in. The first round was a competition of sorts where they picked three production companies to create teasers. In the end, our team was selected to move forward with the pilot, which is now airing on CW Seed’s platform.

NFFTY: What were some of the challenges of producing a pilot based on a finished book

KATE: Definitely casting. The book, Cupid’s Match, has over 36 million reads. So that’s 36 million different opinions on who should play each role, which is crazy challenging. Finally, we realized that we had to block that out and focus on finding talented actors who could embrace the complexities of the character.  

NFFTY: Why were you attracted to this particular story?

KATE: We love the genre of CW shows, and Cupid’s Match fits perfectly into their programming. I mean think about it... the story has it all: suspense, romance, action, and super cool characters. The author Lauren Palphreyman did a great job.

NFFTY: What’s next for you with this project? 

KATE: Well, we’re in a waiting game. Wattpad and The CW are monitoring the response to see if there is a demand for the show. So... we have our fingers and toes crossed that the season gets greenlit. Fact is, we had so much fun working with our awesome cast and crew that we don’t want it to end.

Good luck, Kate & crew!