Tracie Laymon

Tracie Laymon is an American screenwriter, producer and film director. Laymon was raised in Houston, Texas, and studied film at the University of Texas at Austin. She began her film career with work in the Texas area, and several of her music videos and short films were recognized with film festival awards. Laymon moved to California, and continued film production work there, serving as production assistant on Blades of Glory in 2007. Her short film Inside premiered in 2009 at the Milan International Film Festival in Milan, Italy, and won the award in "Best Short Film" from the Women's Image Network. She also directed the first ever half-hour comedy for the internet entitled "Goodnight Burbank", which premiered on Hulu.com in April 2011 and was personally acquired by Mark Cuban that same day. The shows then aired on Cuban's HDNet in the fall of 2011. Her short film "A Hidden Agender" premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival and received the Jury Award for Best Dark Comedy at the Houston International Film Festival (also known as Worldfest Houston). Laymon was also named to the Independent Film Channel's list of emerging "Icons" and "Film Innovators".

Named to IFC's "Icons and Film Innovators", Tracie Laymon is an independent writer and director hailing from Houston and Austin, Texas. Laymon moved to Russia at 14 and attended the American School of Moscow. Back in Houston, she was accepted into the magnet program at Bellaire Foreign Language Academy, focusing on Russian language studies, and later returned to Moscow as a foreign exchange student. At 17, she survived a near-fatal accident and learned to walk again through an extended period of intense rehabilitation.

While studying at the University of Texas, Laymon interned for Richard Linklater's company Detour Film ("Boyhood", "Dazed and Confused"), worked as a photographer and video journalist for Time Warner News, and directed multiple short films and award-winning music videos in the Austin area.

Laymon's directorial projects have won jury awards at SXSW and many other festivals and competitions. She received a grant to make a segment of the women's anthology film "Girls!Girls!Girls!", starring Elaine Hendrix and Octavia Spencer, and won the Jury Award for Short Film of the Year from the Women's Image Network. Her original scripted material has also won and placed highly in over twenty competitions-- Best Screenplay at the LA Comedy Festival, Best TV Pilot at HollyShorts, and Runner-up at the annual Scriptapalooza competition, and more.

Laymon directed the first half hour series for Hulu "Goodnight Burbank", featuring Dominic Monaghan, which was further acquired by Mark Cuban for HDNet. She also wrote and directed "Mixed Signals", which premiered at Oscar-qualifying LA Shorts in 2018 which won multiple awards for Best Director in 2018 and 2019 (Women Texas Film Festival, Independent Shorts Awards, and The Method Fest in Beverly Hills.).

Laymon directed a comedic and dramatic proof of concept pilot project for Tess Allen's "Matched" and shadowed as observing director on Showtime's "Shameless". She also taught animation for several organizations including Ghetto Film School and live action filmmaking on the Stanford and Berkeley campuses.

Her latest short film "Ghosted" garnered Best Director awards at Big Bear Film Summit, Big Sur Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival and the Hollywood Gold Awards. It also won Best Short Film at Seattle, the audience award for Best Short Film at Big Bear Film Summit, Best Writer at the Seattle Film Festival and more.

Laymon has identified as femme and non-binary since 2020 and uses the pronouns "she" and "they" interchangeably. Given her personal history with her car accident as well as her own gender identity, she is a passionate advocate for the inclusion and representation of both actors with disabilities and queer and gender non-conforming actors on screen.

Texas
Laymon was born and grew up in Houston, Texas. Laymon pursued a curriculum of film studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Laymon was assistant director on the music video Frijolero by the Mexico-based musical group Molotov, which received a Latin Grammy Award. In 2004, she received recognition for her work on the music video better? for the group 54 Seconds; garnering the SXSW Jury Award in 2004. Laymon spent some time working in Austin, Texas, making short films. She worked on the production staff of The Real World: Austin.

California
Laymon was a production assistant on the 2007 film Blades of Glory. She worked on production as office manager for the 2008 film U2 3D. In 2009 she worked as a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. In May 2009, Laymon's music video Falling From Mars which included musician Alyssa Campbell won the Music Video award at the on Location: Memphis International Film Fest in Memphis, Tennessee. Laymon directed the short movie Inside which was released in 2009. Inside had its movie premiere at the Milan International Film Festival in May 2009 in Milan, Italy. Inside was nominated in 2009 at the Milan International Film Festival Awards as "Best Short Film". Laymon was selected for inclusion by the Independent Film Channel as a part of the "IFC Icons", a group of featured artists on the IFC website in film and video.