Healing Power of Fairy Tales with Laura Lewis-Barr

In this episode, we’re joined by Laura Lewis-Barr. Laura is a woman of many talents, including being a playwright, freelance director, theater professor, and short-film maker. Her stop motion shorts have been screened across the country. Miniatures have always fascinated Laura, as she recognizes how they resonate with people. Laura has worked with live actors before, and unlike the actors, miniatures always do what you want them to. Laura is going to share with us the inspiration behind her films and what she hopes the audience will get out of them. On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast: Why Laura loves stop motion animation. The purchase that got Laura into working with miniatures. Laura’s experience working with live actors. What happened after her play, Cloistered Honey, was made into a movie. The definition of stop motion. Laura’s filmmaking style and why she says it suits her just fine. Laura’s personal experience with the field of psychology. What she hopes the audience gets from watching her films. How Laura was able to discover and understand her own wounds. The gifts traditional fairytales can give us. Why Laura says this work is her final career and the goal she’d love to meet next. The biggest challenge she has faced in her work and why. Why sharing your work can be difficult as a creative. Why Laura decided to work with Barbie dolls. The fairytale that reminds her to open up to the greater wisdom of the unconscious. Where to watch Laura’s free films. Connect with Laura Laura’s website: https://psychescinema.com/ Watch Laura's short films: https://psychescinema.com/free-short-films/ Quick Links: Join the Live. Love. Engage. Community Intuitive Business Coaching The Live. Love. Engage. Book Support the Podcast with BuyMeACoffee.com Enjoying what you're hearing on Live. Love. Engage.? Subscribe on Goodpods or your favorite podcast platform, and click here to leave a 5 STAR Review. You can also watch the conversation on YouTube. TRANSCRIPT You're listening to the live love engage podcast on today's show how to use fairy tales for your own personal development. Stay tuned. I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of the love method and author of the number one, Amazon Best seller, Live. Love. Engage. - how to stop doubting yourself and start being yourself. In this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully love, deeply and engage authentically. So you can create a life and business with more. Act influence and income. Welcome to live love, engage. Namaste and welcome, welcome to another addition of Live. Love. engage. And I am so glad that you are with us today because I am delighted to welcome a woman who is, someone who I, I have an affinity for. She's a creator. Let's, let's put it that way. And, and I've, and I've always been fascinated with, with film. I mean my whole life, frankly, so, and I know she's involved with that, but I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about her in a second, but first off, I wanna welcome Laura Lewis-Barr to live love, engage. Thank you, Gloria. Very excited to meet you and be here. Yeah. Well, I am excited to have our conversation, cuz we're gonna be talking. We're gonna be talking about fairy tales and Laura's journey. But first I wanna tell you who she is and, and. You know, what, what makes her an authority on this subject. So she has worked as a playwright, a freelance director and theater professor for over 15 years. And after her play, Cloistered Honey was made into a low budget film. Laura began making independent short films, and she actually does Stop motion shorts, and they have been screened at festivals around the country. And, you can view them there on her website and, and we'll share more about that information probably at the end of the broadcast. So make you sure you're listening for that and watching. but I wanted to start, I definitely wanna hear a little bit about your, your journey, but I really wanna talk. I thought we'd start off with, what is, what gets you excited about doing stop motion animation, I guess, I guess that's what it’s called right. and doing, creating these types of work, works. Wow. Such a great question. So imagine my basement and I have a stage, my husband built me and I have Barbies on magnets. So they are in position for the next scene. And I go down to do my laundry and they are waiting for me ready to film the next, right now I'm doing a short on the holy grail legend, the search for the holy grail. And I, you know, I think something about miniatures has always just fascinated me. I think as somebody who's very interested in Jungian psychology, I would say they're archetypal. I would say that they resonate somehow deeply in us. And then one more thing, I. I originally started this because I bought a camera and I wanted to learn how to use it. And these would