This series is a story about a lesbian/trans person on a quest.

How to Get a Girl Pregnant is an animated web series which tells the story of a trans/butch lesbian’s attempts to get pregnant. The web series captures the challenges, humour, and desire of this bittersweet journey. 

It’s also a universal story about how we see ourselves, how our bodies are politicized, how love helps us to dream, and how heritage can provide us with both a foundation and a yearning for a better world. The main character emphasizes the importance of her mixed white and Mexican heritage in light of the discrimination against Mexicans she has witnessed throughout her life. In this era of especially ugly talk, it is more important than ever to show the beauty and value of queer Latinx lives. 

We’ve currently completed a pilot and the script and storyboard for the webseries. This Seed & Spark campaign will help us deliver the next stage which is the actor’s dialogue record. Once that is achieved we’ll be able to move to animation which is the most intensive stage. When the webseries is complete, we’ll make it available through online streaming on sites like Seed&Spark.

Follow our Facebook and Instagram pages @howtogetagirlpregnant for updates, behind-the-scenes, and announcements.

Scriptwriter: Karleen Pendleton Jiménez:

The film explores assumptions about who gets to be a mother and who gets to be recognized as a legitimate mother. There are an infinite number of barriers to giving birth: feeling ready, self-confidence, identity, fertility, money, sperm-procurement, discrimination, access to medicine, laws, etc. But queers do have a right nonetheless to try to birth or adopt babies if we so choose. And often it’s our friends, families and lovers who help us along on this humbling adventure. 

Co-Director: Janet Romero Leiva:

i am working on this film...

because i love that we get to create a visual world that reflects our lived experiences

because there isn't enough art out there about queer latinx parenting and fertility and love and grief 

because i can bring my whole self to this work space

because we don't often/rarely get to see (in animation or any other form) the many challenges, pain, time and tears that come before a person is a parent

because bodies that make and carry babies can look in a variety of ways that we don't see in mainstream culture

because it's needed

because it's joyful

because i am learning and having my visual, creative and humxn lens/world expanded

because it is humbling and necessary to have a say in how queer and latinx and working class and immigrant communities are represented

Co-Director: Barb Taylor:

We explore the themes of fertility and renewal visually using waves of water and baby and mythical animals.  We create a beautiful hand painted colour palette featuring the streets of Toronto at night and San Francisco in sunlight.  We aim to create a visual dreamland and look at our bodies through a queer lens and search for accurate portrayals of the way we act and dance and love.  Previously I explored queer worlds of emotions, magic and mythology and How to Get a Girl Pregnant continues that work.  

Alex:

A trans/butch lesbian in her mid-thirties.  She has short straight brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin.  She is of Mexican and White origin.  She was born and raised in the United States but has lived in Canada for a decade. She wears men’s clothes and is a little chubby.  She is a graduate student.  She is confident in bars, but vulnerable in medical settings.  She knows little about men romantically or about getting pregnant.  She has a very strong drive to have a baby.  She is willing to take unexpected risks to achieve her goal. 

Mateo:

A gay man in his mid-thirties. He’s tallish with black curly hair and brown eyes.  A good friend of Alex.

To date we have created a pilot and written the script and created a storyboard for the series. Next is completing the dialogue record for the series since this is animation. Then we can move on to animating!

GOALS: 

• To raise 80% of our goal: This means we can compensate our cast and crew, get into the studio to record dialogue!
• To raise 100% of our goal: This means we can fully pay everyone as well - director, producer, casting director.

STRETCH GOAL:

If we raise 150% of our goal, we can take on designing characters for series animation the next step!

Your direct support goes towards uplifting talented artists and creatives who are made up of LGBTQ2S, women identified and BIPOC, who do not get enough representation in the media or film industry.

We will be working remotely using new technology for capturing voice record if need be due to the pandemic.  If we can go into the studio we'll work at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.

Your contributions will help pay for:

• Dialogue Actors (8 people) $4,400
• Actra fees $500
• Casting Director $2000
• Studio or virtual technology for voice capture  $400
• Audio Engineer $1000
• Creators fee (Barb Taylor, Karleen P. Jiménez, Janet Romero Leiva) $1200
• Producer (Madi Piller) $500

This also gives us the opportunity to submit to funders for the series and share our queer narratives with the world and reach distributors. 

Follow our Facebook and Instagram pages @howtogetagirlpregnant for updates, behind-the-scenes, and announcements.