Filmmaker
Lisa Murray is a filmmaker, writer, blogger, and dreamer! Originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, Lisa moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career in film. Lisa is not one to follow convention as she follows her intuition to make life path choices. While interviewing at film studios, she was offered a position as an assistant to the CEO of a record label. Her brain told her not to take the job, to continue on with the job search at film studios, but her heart told her to go in the musical direction, that the experience and the people she would meet would change her life, and so she followed her heart.
While at a record label, Lisa experienced all areas of the music industry: recording sessions at the top recording studios with the industry’s best musicians, touring with the artists, assisting with publicity and promotion campaigns, and writing/producing artist EPKs (electronic press kits) and more. It was during this time that Lisa met music producer/composer, Dapo Torimiro who was then also an artist signed to the label as part of the four-member Gospel/R&B group, Kush. (Dapo is one of the subjects of Lisa’s documentary, “I Have Dreams Dammit!”)
Lisa eventually made her way to a film studio: Paramount Pictures, working with the distribution team from Dreamworks when they merged with Paramount. Lisa worked in both domestic and international distribution, working closely with top film directors on award-winning films. The short list includes Oliver Stone - World Trade Center, Bill Condon / David Geffen - Dreamgirls, David Fincher – Zodiac & The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Antoine Fuqua – Shooter, Michael Bay (Bay Films) – Transformers & Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Robert Zemeckis – Beowulf, Tim Burton – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, J.J. Abrams (Bad Robot) – Cloverfield & Star Trek, Kimberly Peirce – Stop Loss, Jon Favreau - Iron Man, Steven Spielberg (Amblin Entertainment) – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ben Stiller (Red Hour Films) – Tropic Thunder, Peter Jackson – Lovely Bones, Sam Mendes – Revolutionary Road, Zack Snyder – Watchmen, and Martin Scorsese – Shutter Island.
Some of the Jeffrey Katzenberg / Dreamworks Animation films include Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, Shrek the Third, Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and Monsters vs. Aliens.
It was during her time at Paramount Pictures that Lisa started her YouTube channel to blog about the struggles of maintaining a full-time job while also pursuing her dreams. She has since become a YouTube Partner.
In 2010, Lisa left her “safe” job at Paramount to focus on her film and writing projects and to finish her documentary, I Have Dreams Dammit! – a feature documentary about the REALITIES of pursuing dreams. In January of 2011, Lisa began production on her second feature documentary: TopLiners. The details about TopLiners are not yet publicized but it is involving some aspect of the music industry.
Both films are currently in production.
You can follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMurray, “Like” her Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the LisaMurray.com blog.
For specific news and info about I Have Dreams Dammit!, follow @DreamDocFilm, “Like” the Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the I Have Dreams Dammit blog.
For specific news and info about TopLiners, including finding out who is in the film and links to view early footage, follow @TopLiners, “Like” the TopLiners Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the TopLiners blog.
