Emerging filmmaker and multi-hyphenate creative, LaChelle Chrysanne just debuted her powerful short film, **"One of The Guys"**, at the **Micheaux Film Festival** this summer. Supported by a grant from Johnnie Walker and Blacktag's Creator Fund, the film draws inspiration from Chrysanne's personal experiences in the indie music scene and platonic friendships with the opposite sex. Chrysanne's thought-provoking film sparks essential conversations surrounding consent and complicity by challenging societal norms and exploring the complex dynamics of gender within male-dominated environments.
**Portait photographed by Yekaterina Gyadu**

SHEER: Tell us a little bit about LaChelle and your upbringing. Anything you want to share about where you grew up?

LaChelle Chrysanne: I grew up in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota right outside of Minneapolis. I was raised in a single parent household and I was the youngest child. I was the only child in the household from the age of eight so I was raised like an only child and I had a lot of alone time. I think that really helped shape the space that I ended up having to cultivate really unique interests.

I was really good at entertaining myself as a kid and super into reading and writing. I started creative writing when I was eight. I was writing stories and then poems and doing normal little girl stuff, playing with Barbie dolls and watching Disney movies and that kind of thing; a Midwest Minneapolis upbringing. It's a little different. I feel like a lot of people don't really know what the Black experience is like there, but I definitely had an unconventional kind of coming-of-age [story] for sure.

SHEER: What would you say your heritage is?

LC: My family is Black American through and through. I have census records going back to the 1800s. I have ancestors that fought in the Civil War and both World Wars. Very Black American. Although 23 & Me claims that I have Jamaican ancestry and I'm like, “I don't know how.”

SHEER: Have you been to Jamaica?

LC: I have been to Jamaica. That was actually the first international trip I went on with my mom in 2013. I remember it very vividly because it was the day Beyoncé dropped [her] self titled [album]. I was on the plane watching Self-Titled on my way to Jamaica.

SHEER: That’s amazing.

SHEER: So you talked a little bit about having a lot of alone time and creative writing. When would you say you really discovered an interest in being creative and actually approaching that as a career path and more specifically as a filmmaker?

LC: I had kind of a non-linear path. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a creative. I really wanted to be a singer. I used to record these little demo tapes on my karaoke machine and then as you get older, life kind of steals your joy away and you realize, “Okay, I have to do something more practical”. Especially in a single parent household. The expectation is when you graduate, you’re on your own, you gotta figure it out. So for a while, I just kind of put that away. There was no real goal or approach that I was taking to pursuing the arts at all. I was actually going to go to school for social science and then I started to get back into pursuing artistry, like really pursuing artistry. When I was growing up, I was always in choir, I did talent shows. I was always kind of involved in the arts, but then I decided to pursue it when I was actually a little bit older, like 23. I decided I was just going to try it out.

A pastor told me I had gifts [that] I was not using when I sang at my uncle's funeral. My uncle was a musician. He taught Stokely [Williams] of Mint Condition how to play the drums. I came from a family of musicians and so I was like, alright, let me just try this out. I moved to Chicago in 2012 and I started to get more into music. I was regularly in the local indie scene performing gigs with a live band. A lot of my creativity started to evolve out of necessity. I would need to make flyers for my show so I learned how to do graphic design, and that became something that I was actually good at.

Throughout all of this. I was always a blogger, writing op-ed essays, those kinds of things. So that's where it started. I moved to New York in 2016 and started a media brand UNPOPCULTR, which was all about highlighting the work of BIPOC creatives. I would curate events and also DJ them. So I did all these things, and then eventually landed on film because I've always been a storyteller at my core.

I started writing scripts just for fun in 2015. I didn't have any script writing software at all. It just became this thing I was doing as a hobby and then in 2020, I started to take it a little more seriously. My partner is a filmmaker and he really encouraged me to take the leap, but I also started a women of color writers group with one of my friends Jalena Keane-Lee, who's also an incredible filmmaker. And from there that gave me confidence in my storytelling abilities. When you don't go to film school, there's all this formatting that you need to know and I really just became a student of the craft reading a lot of books on writing, screenwriting specifically, and then just getting real time feedback from other women who were really talented was helpful. So basically, all of the pivoting and throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks kind of led me to filmmaking and I think filmmaking is a great medium for me because it's a combination of all of those things in one medium.

