Composition, color, narrative, these are the tools in Maggie Hickman’s arsenal. Approaching filmmaking from the photography world, Maggie discovered that the moving image could be as artful and engaging as the beautiful still images that she crafted in the years before embarking on a film production career. But embracing her creative side required that she also exercise a high level of business acumen.

Forming a production company, JWH Productions, LLC, was the first step in realizing her calling. Maggie has managed the corporate affairs of the business together with performing production duties, including but not limited to cinematography, editing, and website and graphic design. Serving as a casting researcher for the Toronto-based reality television production company, Cineflix Media, Inc., Maggie handled initial intake with potential cast families for the popular HGTV television series “The Property Brothers” and others. That rewarding contract had Maggie performing filming and interview duties.

In 2014, Maggie negotiated a contract with the producers of a film entitled “A Choice to Yield.” That production had already wrapped and an assembly edit created, but the producers knew the film was lacking something to make it marketable. Maggie reshot parts of the film and re-edited it in order to make it more attractive to distributors. Maggie's photography and graphic design has also been used in award-winning films.

On the 2015 documentary “The Wonderful Wadsworth,” Maggie’s skills and talents were used extensively as she shot and directed and created many of the visual set-pieces that move the dramatic arch of the film forward. Her retro Art Deco-inspired poster design mimicked the film’s central subject and became a popular collector’s item.

The feature motion picture “DeadThirsty” was Maggie’s brainchild from the very beginning. After completing a corporate video contract for Piedmont Hospital, Maggie approached the hospital with the idea of mounting a horror film inside one of their empty facilities. Maggie penned the script and raised the budget independently deciding to retain the services of filmmaker Jason Winn, who worked with Maggie in assembling a crew and sharing in the casting duties.

When the principal photography wrapped, Maggie created the graphical elements for the title sequences in the film in order to fully immerse the viewer in the 1992 revisionist world of deadly raves, drugs, sex and bloody murder. Working with Winn, Maggie shot the title sequences by manning the RED camera outfitted with her still image lenses. Her work as a photographer had then truly come full-circle integrating the creative and artful with the practical art of business.

In addition to producing a sequel to “DeadThirsty,” Maggie is presently producing the hipster tough action film “Letter of the Law.” And building on her interest in the early 1990s, Maggie is producing filmmaker Mike Malloy’s untitled music documentary about the period of major chord rock and roll that preceded the advent of “grunge.”