Tag Archive for 'Nell Scovell'

Women Directors React to the Bigelow Win

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on March 9, 2010
in Awards and Women Directors
. 10 Comments

It’s still sinking in — the big Bigelow win — and I wanted to hear what other folks thought, so I reached out to women directors around the world at all levels of their careers and asked them what they thought and what it means for them.  Thanks to everyone who responded.  If other still want to respond, I’d be happy to add.  I would love to get the reactions of the women who have been nominated previously and I am working on that — if you know Lina Wertmuller, or Sofia Copolla and can contact them (I already have a feeler out to Jane Campion), please email me —   I’ll let you know if I hear from them.

Here are the women who participated in alphabetical order (check out their sites to learn about their work):

Allison Anders, director Gas, Food Lodging; Anne Bass, director- Dancing Across Borders;  Tracy Lynch Britton, director, Melrose Place; Gabrielle Burton, Five Sisters Productions; Kathi Carey, director – Worth; Wendy Jo Carlton, director - Hannah Free; Jules Dameron; Katherine Dieckmann, director – Motherhood; Emily Dell, director- B-Girl;  Rachel Feldman, director – Beyond the Break and Sisters; Carey Graeber, director- Rediscovering Dorothy; Rhianon Elan Gutierrez, director- When I’m Not Alone;  Deborah Kampmeier, director-Hounddog; Aviva Kempner, director- Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg; Alex Kondracke, director- GirlTrash; Barbara Kopple, director – Shut Up and Sing, Harlan County USA (Oscar winner); Sue Kramer, director – Gray Matters; Alexis Krasilovsky, Director – Women Behind the Camera; Kasi Lemmons, director- Eve’s Bayou; Suzanne O’Keefe, director- Full Serve; Shamim Sarif, director – The World Unseen; Nancy Schwartzman, director- Where is Your Line?; Dawn Scibilia, director- Home; Nell Scovell, director- It Was One of Us; Therese Shechter, director- I Was A Teenage Feminist; Amy Sewell, director- What’s Your Point, Honey?; Karen Skloss, director- Sunshine; Juanita Wilson, director – The Door (nominated for an Oscar) Continue reading ‘Women Directors React to the Bigelow Win’

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Tags: Allison Anders, Kasi Lemmons, Katherine Dieckmann, Nell Scovell

Another Teeny Tiny Crack in the Wall of White Men

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on February 5, 2010
in Sexism, TV and Women Writers
. 4 Comments

Guess David Letterman is feeling the pressure cause he FINALLY hired a woman writer on his staff.

Her name is Jill Goodwin and she has been on the staff since 2001, started first as an assistant to the executive producers and most recently as a writer’s assistant to the staff.

Here’s what a spokesman said to the NY Times about the promotion:

For some time, Ms. Goodwin has been considered to be next in line for a writing job at “Late Show” as soon as there was an opening.

I want to know exactly what some time is and I want to know if there has not been a single male hired in the time she was “next in line.”  I’m gonna bet that some guys were hired.  If I am wrong I will apologize.

I just think the Ms. Goodwin should be giving my friend Nell Scovell a phone call of thanks cause had she not put herself out there and talked about the Letterman work environment I bet this news would still not have happened.

Additionally, Neely Swanson who did development for David E. Kelley and is now an adjunct professor at USC also counted the pilots for next season.  Here’s what she found:

Of the 66 pilots I documented, 13 pilots had at least one female writer as part of the “created by” team; however, of those 66 pilots, only 7 of them were written entirely by women.  You can do the math yourself, but this works out to a high of 20% involvement by women when writing alone and/or with men; and just 11% when written by women without male participation. A closer look at the all the names will reveal one writer of Hispanic origin, three Asian-Americans and an entire absence of African American writers.

As she says this:

This isn’t a glass ceiling, it’s a White Boys’ Club brick wall.

So all of you who think things are hunky dory out in la la land, really need to get a sense of the reality.

Letterman Show Adds a Female Staff Writer (NY Times)

Women Can’t Create and White Men Can’t Jump (Research Wrap Blog)

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Tags: Neely Swanson, Nell Scovell, pilots

Women & Hollywood on the Radio

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on January 4, 2010
in Box Office, News, TV, Theatre, Women Directors and Women Writers
. 7 Comments

Here’s the link to the radio show from this morning where we talked about women’s box office successes of 2009, can a woman get a best director nomination and win, with three amazing creative artists, playwright Theresa Rebeck, TV writer and director Nell Scovell, and feature writer and director Katherine Dieckmann. about how we shift the conversation about getting more women into creative positions on power in Hollywood (and other areas of pop culture.)

Would love to hear people’s thoughts on the conversation.