“WHEN I WAS A KID, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A CREATIVE. I REALLY WANTED TO BE A SINGER. I USED TO RECORD THESE LITTLE DEMO TAPES ON MY KARAOKE MACHINE AND THEN AS YOU GET OLDER, LIFE KIND OF STEALS YOUR JOY AWAY AND YOU REALIZE, ‘OKAY, I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING MORE PRACTICAL’. ESPECIALLY IN A SINGLE PARENT HOUSEHOLD. THE EXPECTATION IS WHEN YOU GRADUATE, YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN, YOU GOTTA FIGURE IT OUT.”

— LaChelle Chrysanne

SHEER: First of all, what can't you do?? I love how organically a lot of your skills and talents came to be based out of necessity. You have a mix of things that you're passionate about and you can tie it all together with filmmaking. Understanding more about the limitations placed on creatives and sometimes feeling like you have to fit into a box, do you ever feel like that? Do you feel limited in any way when you jump around?

LC: I think I used to struggle with that because when you're a multi-hyphenate, people don't really take you seriously because they're like, “Oh, you're just doing whatever” Really, for me, my moving around is really driven by my intuition. I only try things out that I have a genuine curiosity [for] and then when I try them, I happen to be good at them. I'm not good at painting, for example. Maybe I could be, but I'm not in a space where I’mgenuinely curious about it.

I don't feel limited. I don't know if I would ever go back to music only because of how the music industry is. I'm not really interested in participating in that way. I just think, specifically for women artists, there's this expectation for them to have a certain level of desirability and also with music, the artist has to be the face of their work, whereas in film, I can make whatever type of films I want and be in the background and, people might care but they're not going to hold me to a standard of looking and packaging myself a very specific way. I always try to remain open. Filmmaking is definitely my focus for now. Maybe one day, it’s multi-disciplinary art or something else like that. I just think my approach to creativity is extremely fluid.

SHEER: What was the first film you ever made?

LC: ‘One of the Guys’ was the first film.

Disclaimer: the reST of this interview contains film spoilers.

SHEER: That's perfect, because I'm excited to dive into this film. Is this based on a true story? What made you want to focus on these topics of boundaries and toxic masculinity in your writing?

LC: I get that question a lot: If it's a true story. People are like, “Oh, my god, are you okay?” It's not autobiographical at all. It just pulls different pieces of my life together. I wanted to tell the story mostly because I am a woman who has had a lot of male friends throughout the years and I feel like I don't really see that explored on the screen a lot. Usually, if you see, specifically with Black woman, a girl who's in a friend group with mostly guys, it's focused on the guys or she's just like a supporting character. Like the ‘Homegirl’ from Love Jones is a perfect example. She was a great character, but she was in the background. The story was not about her. So that's kind of where I started. I knew I wanted to tell a story about two guys and a girl, one cis-het and one queer.

Then, when I started thinking about the intersections between cis-het men and queer men, I wanted to kind of nail down how even though you know you can be friends with these men, at the end of the day, they still have male privilege over you. Toxic masculinity is like a spectrum. We often focus toxic masculinity solely on the aggressor, or the person who is exhibiting very flagrant behavior, and not necessarily on the people who are complicit. That's not to say that all men are complicit but I wanted to use this as an example of how like Isaiah, he's queer and he has no sexual interest in Mel, but he also is not safe for her either because he doesn't stand up and hold his friend accountable in the way that he should.

SHEER: I immediately picked up on that nuance across male privilege and I love the way you portrayed that so we can definitely dive more into that later. What also made you want to make this a short film? Was it just how the story unfolded? How did you decide on that?

LC: Out of financial necessity. I just knew I needed something to put on my portfolio. I felt like a short was something that was feasible. It's not like a pilot where you're like, “Alright, I got this pilot, but now I gotta continue to tell the story.” I also liked the concept of shorts because it's more challenging, I think, to write a short than it is a feature because you're trying to say a lot within a limited amount of time. In the process of writing, it sharpened my ability to tell a story and character dynamics without being too verbose or giving too much background or just filling it with fluff.

