Daneeta Loretta Jackson

The ElekTrik Zoo
Director, Screenwriter and Transmedia Producer

New Orleans, Louisiana

Member Since:
August 2011

Last online:
> 2 weeks ago

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About Daneeta

I am a filmmaker, visual artist and transmedia storyteller as well as the Creative Director and Partner with Patrick Jackson at the New Orleans-based creative content partnership known as The ElekTrik Zoo. I have written, produced and directed over 40 short-form narrative, documentary and experimental films, three long-form films, and a variety of commercial, industrial, PSA, branded videos, social media spots and web videos, as well as photographs and words for a number of clients large and small.
My award-winning narrative film “Destiny lives Down the Road” won Best Louisiana Short at the New Orleans Film Festival and screened internationally at the London Film Festival and Bristol Brief Encounters among others. The film attracted the curators at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans who commissioned us to produce “Chalmatia: a fictional place Down the Road,” which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louisiana Division of the Arts. The installation included over 400 photographs, 86 text pieces, an hour long film, and an installation component.
Most recently, my short film project "Destiny is an Outlaw" was a finalist in the inaugural #CreateLouisiana Filmmaker Grant, a $50,000 grant for short film making. This short film is part of an ongoing Transmedia project entitled "Down the Road," which includes fictional, documentary and experimental stories on a variety of platforms.
I’m a native of Big Branch, Louisiana: the daughter of an electrician and a beautician, I clawed myself out of the bayou to travel far and wide. At the beginning of my career, I worked as a writer in Tokyo, and I still write about every kind of thing in a variety of forms in print and online. In 2000, I moved from Tokyo to London to attend the London Film School, ranked in the top 15 film schools in the world. That’s where Patrick and I met and co-founded the ElekTrik Zoo. We moved to New Orleans in 2008 to pursue a transmedia project set in the deep south. After 15 years, I still write all of our ElekTrik content.

Unique traits: I'm a story catcher. Strangers tell me their stories in intimate detail without any provocation. I have that kind of face, I guess.

Gender:
Female

Certifications

Photos

Loglines

Cassandra A young girl draws a tragic future for her father, but he ignores her warnings until it is too late.
Destiny lives Down the Road Drama ⋄ Film-noir ⋄ Thriller In the American Deep South everyone hustles the system, and no one can be trusted, least of all authority figures. “Destiny lives Down the Road” is the bare-fisted story of a teenaged girl's survival in a dog-eat-dog world. This is a white trash opera of epic and violent proportions.

Credits

Mr. Joe lives Alone (0000 - 2015)
Documentary by The ElekTrik Zoo Director/Producer A 96-year old man copes with living alone after his wife of nearly 50 years dies of Alzheimer's.
Flashback (2012)
Theater by Artist Inc. (Drama) Motion Designer A collaboration of dance and video around the theme of starting over.
Mrs. Carmella Prays (2010 - 2011)
Documentary by The ElekTrik Zoo (Documentary) Director/Producer Eighty-nine year-old Mrs. Carmella prays every day, twice a day for up to three hours. She prays for her family. She prays for her neighbors. And she prays for overall health, wealth, happiness, and peace for the entire population of the world.
Destiny lives Down the Road (2010 - 2011)
Film (short) by The ElekTrik Zoo (Drama) Writer/Director/Producer A sixteen-year old girl fights to get her life back on track when she moves back to her home town after a two year hurricane hiatus.
Little Baby Eyes (2009)
Film (short) by Patrick Jackson (Fantasy) Producer, Director As the sun sets over New Orleans, the city becomes alive with darkness and light. One light shines brighter and searches the city for a playmate. First, it visits an old man whose advanced years makes him an unsuitable playmate. It visits a child asleep in bed. Finally, the light discovers Little Baby Eyes at an abandoned gas station. They play together throughout the night. When the sun comes up, the light is gone, and Little Baby Eyes watches the sun rise. Written by Daneeta Loretta Jackson
Tokyo Cowboys (2008)
Film by Patrick Jackson (Documentary) Producer, Director, Writer
Daybreak (2008)
Film (short) by Patrick Jackson (Drama) Producer Late one night, Bella happens upon a single passenger auto accident. Unable to speak, the man urgently pushes a packet of photographs into her hands. At daybreak, Bella seeks out the man's family to return the photographs with disastrous results. Written by Daneeta Loretta Saft
Liza (2008)
Film (short) by Patrick Jackson (Documentary and Biography) Producer In the early 80s, director Patrick Jackson, while still a child, traveled to Libya with his family. There they recorded memories on super 8 footage, which was stored away. In this experimental short documentary, Jackson revisits the footage to discover his mother: a young woman sun drenched and in the blush of youth. Suddenly, the footage is literally fast-forwarded to present day wintry Sweden. The woman in the earlier footage has aged nearly 30 years. Set to a haunting track by eclectic musician Franz Kirmann, this short film captures what it is to time trip through memory. Written by Daneeta Loretta Saft
MindFlesh (2008)
Film by Robert Pratten (Horror, Sci-Fi and Thriller) Production designer MindFlesh is a psycho-sexual horror/thriller about obsession. Chris Jackson is a taxi driver with a childhood trauma. The trauma has made him a portal for obsessions to pass from the mind to the physical world and hence disrupt the world's multiple planes of reality. Extraterrestrials that police the universe threaten to kill Chris' friends unless he conquers his past Written by Zen Films
Fragile (2006)
Film (short) by Patrick Jackson (Fantasy and Horror) Producer/Art Director Over the course of one night, a woman tortures herself with horrific nightmares.
The Making of 'London Voodoo' (2005)
Video by Daneeta Loretta Jackson (Documentary) Director, Cinematographer, Editor