Women’s Panel: Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Saturday 2 PM at the Lobero Theatre

Reviewed by Dorothy Littlejohn at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Moderated by Madelyn Hammond, with Darla K. Anderson (Producer, Toy Story 3), Colleen Atwood (Costume designer, Alice In Wonderland), Gloria Borders (Executive Visual Effects producer, Digital Domain), Lesley Chilcott (Producer, Waiting For Superman), Alix Madigan (producer, Winter’s Bone).

As a woman who used to work in the film industry some 30 years ago, I wasn’t too impressed with the women’s panel.  My feeling is that the women could not really be honest in this setting, and so they said what was expected without providing much real substance.

In the old days a woman oftentimes had to sleep with the man in charge to get a job in the movie industry. A woman might have even had to sleep with someone in the union to get into the union. From what wasn’t said at the Women’s Panel, my impression is that not much has changed.

While yes, there are some women working in the movie industry we didn’t hear mention of women in leadership roles, so I presume there just aren’t many. It is unfortunate that the women’s point of view in the creation of movies doesn’t get told because there is little moderation to the male values and interests (what a male friend of mine calls “testosterone poisoning”).

While the glamor of Hollywood was discussed, there really wasn’t an overview of what kinds of jobs women tend to have, except for the women who were on the panel.

Gloria Borders of Dreamworks and Skywalker Sound said she started as an assistant sound editor when George Lucas first opened his studio in the Bay Area where she lived. She worked her way up the ladder and now is supervising sound editor, one of the few technical jobs assigned to women. (This after George Lucas told her to go save some kids in Kosovo.) “Don’t give up”, she says, “Just keep going”. She says that animators are in big demand these days.

Darla Anderson, one of the producers for Toy Story 2, says that Steve Jobs bought Pixar when she was working at the company and he gave her opportunities. She says, “Women need to be a part of the story telling to moderate the men who mostly work on these pictures”.

Alix Madigan is an independent producer along with her husband, who says that this is a hopeful time for filmmaking. That there are lots of opportunities in Independent films. She says to make your own documentary and put it on You Tube, but just do it!

The women talked about the kind of toll that working in the film industry entails. Most of them have put off starting their families until later in life, after they felt more secure in their careers.I doubt very much that would be true for men in movies. Because women tend to be in a more precarious position when they do have a job, they do not have the luxury to be sure they can keep their job. This is probably equally true for people of color. They are always on the lookout for someone jealous of them who wants them fired. It is only after you’ve worked for a while that one feels comfortable enough to believe they can take a little time to raise a family without the threat of loosing their job.

What was not discussed is how the industry has changed is the way media is no longer tightly controlled by the studios and the unions because of the internet. There are now more women producers because there is more production occurring outside of the studios for distribution outside the studios. There are now more opportunities for women outside of the studios. These studios have traditionally been controlled by certain white men. The studios used to control production and distribution in conjunction with the unions. And if a studio produced a movie without a union crew, they couId even buy a union logo to be put onto their non-union movie. (I know this from personal experience).

Yes, the women were encouraging other women to be persistent and to take whatever opportunity comes your way. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but any outsider would have to be persistent to work in movies. There were no women of color on the panel and there was no talk of how to combat racism in the movie industry, but with looser reins from the studios and unions, there certainly is more opportunity now to produce more movies with women as well as people of color and/or whomever has been traditionally “left out”.