SHEER: You're also a producer and looking at the production process for people that are interested in creating their own film, how was that process for you, particularly with the casting? I love the casting and the lighting. I know lighting is also very important, especially when you're portraying diverse skin tones, just diversity of color in general. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

LC: In terms of lighting, I learned a lot while we were shooting because I was completely new to directing and I’m not a cinematographer. I wanted the film to feel raw and not super polished and so we kept a lot of the lighting minimal, using kino flos. I learned with darker skin tones, you need a lot more light than what we had access to and so color correction in post-production was key. My favorite lighting moment was in the montage and there’s this close up of DeShawn smoking a blunt, we used duo tone gels for that, I pulled a lot of inpso from 90s/2000s hip-hop music videos and the opening scene of “Belly” for that shot.

I did the bulk of the pre-production myself. I did have a co-producer who helped me on some of the things but all of the casting I did myself. It was literally me on Backstage and at first, you don't always get the best submissions. So I had to dig and search for people. The casting process was interesting because I tried to remain open. In my original writing of the script, I envisioned DeShawn to be like a Smino type and when I saw Ahmad’s tape, I was like, “This guy gets it.” I feel like that was the case with all of the principal actors and their tapes. I knew that when I watched them that those were the people that I wanted and it ended up being really, really organic. Now all these people are like friends.

SHEER: I was going to say, are these your friends? I got the impression that these were your friends or people that you knew.

LC: It was a really crazy experience to have for my first film because it's like everybody instantly felt familiar, even though we didn't know each other like we found out on the first day the actors who played Isaiah, Deshawn, Mel, are all Guyanese coincidentally. My boyfriend, who was my DP, is also Guyanese. It was just like all these kinds of weird things happening but they just all have really organic chemistry and I got really lucky but again, it took me days and hours of scouring Backstage and asking people, “please audition, please audition” for me to find them.

“WHEN YOU’RE A MULTI-HYPHENATE, PEOPLE DON’T REALLY TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY BECAUSE THEY’RE LIKE, “OH, YOU’RE JUST DOING WHATEVER” FOR ME, MY MOVING AROUND IS REALLY DRIVEN BY MY INTUITION. I ONLY TRY THINGS OUT THAT I HAVE A GENUINE CURIOSITY [FOR] AND THEN WHEN I TRY THEM, I HAPPEN TO BE GOOD AT THEM.”

— LaChelle Chrysanne

SHEER: Just hearing that you put a lot of time and a lot of hours and effort into this but it feels like intuition was at work. Digging into Mel specifically, we touched a little bit on desirability in the music industry so what made Mel ‘one of the guys’ in your opinion? And how did that perception of her change over time?

LC: I look at Mel as a woman who is not hyper feminine, right. She's a little bit more in the middle of the feminine-masculinity scale. She's a little bit tomboyish. She feels comfortable with masculine energy versus Angel, who is hyper-feminine. I wanted to explore this because I feel like there is this perception that people have that if a woman is dressed a specific way, she's putting herself out there to be put in a situation that's predatory. That's not always the case. There are very masculine-presenting women who are also subjected to predatory behavior. So Mel being ‘one of the guys’ is twofold. They do kind of treat her like ‘one of the guys’, ‘one of the bros’, but the catch-22 is that a woman can never actually be ‘one of the guys’ because it's just not how patriarchy works. It's just not how the spectrum of masculinity and femininity work because, at the end of the day, yes, you can treat me like ‘one of your bros’, but I actually shouldn't be treated like “one of the bros”. I actually should be treated with a little bit more care and a little bit more concern because there are distinctions and differences that need to be acknowledged and you also have to be a little bit more aware about how your male privilege impacts me and also creates blinders for you.

SHEER: I found it really interesting where, typically a straight (cisgender)-woman would feel maybe more safe with someone who is a queer male and not being as threatened by potential sexual advances. We see that Isaiah not only tried to hide DeShawn's predatory harmful behavior, but he even makes excuses for it, saying, “it's coming from an artistic place.” What made you want to blur the lines between the role of gay cis and straight cis men when it comes to protecting women?

LC: Yeah, I think because men regardless of sexuality, just have a lot of unaware behavior that harms women. It goes unchecked. I think women also subscribe to it in a way. I remember being younger and going to the clubs and girls be like, “Oh, I'm gonna grind on the gay dude, because he's not going to do [something predatory]” Maybe you are safe in that way but I think safety is not just about the behavior a person inflicts upon us but also how they show up for and protect us.Black women are so unprotected and I feel that a lot of men, regardless of sexuality, don't feel that it's their responsibility to make sure that they're looking out for us. And maybe don't realize that they're not looking out for us because this is not something that we really talk about in a nuanced way.

