All that Jazzy

Once you know her name, it’s hard to forget.

“They wanted something unique.”

That’s how Jazzy Hawley described getting that first name. She was talking about her parents, April and Jason Hawley.

They had been tossing about several names, and it was her father who blurted out, “Jazzy.”

“But what if she wants to be a banker?” retorted her mother.

They compromised, coming up with Jasmine, but since the outset, she admits “I’m a Jazzy.”

She is a 2019 graduate of Mariposa County High School and now she is in the midst of a project she hopes will bring more attention to Mariposa.

It was during her junior year in high school when Jazzy got into AMDA College of Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

“A week after I graduated, I moved to LA,” said Jazzy.

She’s been there ever since.

“I like it here,” she said. “I’m getting to live my dream here.” And that dream is growing.

Expanding the dream

Recently, a project she’s had in her mind since those days at MCHS is coming closer and closer to reality.

“I knew Mariposa was a special place when I was growing up there,” she said. “When I was getting closer to graduating and leaving Mariposa, I knew I was never going to have this again.”

It was during that junior year of high school when Jazzy “began writing the show.”

That show is entitled “Edge of the Lot,” which she describes as “a love letter to my hometown. It’s a story I have carried with me for years.”

That concept and dream is now paying off.

Recently, Jazzy won a national contest with Canon, which provided the funding “to finally turn this pilot into a reality and film our very first episode.”

Some of that filming is going to take place next month in Mariposa.

The series is “based on myself and other people I went to school with,” she said.

For years, Jazzy said she “tucked it away.”

But then, she took a scriptwriting class and decided to “dust it off” and give it to her partner to take a look.

He loved it and the current process began.

Two years ago, she made a “proof of concept,” which is a short film that gives people and idea about what the entire series is about. She then wrote a real pilot episode.

Part of that filming was in Pioneer Market in Mariposa.

“I did that off of babysitting money,” she said.

Jazzy then spent a year writing the entire first season of the show and spent another year “pitching it to investors and the network.”

The competition

Then came the Canon competition. Thousands of people entered the contest but Jazzy’s project rose to the top and she was able to attend the awards ceremony, walk on the red carpet and hear the announcement that she was one of the four national winners.

In getting there, she said they had to make a pitch to Canon in three minutes, something that’s not easy to do.

“This is hard,” she said.

But that didn’t stop the determined Jazzy, who pursed that concept she came up with at MCHS.

“This story is so personal because it is about my life,” she said.

Community help

Even though she has received funding from Canon, it’s still a wildly expensive project and she’s hoping some people in the Mariposa County community can step up to help.

Jazzy said some 25-30 people will be coming to Mariposa to do the filming. That’s everyone from the cast to the sound people and many more.

They will be in Mariposa on April 5-7, with filming to take place at the high school on April 6-7, which is during spring break.

The plan, she said, is to film a lot of it in the parking lot (thus “The Edge of the Lot” title), but also in the gymnasium, the hallways and a classroom.

The rest of the filming will take place in Los Angeles, she said, which is common in the industry.

In order to pull all of this off, she said they could use the assistance of the community in a variety of ways.

Those include free or reduced lodging from a local hotel or AirBnB for the crew. It would also include free or reduced catering or meals from a local food business.

They are also looking for background actors to be a part of the scenes. No acting experience is necessary, she said.

Jazzy said if people are willing to provide those things, her film production crew would be willing to do some filming at the businesses to make short video for their websites and other promotions.

They are also looking for cars to be in the “parking lot” scenes. Any kinds of cars and trucks will do, she said, and they will only be parked for the filming. She said sports cars are especially needed for the filming, as well as trucks.

She vowed to be “good hosts” for all of it and said she needs the community involvement in order to make the show up to the standard it needs to be when they try to get it on a network.

The concept

Jazzy describes the pilot episode as “a chaotic year the town will never forget.”

The fictional town of Mayfield, based on Mariposa, will be the setting.

She said it’s a young adult comedy though fit for audiences of all ages.

It is about two boys in high school, she said. One, Sam Baker, is a writer who gets his story published in the local newspaper.

“He realizes he wants to go to UCLA and be a writer,” she said.

His best friend, Carl, is a “wildcard,” she said, and the two of them start writing a book about their town of “Mayfield.”

Jazzy, too, is a character in the film, playing a love interest of Sam. In total, she said there are six main characters.

In fact, Jazzy has been an actor basically since she left Mariposa. She appeared in various promotions and other videos, but she also said that along the way, she realized acting wasn’t everything she wanted to do.

“I thought I just wanted to be an actor,” she said. “But as I kept living here (LA), I learned I wanted to create things. It was an adjustment to the learning curve.”

She has written films that have screened on the Warner Brothers lot and much more.

“I am very lucky I have gotten to continue to create and have been able to live my dream,” she said last week in a Zoom video call from her home in Hollywood.

She said she has made “numerous short films” because “I had to get my feet wet. One was called Siren and filmed in Mariposa.

She’s also done a lot of production design as well as art design in the industry.

Jazzy said she has “always been the creative type,” and refers back to her parents.

“I would like to thank both of my parents for being creative,” she said.

Jazzy said her mom would disagree and that it is her dad who is the creative core of the family.

She doesn’t disagree.

“My father wanted to be a stunt man when he was younger,” she said. “He is one of the most creative people I know.”

While growing up in Mariposa, Jazzy was once quite the local celebrity, winning the title of “Little Miss Butterfly” in 2012. She made the front page of the Mariposa Gazette.

“That picture was in the Gazette for years,” she said. “Every time there was something about the Butterfly Festival.”

She also thanked Jason Dubberke who allowed her to film in the store in prepping that proof of concept.

“We filmed overnight,” she recalled. “We met all of the people who stocked the grocery store and how it works. It gave me a new appreciation of the grocery store.”

Changing landscape

Jazzy said over the past few years, television and film making in Hollywood has changed and evolved.

“I would say Hollywood is going through a really big revival,” she said.

Much of that involves the vast number of streaming platforms, which opens up opportunities for people like Jazzy.

“I think it is kind of being put back into the hands of people like me,” she said.

But she still acknowledges “there are a lot of walls to break through” in order to get projects off the ground and eventually on television or the big screen.

She called the changes “positive,” and said “people are getting the power back. I think it is a good thing. I am a positive person.”

With a name like Jazzy, that almost seems natural.

Anyone who would like to help can contact Jazzy via email at jazzyhawleyactor@gmail.com.