Hi :) my name is Olivia Brancato, I am a student at the University of Southern California majoring in film and television production. I have a strong passion for filmmaking, I love to tell stories visually, and I think film is an amazing way to show many different art forms. I especially love to direct and write, and am interested in cinematography as well.

I’ve always loved watching television and movies, and when I was in high school I became interested in making them. The profession I always thought I wanted to go into was really just dependent on what I was watching at the time. If I was watching Grey’s Anatomy I wanted to be a surgeon, and if I was watching Criminal Minds I wanted to be in the FBI. It took me a little bit to figure out I just wanted to create those characters, not actually be them.

I started by making silly short films with my friends and then eventually moved onto making more advanced films. I’ve had amazing opportunities inside and outside of school to gather all the knowledge I possibly can about filmmaking and apply it to how I want to tell my own stories. I’ve had experience on professional sets, and on sets for student run films.

Some of my favorite films are The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, Black KkKlansman, Parasite, Aftersun, Her, Red Rocket, Nine to Five, Double Indemnity, and My Neighbor Totoro (plus all other Studio Ghibli movies). And some of my favorite TV shows are Ted Lasso, Severance, Barry, Shameless, The Good Place, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, The Queen’s Gambit, and Gravity Falls. I take a lot of inspiration from all these films/tv shows and the filmmakers that made them.