SHEER: It almost, in a way, implies because Mel is ‘one of the guys’; She can hold her own too. It's like they didn't need to protect her in this situation.

LC: Yeah, and I feel like that's extremely common with Black women, there is this expectation for us to safeguard ourselves, because it's either people feel like we're not worthy of protection or they feel like we don't need it because we're so “strong”. We definitely do.

Even the “soft women'' in the film were put in danger and weren’t being protected. They were kicked out so it's very interesting seeing that dynamic as well. Like no matter what category you might fit into as a Black woman, you're still not being protected. Whether you play into hypersexuality or not, you're still not getting that protection and support.

Someone asked me about Mel's decision to stay after the incident. That's Mel's way of being complicit as well because, it's not to say that she brought any of what happened to her onto herself, but it is to say, what is the line? You know? What is the threshold? What is the boundary that we feel that men should not be crossing and that behavior that we feel is absolutely unacceptable? I feel like that line is not as clearly defined as it should be.

“WITH BLACK WOMEN,THERE IS THIS EXPECTATION FOR US TO SAFEGUARD OURSELVES, BECAUSE IT’S EITHER PEOPLE FEEL LIKE WE’RE NOT WORTHY OF PROTECTION OR THEY FEEL LIKE WE DON’T NEED IT BECAUSE WE’RE SO ‘STRONG’. WE DEFINITELY DO.”

— LaChelle Chrysanne

SHEER: I remember in the beginning of the film, specifically regarding DeShawn, Mel referred to him as a “little manic and self-absorbed”, almost nonchalantly. DeShawn had a very questionable creative process, and everyone kind of brushed it off as like what he needed in order to excel in his craft. I see this commonly attributed to men in the music industry. Why do you feel they get so many passes?

LC: Well, I think with the music industry at large, it's twofold. It's one: fan/stan culture. It's just one of those spaces where when people are emotionally connected to your work, they're either going to not believe that you're capable of doing harm or just not care. I see that all the time. I see that with male and female artists too. I think with men specifically, there are a lot of people who just don't really challenge them to do better because we expect emotional labor to always be done by women on behalf of men. We don't expect them to hold themselves to a higher regard, or to be considerate of others in the way that we expect women to be. So it turns into this thing where we excuse behavior, because a lot of people think that men are hardwired or biologically more prone to certain behaviors. I think anybody is capable of reconditioning themselves and unlearning behavior, it just takes a lot of work. Most people are either unwilling to do that work or are unaware that that is work that needs to be done.

SHEER: In the film, we don't get to see what happens after the truth about DeShawn is revealed. With Mel, we just see her sister comforting her in the moment and just processing the emotions of it all, but not necessarily how she’ll navigate these relationships with these men? So, in your own personal experiences, how have you approached boundaries, whether it be personally or as a creative, especially when it comes to men?

LC: Yeah, when I was living in Chicago, and I wason the music scene, I struggled to find a good sound engineer because every time I would meet up with one of them, they would try to sleep with me or they would try to play in my hair or do these things that were really uncomfortable. And at the time, I didn't have a partner or somebody to come with me to the sessions to help me so it just turned into me just simply not working with a lot of people.

Eventually, I ended up finding a great engineer and just continued to work with that person. I think it's hard because you can set as many boundaries as you want, but there's always this degree of never knowing what you're walking into. So you have to Safeguard yourself. Whether that is bringing a friend with you, making sure the person is pre-vetted. There have also been situations where maybe it's a producer and I know that another woman musician worked with him and asked them “Hey, what was your experience with them?” and they were like, “don't work with him.” Sometimes women will be like, “Alright, well, I really need this opportunity, or I really need to work with this person so I'm just gonna put up with it.” There's a whole history of that in the music industry and in Hollywood as well. See Harvey Weinstein like it's really, really gross, but you have to be willing to be like, if this is gonna get me blacklisted, or if this is going to diminish all of my opportunities, then that is just what it is because I'm not going to sacrifice my dignity and my self-respect and be disrespected by somebody.

SHEER: You mentioned Harvey Weinstein. You could say justice was served somewhat, that doesn't take away from the emotional damage that has been done and all these women that were impacted. There are a lot of people that are still actively in the industry and you might hear little things that come up, that will make you suspicious, but for whatever reason, it gets shut down or people forget. What advice do you have for women navigating the music industry? In addition to what you already shared, is there anything else that comes to mind?

