Victoria Maxwell
Executive Assistant & Aspiring Creative Development Executive
Former Development Branch Chief of The Creators Society
This week we would like to continue Women’s History Month, by shining a spotlight on Victoria Maxwell, an Executive Assistant, and aspiring Creative Executive currently seeking work in development or production support. A long-running Creators Society member, Victoria graduated with a degree in Cinema Production from Virginia Commonwealth University. Initially, her plan was to become a live-action feature director, but said, “The part of me that was enthusiastic at the beginning of college was slowly realizing that being on set for a live-action shoot was not where I wanted to be.” Luckily, she was offered an internship as a script reader at a production company, and through it found that development was her place to be. Then she saw the Disney documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, and from that point on, she knew she wanted to bring her entertainment skills to an animation studio.
Throughout her professional career, Victoria worked for a number of independent production companies in executive assistant roles. When asked to describe her day-to-day in these positions she said, “I would do a lot of administrative work, connect calls, and communicate with other offices at big agencies and studios. We had a lot of projects that we were shopping around, to try to get them made.” She also helped in the creative process as well, “I would be able to give my script notes sometimes and I always participated in the company’s internal creative meetings.” Victoria describes development work as being “...like a puzzle, where you start with nothing and the end is a movie or tv show.”
Victoria was laid off from her last position in March 2020, but she considers herself fortunate that, despite it being a year ruled by COVID, she’s worked hard to get a handful of interviews with many of the studios she’s looking to work for. She has also been able to network with dozens of new connections, and remains very optimistic about her future. Due to her love of developing projects and an innate knack for story, she hopes to become either a creative executive or producer for animated features, but she also passionately sees a lot of hidden potential in animated television created for the teenage space as well.
Victoria first discovered The Creators Society when she overheard someone discussing the group at a Women In Animation mixer, “I was already looking to get into more networking mixers, and I was excited to hear there was something else besides WIA.” She describes her favorite aspect of The Creators Society as the mix of people at different skill and career levels that all have the opportunity to meet each other at events. “What I find really valuable is having a resource with consistent networking events to help people with their careers by establishing true relationships.” She also has attended several of The Creators Society’s discussion event panels, but would like to see some more interactive stuff as well. To hit the ground running on this, Victoria has volunteered for The Creators Society since November 2020, and with her experience from being in pitch rooms, laid a hand in helping the Development Branch start up a new Pitch Practice interactive event series. (coming soon)
Victoria describes herself as having many hobbies, but says that most of them run parallel to her career, “...in my heart I’m an artist, and I like to do things that teach me how to enhance the art and emotion of a scene.” She says that she enjoys writing, photography, digital painting, and spending a lot of her free time watching YouTube videos about cinematography. She absolutely loves JRPG video games, sourcing them as a huge inspiration for her creative work, “I was always that nerdy girl in school who drew, watched anime, and played a lot of Final Fantasy.”
Beyond her artistic hobbies, what Victoria really loves to do the most is to make new connections with people through networking. “I was somebody who came to LA with zero contacts, and with no idea of how to make them. I learned how to make small talk by working at the Starbucks Drive-Thru. I never expect anything out of anyone, so with everyone I’ve met, it’s been me putting in the effort to tell myself, hey, you’re going to meet that awesome person and keep up that connection,” she says. Victoria’s approach to networking is based around a simple outlook, “You either get a yes or absolutely nothing. No one is ever outright going to say, no, I don’t want to talk with you. The worst that will happen is they just won’t respond, and the best thing that can happen is they might change your life! So be brave, go out there, and write that LinkedIn message!”
