Dinner with Virginia

Seattle film veterans field queries about female voices in film, and dish out advice about her place in the biz.

For this edition of On Screen, Seattle director Virginia Bogert (and President, Women in Film), hosted a roundtable discussion with Suzy Kellett, Washington State Film Office; Peggy Case, independent producer; Heather Murphy, production manager; and Cheryl Slean, writer/director (IFP Spotlight Award-winner). Moderated by Alicia Dara, composer, and Leone Fogle, writer with On Screen, the spirited conversation that ensued has been edited, names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty) and more spicy excerpts deleted; but what ensued was a lively discussion about the film industry and women in it. No seat belts were fastened. (Thank you Bette Davis.)

Photos: Cheryl Slean, Peggy Case, Suzy Kellett, Heather Murphy

   
 

What is the single most important factor limiting the involvement of women in the film business?
Virginia: Gender. (laughter)
Heather: Opportunities. When one group is more strongly represented or more in command, it tends to set up a fraternal club.
Cheryl: But how is that different from any profession?
Several: It isn’t.
Cheryl: It’s part of a historical trend. That’s changing but… call it patriarchy.
Heather: So if you’re addressing it from that angle, then we have to take it upon ourselves. Because we’ve brought on some of that, if not individually, then societally.
Virginia: Yes, I don’t think the film industry is any different from any other profession in that regard.
Cheryl: It might be worse. I don’t know what the statistics are; there might be more women lawyers, but most lawyers have a job. There are plenty of filmmakers out there that are unemployed.
Heather: I think for any individual, male or female, who happens to be fortunate enough to discover this business; the second part of that discovery is that you create your own path.
Virginia: And you make your own work. I don’t know if that’s particular to women, or to the Northwest, but that’s what I found I needed to do, especially in the documentary field, but also beyond that. I just keep plugging away, because there are no opportunities that are offered easily. (silver platter gesture)
Heather: We’re back to that opportunity word. It’s part of a perceived idea that there’s a mystery here. I started in the business straight off on a major feature. That’s like a military structure; you inch your way along. Back in those days, it was well peppered with screaming individuals who wanted to make sure you kept that perception because you’d best serve them if you did. It takes a while to figure out, “Hey, I can pilot this space ship. I might need some team players and pals that are on my page, but hey, I can drive this vehicle.”
Virginia: There is a mystique that has been perpetuated about the business. You just have to work your way through all that toward what you want to be.
But there are specific positions women seem to fall into in the industry. They wind up being producers, production managers, above-the-line producers, or coordinators, because we women are the galvanizers, the organizers: it’s something that’s easy for females to do. It’s in our genetics. We nurture.
Heather: We’re the den mothers. We make sure that all the children are fed and play nicely together. (laughter)

“We women are the galvanizers, the organizers. It’s something that’s easy for females to do. It’s in our genetics. We nurture.”

When you’re working on a film, do you feel there’s a gender identity that’s tied up in your sense of authority?
Peggy: I always feel whenever I do anything, if it works out or if it doesn’t, I always feel like it’s just me, I always feel responsible. I don’t think, “Oh I’m a female.” I never think that way about myself.
Virginia: I don’t think any of us do.
Peggy: If I do something well, I did it the way my grandmother or my mother or my sister would do it, to tell you the truth. You treat other people the way you would want them to treat you. Values that I’ve learned from my family; those are the things that seem really important to me when making a film, like how you treat locations, that kind of thing. It’s not important to me for self-serving reasons, it’s like it’s the right thing to do in the universe. But it always ends up helping; it’s beneficial to you to treat people right.
Virginia: This is something that’s important for me, on a movie set, or in anything I do. It’s about process, and of course, product, but the process is so important because it informs the product. If things aren’t going well, and people aren’t being treated well and respected, if it isn’t a good situation on the set where you’re creating something; for me it’s not good. It affects the creation. On my film shoots people have gone through an evolution process, it is quite amazing and that’s part of the final product for me. I think it’s more a female feeling, that we want the process to be as good as the product. It certainly hasn’t been true of the major features I’ve worked on in my early days that were male focused.
Heather: You can take that into the commercials world too. They’re so quick and dirty you don’t have time to build up love or hatred towards each other; but if people aren’t being treated well, they check out.
Suzy: In the studio system one of the things that has saddened me over the years is how tough women become to play in this game. We just did a scout where the producer sat in the back of the van on the phone yelling about all kinds of issues. She was so tough and nasty. This new director with her was looking at doing a show with her. I think I’d be saying, “Boy, is this going to happen to me?” It made me sad that women don’t use what they do best, what you were talking about, Virginia, which is building consensus and equanimity on the set. There had to be this ‘play by the boys’ rules,’ play tough, play nasty…
Virginia: It doesn’t work for us.
Suzy: And at what level does it begin? In Seattle it’s like family, you know everybody and you work so well, and it’s sort of a lovely, engaged environment. Suddenly when you get to some budget or production level, and I don’t know where it starts to shift, it’s an old-boy network and women are hitting the glass ceiling and they’re starting to do it like the guys do it, and it becomes miserable.
Virginia: Seattle is different though; it’s a whole different ball game. We make our living here in a different way, and that’s why we’re not in L.A. I guess.

