Belinda Stanley, founder and owner of Brasilia Productions, is a Louisville native whose fascination with television and motion pictures began in childhood. Before earning a full Courtney Ross Fellowship to pursue an MFA in Screenwriting at the University of Southern California, she completed an undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Louisville, followed by an Allen R. Hite scholarship for a Master’s in Teaching in Fine Arts and an Earl Warren Fellowship for Law School.
Stanley describes her time at USC as intensely hands-on rather than theory-driven. “If you’re in a writing class you’re writing all the time,” she recalls. She explains that early production courses provided equipment, but advanced courses required students to rent professional gear—the same equipment used by industry filmmakers. That rental process, she notes, helped students form relationships with industry professionals. In her words, “USC teaches you how to make a film.”
Before entering USC’s film program, Stanley had already worked as a model, art director, and political activist, and had spent fifteen years at Gannett Newspapers, Inc. “I was at the Courier-Journal for fifteen years,” she explains. “I was Art Director and writing copy. I went from advertising to news to marketing at the Courier-Journal.”
After graduating from USC, Stanley wrote an original award-winning script titled 911. The project became a source of controversy after the script was downloaded from the popular Blacklist site without her permission. The Blacklist is known for connecting screenwriters with studio executives and other industry professionals seeking new material. “It won the Slamdance/Writers Guild Association Screenwriting Competition in 2012,” she says. “There’s no illusion—I made the mistake by putting 911 on the Blacklist site. I wrote the original pilot for the 911 series.” Stanley believes many people who download scripts through the platform are honest, but the growing demand for new content has made some industry figures “desperate,” resulting in the misuse of writers’ work.
Although writers are often told to register their scripts with the Writers Guild of America, Stanley says her experience taught her otherwise. “I was taught when you apply with the Writer’s Guild, you’re protected. Copyright your material, because the Writer’s Guild doesn’t legally protect your stuff. I don’t waste time with the Writer’s Guild.”
During her years at USC, Stanley wrote, produced, and collaborated on classmates’ short films, including the award-winning In the Shadows and Hope Abandoned. She also wrote an award-winning television pilot titled Chiang, centered on a Chinese American detective. The pilot was once optioned by the ION Network, but Stanley recalls that executives resisted the project because it was “too Asian.” She was advised at one point to make the show a comedy to improve its marketability, years before the success of Fresh Off the Boat. She describes Chiang as a procedural following a detective who solves a new case each week, a format she believes audiences gravitate toward because they feel “one step ahead of the detective.” She even adapted Chiang into a feature script to meet industry demand, but encountered the same reluctance toward an Asian lead role. In one instance, an Asian female producer told her the script would sell in Asia only if the main character were rewritten as a white male.
After USC, Stanley worked for 18 months in the marketing department at KCET, a PBS affiliate in Southern California. She contributed to Daytime Emmy–nominated and Peabody Award–winning programs such as A Place of Our Own and Los Niños En Su Casa, and assisted in marketing for Tavis Smiley, Jim Henson Studios, and other major clients. “I started writing and producing promo and fundraiser spots for KCET,” she says.
Through agencies such as Friedman Employment Agency, Buchwald, Abrams, and William Morris, she later worked for numerous entertainment companies. She spent three years with Fantastical Cinema, associated with filmmaker Roger Corman, where she handled accounting duties and much of the line producer’s responsibilities on projects including The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring the late Tony Todd. Some gigs lasted weeks, others just a day. She even worked briefly for a company associated with the late television legend Norman Lear. Stanley also secured a position at Cedric the Entertainer’s A Bird and Bear Productions and worked as a field producer for A&E’s After the First 48. Additional credits include the Food Network’s Foodography, the Discovery Channel’s Nerve Center, and a staff writer and script supervisor role on the television drama In the Mix.
In 2012, frustrated with industry barriers, Stanley launched her own company, Brasilia Productions. “Instead of waiting on someone to make it happen for you, you have to make it happen for yourself,” she says. Becoming a producer, she notes, offered longevity: “No one cares how old a producer is, and that’s just a fact.” She envisions producing large-scale films, saying, “I want to do the epic blockbuster that used to be the Cecil B. DeMille.”
Stanley is currently producing a film in Kentucky titled A Gift of Royal Proportions, which she wrote and which lists Buffalo 8 as one of the executive producers. She continues to generate new ideas while learning more about the industry each day.
For students at Kentucky State University interested in film production, Stanley recommends consulting the Staff Me Up website for opportunities and stresses that the best education comes from working on set. “We don’t make enough films in Kentucky where people can work continuously,” she says. “You may not work again after a couple of months.”
