Passion projects and personal storytelling with Vickie Sampson
In this series, we will be highlighting many notable people who have contributed to the queer community in media. We’ve asked them some questions to provide us with an introduction on who they are and what we can expect from them in the future.
Vickie Sampson is an award-winning producer, writer, director, and film and sound editor. She has over 200 credits of sound work, including Academy Award winning films. She has written, directed, produced and edited three award winning short films and many commercials. With over 40 years of experience, she has won four Golden Reel Awards and an Emmy.
In 2017, Vickie produced, directed and edited the short ‘Shelby's Vacation’ written by Nancy Beverly. The story follows two women who meet by chance at a resort cabin and discover what is holding each of them back from fully living their lives. It won Best LGBTQ short at the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival.
Her latest film ‘Reflections’ is best described by Vickie as “exploring issues of identity, love, acceptance and coming to grips with who you are at your core, no matter what the cost.”
What are you best known for?
I’m best known for having done the sound editing on over 224 feature films and shorts including “Return of the Jedi,” “Donnie Darko,” “Speed,” (which won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing) “Ironweed,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Sex and the City (I and II),” “Ordinary People,” “The River,” (which won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing) “On Golden Pond, “The Prince of Tides,” to name a few! I have also been enlightening filmmakers about how to learn “sound consciousness” for their films. (And how to get the best sound for their sound buck) since 1992. Directing-wise, I’m best known for my 2000 award-winning short film “Click Three Times” starring the late Isabel Sanford who plays a homeless woman hiding in the garage of a young mentally challenged woman who thinks she has discovered her very own Fairy Godmother, a role the homeless woman is enjoying.
What is the first thing you directed?
The first thing I directed was in 1987 when I was chosen as one of twelve women (out of 600 applicants) to direct our first films in the prestigious Directing Workshop for Women at AFI. It was a short film I wrote and directed called, “The Last Chance Saloon,” It was about a woman in an advertising company whose ideas were stolen by her male colleague and passed off as his own and she fantasizes how she would have dealt with this problem in the Old West. In her fantasy, she sees herself as the rightful deputy and has to prove herself over and over to the Sheriff. The “Sheriff” in her fantasy is her boss at the Ad Agency, who after being confronted with proof that the ideas were hers, finally offers her the job.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
Actually, I think everyone who knows me, knows that I’ve been working on writing and eventually directing a feature film that is my passion project! It’s called “Always, Annie.” It's a love story about two girls who meet at an equestrian summer camp in the 60s, fall in love and spend the next 50 years trying to be together. The story encompasses the civil rights movements, feminist rights, lesbian and gay rights - the marches, the music festivals, marriages, children, deaths, intolerance, other lovers/partners, and bad timing. It's all in there! "Sometimes it takes a lifetime to be with the one you love." This film covers so much of our gay/lesbian history in a very personal way and it's a timely and timeless love story. I'm now trying to raise the funds for it and attract really great actors - actors that I've made relationships with over the years of working with them in my sound editing work.
