Behind The Scenes Of R29’s Shatterbox Film Watching You, Watching Me

What does it really mean to see someone for who they are? And what happens when you watch them calculate who you are from a single glance? In the new short film Watching You Watching Me, director Pamela Romanowsky explores perception, judgment, and the feeling of otherness. Romanowsky, a veteran filmmaker, has never shied away from the challenges of self-exploration and the significance of these experiences — making her an exemplary person to tackle the subject matter.

This is the first short film presented in Refinery29's newest original series Shatterbox Anthology — a series determined to crush the status quo and show something real. Representation in the film industry is as much about who we put in front of the camera as who we put behind it.

In a 2014 study, writer and producer Stephen Fellows created a dataset of the 100 top (grossing) films between 1994 and 2013 (a total of 2,000 films) that premiered at U.S. Box Office. According to his research, only 21.8% of crew members on those 100 films were women. The dataset also showed that in that 1994 to 2013 timeline, the film Mean Girls had the most female crew members — making up 42% of the crew. We'd expect nothing less from Tina Fey, our patron saint of women in film, as the leader in this space. We can do better.

Here are exclusive photos that go behind the scenes of the films from Watching You Watching Me.

ShatterBox Anthology is pleased to debut the short film Watching You Watching Me by director Pamela Romanowsky available now at Refinery29.com/Shatterbox and on Comcast Watchable.