A self-proclaimed researcher on anything, Kristi is intrigued with or interested in has her scouring the internet and google any chance she gets. While she was a college freshman about 10 years ago, and checking on her Twitter feed, she discovered the journey of a 4 year old little girl battling cancer; neuroblastoma. At that point Kristi did not know any adult with cancer, let alone a child, and never knew this girl except for her Mom's social media posts.
Kristi stated that this little girls' mom wrote quite often about her ailing daughter, and this lit a spark in Kristi like you wouldn't believe. Devastated when this little girl did not make it, her death really affected Kristi that she wanted to put her grief into something good. Kristi, the youngest in her family (she has two older brothers), from Bethpage, Long Island New York, worked tirelessly in childhood cancer advocacy beginning with shuttling to events in Washington DC during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and beyond over the last decade.
This entire topic has touched Kristi so deeply that it appears she has made it her life's mission to inform the general public the "true story and stories" of those in the trenches and battles of the "everyday" life of a childhood cancer patient, plus their families, communities and medical teams.
But before she started her production company, Kristi graduated from Baruch College in Manhattan, majoring in music management and film. She mentioned that she liked film best, beginning when she was in the 7th grade and began making short videos using Windows Movie Maker. She then decided to enhance her film studies and got her graduate degree from Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. Today, with her love of film, she has "upgraded" to using Adobe Premier which is best for her work in documentaries and music videos, and she has never looked back.
It's now full steam ahead for this dynamo because now that her filming for the documentary is done, it's long hours in post production: typically one minute of film = one hour of editing; plus color correction and audio correction. You can honestly say, it's such a production! It is!!
So when I asked this very ambitious young lady (watch out, Ken Burns) what makes her "tick," without missing a beat, she says it's all about helping others and doting on her awesome little cousins. She says she rarely buys anything for herself, rather she loves to give to others for any occasion.
Interestingly, Kristi has crazy good hearing and musical pitch which allows her to wow anyone within earshot, and a piano, to play a song after hearing it once! And you know how clever this pink-coral loving gal who lives with her blind dog named Jordan (a pooton) came up with the name Risk It Productions? Well, Risk It is also the letters in Kristi, and I think a very fitting name for her company, don't you?
Before ending our conversation, Kristi expressed to me that she got way more out of the interviews for "The Promise" that she thought she would, and was candid to say that her interviewees opened up more to her than she ever dreamed possible. She never expected the the excellent content they filmed with each person, family or doctor they interviewed, and she hopes to bring even more awareness to the entire topic of childhood cancer, and not just in the month of September (Childhood Cancer Awareness Month) through this 7 part docuseries (will be released in 2020).
I'd invited Kristi to share some websites with me that are below. Please click on them and learn more about Kristi, "The Promise," and anything that may interest you going forward. Please click on the song: I Promise You, by Jadyn Rylee (a Youtube Influencer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPCKHCTLqy8
https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/the-promise-a-docuseries-on-childhood-cancer
https://www.thepromisedoc.com/crowdfunding
https://www.thepromisedoc.com/sponsors
BSoleille! The bright side of #CelebratingOthers with filmmaker, Kristi Gattos!
Terri
Below is Kristi Gatto
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