LC: Some people like to say “assume good intent”, and I'm not one of those people. That's not to say that you need to be paranoid. I think a lot of people in creative spaces meet me and at first and are like, “Oh, you're really reserved”. That is protection. You know? I want people to know that I mean business. I'm not with the bullshit. Just again, be very cautious. Make sure that you're looping as many people who are on your side into any in-person meetups or things of that nature. You really just don't know. Even if someone is coming with glowing praise. There's been men who [are] like, “Oh, I go to therapy and I read bell hooks” butyou're a whole ass manipulator and abuser. Like [you] really never know. I just think, don't be so quick to vouch for somebody either. I think that's another thing, a lot of people are very quick to vouch for someone because they had a good experience with them, and that's fine but I also think that if you hear something about somebody, especially if you hear it more than once, be very, very cautious.

“WHEN I WAS LIVING IN CHICAGO, AND I WAS ON THE MUSIC SCENE, I STRUGGLED TO FIND A GOOD SOUND ENGINEER BECAUSE EVERY TIME I WOULD MEET UP WITH ONE OF THEM, THEY WOULD TRY TO SLEEP WITH ME OR THEY WOULD TRY TO PLAY IN MY HAIR OR DO THESE THINGS THAT ARE REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE. AND AT THE TIME, I DIDN’T HAVE A PARTNER OR SOMEBODY TO COME WITH ME TO THE SESSIONS TO HELP ME SO IT JUST TURNED INTO ME JUST SIMPLY NOT WORKING WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE.”

— LaChelle Chrysanne

SHEER: I feel like that's gonna really help a lot of people as they're navigating their journeys. Speaking of books, I noticed this small detail in the film where one of the guys recommended the 48 Laws of Power which is viewed as a manipulative book. I thought that was such a great, small but, very impactful detail to highlight that manipulation tactic.

LC: Yeah, the props kind of play a big role in this and it's one of those films I feel like you have to watch a few times to pick up on. There's Easter eggs like there's a coffee table book called Nudes by David Lynch. That’s also hinting towards what's going to happen. Originally, it was going to be The Alchemist instead of 48 Laws of Power, but like, let me leave ‘The Alchemist’ alone.

SHEER: You did mention it, but in a kind of funny way, like the connection to Cardi B lyrics. I thought that was really funny too.

SHEER: What kind of conversations do you hope this film will help spark? Whether it's just intimately among friendships and creative partnerships or even just for the culture overall.

LC: I want us to have more expansive conversations on consent and complicity and how men can show up for the women in their lives. Whether they're friends, whether they're sisters, partners, or whoever. We had a private screening of the film and there were a couple of men there that I'd never met and [who said] it caused them to reflect on ways that they haven’t spoken up as much as they should have. I always want to create something that is going to be thought-provoking but also relatable enough to where someone can extract a lesson that they can take for themselves or ponder on within themselves. If I'm not doing that, what am I really doing, you know?

“MAKE SURE THAT YOU’RE LOOPING AS MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE ON YOUR SIDE INTO ANY IN-PERSON MEETUPS OR THINGS OF THAT NATURE. YOU REALLY JUST DON’T KNOW. EVEN IF SOMEONE IS COMING WITH GLOWING PRAISE. THERE’S BEEN MEN WHO [ARE] LIKE, “OH, I GO TO THERAPY AND I READ BELL HOOKS”. BUT YOU’RE A WHOLE ASS MANIPULATOR AND ABUSER. [YOU] REALLY NEVER KNOW.”

— LaChelle Chrysanne

SHEER: It really does start with that self reflection. Some people think because their hands are clean, you know, there's no dirt on their hands, they're not complicit. “I wasn't the one that did this” or you know, “That was my homie” or “That wasn't me”. If you're aware, and you're not calling it out, denouncing it or taking action to protect the people that are in danger, then you're just as much at fault and I think that's one of the difficult things that people struggle to understand.

LC: Yeah, and I think also, a lot of people tend to look at predators as people who just operate on their own and you think of someone like R. Kelly, who had an entire network of people that allowed him to do what he did. It wasn't just him doing it alone. So, it is just as important to hold those people accountable as it is the aggressor.

**this interview has been edited and condensed for clarity

“One of The Guys” teaser video. The full film will be available on select streaming platforms this upcoming Fall.