What I love about going to a school like Columbia is that it’s full of dreamers that dream big. Those dreamers are also determined to make their dreams come true. Prime examples of people like this are three film students: Jessica Estelle Huggins, Cameran Battley, and Candice Majors. Huggins, Battley and Majors started a production company in the fall of 2011 called HBM (using the first letter of each of their last names).
“Cameran and I met at the Conaway Achievement Project, a grant-based program that helps students with low-income, first generation and students with disabilities. We always talked about film-making, stories and social and political events that were happening in the world,” says Huggins. “She referred me to Candice to be my cinematographer on a project during our sophomore year. Then we worked on my final project in one of my film core classes back in 2010. Ever since then, we’ve worked together,” she continues.
These three ladies started HBM Productions to branch out with story ideas, especially within the African-American community. The ladies wanted to take matters into their own hands and create work from various genres that would give a more “dynamic, creative insight for everyone from all walks of life.”
“We feel the need to ‘give a more dynamic, creative insight for everyone from all walks of life,’ because we have yet to see realistic, as well as a variety of, stories about ethnic people,” says Huggins. “Hollywood is its own world, but it has never really taken a chance on casting ethnic people (African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, etc) in lead roles for ‘regular’ films such as ‘Inception,’ ‘Titanic’….even simple earlier films like ‘Casablanca!’”
It is true though that we do not see the diverse set of people we would like to see on the big screen, so to see a company like HBM developing is amazing.
“We all saw what happened with ‘Hunger Games.’ All of those racists remarks because ‘Rue’ was black. It’s sad, but racism will never really go away,” Huggins says. But she is sure that HBM will help make a change in showing diversity.
“There are just too many views that people have that we all will continue to teach the future. And for as long as we’re here, HBM would like to make a difference, to tell great stories with a diverse cast of talented performers.”
When asked what it’s like working with your best friends (which honestly seems like the best thing ever), Huggins says that “working with Cameran and Candice is like waking up to breakfast already made. It’s just so refreshing to work with your best friends who are very talented and motivate you to be the best that you can be.”
HBM has a 30-minute short in the works about young adults growing up within our generation. They also have a documentary about the African-American experience at Columbia in the works.