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Streaming Stars, Then and Now

Melanie Star Scot is an American director, producer and screenwriter. In April 2015, she was nominated as "Best Local Filmmaker" in the entertainment magazine "Mountain Xpress". Her first film, The Box (2013) won several awards, including a Bronze Telly award, a Hollywood Best Actor award for lead actor/co-producer David Topp , a Best Costuming Award and was purchased to air on worldwide television on the ShortsHD TV Channel for three years; all stellar successes for a first-time Director. Her second film, Quitter (2014) , a satirical PSA about addiction, which she wrote, produced and directed also went on to win the Bronze Telly Award for excellence in Health & Wellness. Her third film, Sangria Lift (2015) , won several awards and received high reviews and accolades.

A daughter being raised by a single, working father presented many challenges. Since she was also an only child, Melanie was alone most of the time. She raised herself beginning around age eight, when she declared to her father that she was "much too old for a babysitter". She had a thirst for knowledge and how to do everything on her own. She had to. Her life made her strong, resourceful and self-sufficient.

Melanie wanted to be in the television and film industry from a very young age, but it seemed like an unobtainable dream from the small North Carolina town she grew up in. At age 14, she packed a bag, loaded up her pony and set out on her own, intent on traveling 3000 miles across the country, alone. She called her father from a payphone to tell him she was headed to Hollywood! That trip didn't work out but a better opportunity would come many years later.

As an adult, she pursued the "safe" route: college and climbing the corporate ladder but explains: "The higher I climbed the ladder, the less I liked the view!"

At the age of thirty-six, she found herself divorced and a single mom, trying to raise a young son alone.

As her son grew and showed the same interests in television and film, she vowed to support him in any way that she could and help him obtain his dream, remembering her own from so many years ago. She began by driving him daily to his acting classes forty-five minutes away and because of the distance and a lack of funds for gasoline, she spent many hot and cold days and nights, waiting in her car, reading and walking their dog around the school campus.

When her son began to have successes as an actor, because he was a minor, she accompanied him to his film jobs. When she stepped onto her first film set, she says "I felt like a duck that had been raised in a chicken coop and someone had finally found me and thrown me into the water where I belonged and it was euphoric!"

Thus, her film career began. She began taking any jobs she could on as many film sets as she could, working for free in order to gain the experience she wanted and understand how a film set operated from the bottom up. She did everything from craft services, wardrobe, horse wrangling, boom operator, slate girl, production assistant, camera assistant and script supervisor.

In 2012, she started her own production company, Topp Scot Productions and moved to a small town outside of Los Angeles. After "The Box", she wrote and produced Quitter (2014) and Sangria Lift (2015) . In 2014, she became a Producer on the dramatic and successful short film, Our Father (2014) starring Michael Gross

Although she didn't produce and direct her first film until the age of 49, she shows no signs of slowing down, in fact the opposite seems true.

Awards

Melanie Star Scot

Bare Bones International Film & Music Festival

Accolade Competition

Best Shorts Competition

California Film Awards

Telly Awards

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