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Bios on the Guests

Theresa Rebeck is one of the most accomplished playwrights in America today.  Her newest work The Understudy is currently playing in NYC through January 17th.  She is also a novelist.  Her first book Three Sisters and Their Brother is now available in paperback and her newest novel Twelve Rooms with a View will be published in May by Random House.  She is also writing a pilot for USA TV.

Katherine Dieckmann has written and directed three feature films most recently Motherhood starring Uma Thurman.  She was also a journalist and a director of music videos.  She currently is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts, where she teach screenwriting.  She also directed music videos for R.E.M., Aimee Mann, Wilco, and Everything but the Girl, among others.

Nell Scovell is a TV writer and director who created the show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  She caused a bit of a stir with a recent piece on Vanity Fair’s website about her experience as a female writer on Late Night with David Letterman.

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Tags: Katherine Dieckmann, Kathryn Bigelow, Nell Scovell, Sandra Bullock, Theresa Rebeck

Sandra Bullock Makes Box Office History

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on January 4, 2010
in Actresses and Box Office
. 3 Comments

Sandra Bullock started out 2009 pretty much off the Hollywood radar screen.  She hadn’t made a movie for two years, and since most people never thought a woman over 40 could score box office successes, her upcoming films weren’t taken very seriously.  Part of the reason is because her films are romantic comedies and are starring vehicles for her so they don’t get a lot of love or buzz in the blogosphere.  Nobody had really high expectations for The Proposal,  All About Steve looked terrible (and did terrible), and The Blind Side wasn’t yet registering at all.

But then The Proposal hit — and hit big — with an opening weekend of $33 million on a $40 million budget.  It has now grossed $163 which puts it at number 13 for the year.

The Blind Side has propelled Bullock into a serious power position.  The success of the film, it opened with $34 million on a budget of $29 million, made Bullock 2009’s box office star in a survey of theatre owners.  The last time a woman was at top of the list was Julia Roberts in 1999.  The film is now the 8th top grossing film for 2009.

And to to top it off according to EW: “Bullock is now the only actress ever to have a film marketed with her name solely above the title (i.e. based on her star power alone, and not a franchise or tentpoll picture) pass the $200 million mark in domestic gross.”

Congrats Sandra but it is a sad testament to how far we have to go.

Sandra Bullock is top star of ‘09 boxoffice (Yahoo)

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Tags: Katherine Dieckmann, Kathryn Bigelow, Nell Scovell, Sandra Bullock, Theresa Rebeck

Women & Hollywood on the Radio Tomorrow (Monday) Morning

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on January 3, 2010
in Events and News
. 1 Comment

Happy New Year!

The Women’s Media Center is piloting a radio show on WBAI in NY and Women & Hollywood has put together a progam for tomorrow morning’s edition.

It airs at 10amEST and you can stream in live here.

The first part of the show will be a conversation with me and the hosts about what happened for women in 2009 and what to look forward to in 2010.

The second part (which I am so excited about) is a conversation with three amazing creative artists, playwright Theresa Rebeck, TV writer and director Nell Scovell, and feature writer and director Katherine Dieckmann.

Bios on the women are below.

The focus of our discussion will be how to shift the conversation about parity issues in Hollywood (and other areas of pop culture) beyond the where are the women to trying to come up with solutions.

Here’s an overview:

Women as consumers are evident in all areas of the arts.  We buy 50% of the movie tickets, over 50% of the theatre tickets, the majority of books and are a desired TV audience.  Yet, there is still a great disconnect between the audiences and the work.  Statistics show that women creatives are underrepresented in all areas of theatre, film, and TV.

And the biggest problem is the numbers are not improving.

Women remain at 25% representation in TV, under 10% of directors, 10% of film writers, 31% of theatre creatives jobs (and that includes actors.)

For the last decade (if not longer) the conversation has been about asking the question where are the women?  The time has come to shift the conversation from continuing to lament the problem to finding solutions.

If you can listen live please do.  I will post the podcast when it is up.

Bios

Theresa Rebeck is one of the most accomplished playwrights in America today.  Her newest work The Understudy is currently playing in NYC through January 17th.  She is also a novelist.  Her first book Three Sisters and Their Brother is now available in paperback and her newest novel Twelve Rooms with a View will be published in May by Random House.  She is also writing a pilot for USA TV.

Katherine Dieckmann has written and directed three feature films most recently Motherhood starring Uma Thurman.  She was also a journalist and a director of music videos.  She currently is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts, where she teach screenwriting.  She also directed music videos for R.E.M., Aimee Mann, Wilco, and Everything but
the Girl, among others.

Nell Scovell is a TV writer and director who created the show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  She caused a bit of a stir with a recent piece on Vanity Fair’s website about her experience as a female writer on Late Night with David Letterman.

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Tags: Katherine Dieckmann, Kathryn Bigelow, Nell Scovell, Sandra Bullock, Theresa Rebeck