Jessica Gardner has worked in film and video for twenty years since completing her Radio/TV/Film degree from UT Austin in 2003. She has interned at MTV China in Beijing, produced a half hour documentary for musician Amanda Palmer, and videotaped a year of programming for Youtube’s favorite yoga instructor, Adriene Mishler. Gardner’s work is influenced by early MTV and Nickelodeon with her often punchy DIY aesthetic. She is also influenced by dreamy, tragic character study like Virgin Suicides, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and Funny Girl.
She honed her skills in low budget filmmaking as Director of Production at Bastrop Community Access Television where she produced a series of documentaries with interviewer Emily Lowe including New Orleans New Year, interviews with members of the Black Men of Labor, Treme Brass Band, and Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian Tribe that received 3rd place for Best TV Documentary from the Houston Press in 2008. She also worked on several narrative films in collaboration with BCAT founder Carolyn Banks including camera and editing for feature film Invicta and short film Sex and the Septuagenarian screened at SXSW 2016; and directing shorts Plugged In and A Child’s Christmas in Texas (Selected by Dallas Videofest, Texas Independent Film Festival, and Worldfest Houston in 2011 ).
In 2010, she produced underground Austin webshow hit Drunk Dial, which received a critics pick for “Best … Urp, Grrush, Uhhhh Pfffffttt” from the Austin Chronicle’s Best of Austin 2010. In 2011, Gardner began producing a webshow called Workout! with Erica Nix, a series of music video style aerobic workouts aimed at Austin’s queer community that kicked off over a decade of collaborative work with Nix including performing with her at countless events including ACL Fest, Transpecos Festival, and Blanton Museum of Art; and directing and producing videos screened at Outsiderfest, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Mass Gallery, Dan Savage’s HUMP Fest, and Boss Babes’ Babes Fest.
In 2019, Gardner produced video for and performed in three sold out performances of a multimedia poolside variety show This Is Not A Cult starring Erica Nix and joined by producer/writers Jeremy Von Stilb and Sawyer Stoltz.
The This Is Not A Cult team went on to produce the recently completed feature film, Erica’s First Holy Shit :
Austin’s queer fitness queen, Erica Nix, leads a cast of Austin queerlebrities in a fantasia of goopy-nonsense and heaven-sent scatological logic. Channeling John Waters and Terry Gilliam, Erica may just be the mayor Austin needs, if Austin needs a mayor who dreamwalks like Freddy Krueger with a manicure. Join Erica as she explores religion, psychedelic rituals, therapeutic healing, and politics. Will Erica’s inner truth set her free or set the world on fire?
In October of 2023, Habitable Spaces co-hosted a showing of special guest performances, a selection of Jessica’s short films including Go Ahead, Pee Big Apple Workout and A Child’s Christmas In Texas, and Erica’s First Holy Shit at our outdoor cinema.
Jessica is a resident artist under the 2025 National Endowment of The Arts (NEA) Our Town grant awarded to Habitable Spaces to help further the development of arts and culture in the city of Kingsbury.
Keep Up With Jessica
Instagram- @burdie_g
This Is Not A Cult LLC Instagram- @thisisnotacultllc
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