be my patient actors and they are, and, I just fell in love with stop motion and the ability to tell a story that way, as I learned the camera. Well, I, I, I love that. And, and, and it is interesting that you, you know, you talk about the, the actors because yeah. At least they're not gonna talk back to you. They're not so you can just give them all the direction you want and they're gonna have to do it. So, which I think is kind of cool. Yeah, I, I have to confess, I must be kind of a control freak because I adore, you know, I worked with live actors for a long time and, you know, they don't always do what you ask them to, but the Barbies do. That's cool. So talk to us a little bit about how you, you know, really what, what brought you here. So, you know, cuz I mentioned you, you were, or, well, still are, you've worked as a playwright. You've been a, you've been a director, you've been a professor and now you're you're doing this. So how, how did that, what was that journey like? How did that evolve into what you're doing now? Yeah. So one of my plays that you read. Cloister Honey was made into a film and I was like, film, film lasts forever. Plays end at closing night. Mm-hmm and I just became enamored. So I bought this camera, started making stop motion films, and then the pandemic hit and wow. I was in such a sweet space because I could do this whole filmmaking in my house by myself. And so for two years during lockdown and I had been teaching public speaking. That's where my career had gone. I couldn't do that anymore. And so I really experienced the joy of being a creator without any limits, I could make whatever I wanted and take my characters wherever I wanted. So that's generally how I got here and now I'm on my 13th or 14th film. And since I love fairy tales, there's no end to the tales I can tell. Yeah, absolutely. And, you, you mentioned earlier, you said something about, Jungian philosophy or theory or, and, I want. Actually, no, you know, before I go there, I wanna actually ask you one other question before I dive into that, because I just realized that there may be people listening or watching this recording, and they're like, what the heck is, what does she mean Stop motion. So can you maybe just briefly explain, or maybe even. You know, give an example. Maybe someone might have seen it. Not really realize that that's what that is. Sure. Well, I guess the Grommit movies are stop motion if you've seen those. And it's essentially taking a photograph One after another, after another and putting them together in a sequence. So I, I move a Barbie, just a tiny bit, take a photo, tiny bit, take a photo. And eventually there's a movement that is like a live action. Oh, very cool. And I imagine it seems like that might be. Some people, or at least might think, boy, that sounds like it's gonna be really tedious work to be able to put that together, or at least let's say maybe, maybe not tedious, but, labor intensive, maybe might be a better way to put it. I'm not sure. For sure. And I guess it is what you love. I get to play with dolls and I'm really loving that. If I were doing it on the computer, some people do animation just via computer. That for me would be much harder than Fest this physical manipulation. And my style is kind of scrappy. It's not perfect, you know, and that suits me and my subjects fine, but yeah, it's labor intensive. I can't get, 'em done that fast. Yeah at I, like I said, I've well, actually I think I was mentioning before, even before we got on the interview today that I've always been, I've always been fascinated with movies and, and I used to way back when there used to be a magazine called premier magazine and I loved reading it. And just everything about, about the entertainment industry has always interested me, but, you know, I studied acting in college, but didn't do anything with it. So I just, the closest I got was being able to work in television. So at least I have had that experience, but I, I, I love creativity and I think it's really cool. So now I wanna get back to where I was starting to head and. You know, you talk about that, you're dealing with fairy tales and you mentioned also something about Jungian theory, Carl Jung, the psychologist. So what is it about that? a little bit, maybe expand on that theory and then why you're, you're focusing in on fairy tales. Yes. So I've had two passions in my life. Theater/drama and psychology. And I was studying to be a counselor. So I have a lot of research and a lot of personal experience with the field of psychology and Jung is the one that I love the best. For those people, Jungians, fairy tales are sort of like dreams of a culture and they have a lot of Embedded wisdom in them, supposedly. And so, I mean, fairy tales are just fun on a surface level. Right. But then we can start analyzing the characters as maybe being parts of ourselves, like parts of dreams....