“Mary Wollstonecraft, Emeline Pankhurst, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Katy Stanton, all of them had one thing in common—they were not put into the school system. They were all hand educated by the father from the age of understanding.”

Cheryl: Partly because I’m a woman, and partly because I’m an organized person, I can produce easily. When I was in L.A., I realized I was producing everybody else’s work-and I made that choice consciously. It wasn’t, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” but, “We’re a community of artists, we’re going to all help each other, and I’m happy to serve, but I want to realize my visions as well, and I’m sure you’ll serve me when the time comes.”All: Ha ha ha. So that was your ideal, but…
Cheryl: Right. That didn’t happen.
Virginia: You were willing to not be the director, but be the…
Cheryl: …one that organized for the male directors. This was in the theatre, even so, that’s where I learned my lesson. I realized I could spend my whole life serving these men’s visions. The organizations were male-dominated and I admired the aesthetic and I wanted to learn from it, but I realized I’d be stuck there. I was writing grants for festivals for my peers and they weren’t doing anything; they were happy to be invited! As soon as I left, another woman stepped in. It was always a woman who’s making it run.
Heather: The Little Red Hen! They were all happy to eat it, but nobody wanted to grind the wheat or bake the bread.
Cheryl: I decided to serve myself for a while. When I have a team and I’m in a position of authority, I’m sensitive to what people are giving, and what they’re giving up. It can be an incredible collaborative thing, but really they’re there for my vision. That’s the way it works.
Virginia: I like to create something on set so that people are getting something out of this too; and that it will move them to do what they want to do, and that I will be there for them when they do their thing.
Cheryl: That’s right!
Heather: There is a karma attached, there is a professional generosity.
Virginia: It really does all come back.

“My writing is one of the ways I’ve gotten in touch with this deeper voice. Everything brilliant, creative, comes from back here (she touches the back of her head). That’s where the brilliant person is. The back of the head, I call it. When you’re working up here (touches her forehead), that part pieces together the brilliant stuff.”

Stories about women go in and out of fashion. Is part of the solution to focus more on all the different ways the female experience can be represented?
Heather: Oh, I would say definitely.
Suzy: Look at the women stars who lead for these women directors: The Piano, Thelma and Louise… it’s endless. Would these films have shown up the same way had the actors been different? I think they’re in tandem a bit. The actors bring the women directors, and the women directors bring the actors. So, do the stories hold it, or is it the drive of the opening weekend that’s going to make the film successful?
Cheryl: There’s a lot of lip service paid to the market. It determines the choices made by the business people who decide what’s being green-lit, but so many of them are men and they prefer to see stories about men.
Virginia: It’s also their take on what they think the audience is going to want. So many times they are proven wrong, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
Cheryl: I don’t blame them; to them a story is about a man, with a woman in it for sex and stuff like that (laughter), but the story is about a man because a man is the actor in his life, just as I’m the actor in my life. It’s more about that ingrained sense of what a story should be that these men who are running the studio have. So the more women that can get into positions of power, the better; unless they’ve given it all up to get there, and become like men. But Sherry Lansing was a big proponent of women being…
Virginia: Sherry Lansing! That’s the thing… how many men are studio heads and all we talk about is Sherry Lansing because there was only one woman for so long. And now she’s off doing good works; she’s the head of a non-profit organization that helps people. (laughter)
Suzy: Then Dawn Steele stepped in and was very powerful. If you asked anybody, they’d say Dawn Steele is a force to be reckoned with; she brought women along. She wanted to see women be successful like she was. She didn’t just go forth and not look back, and that’s the key.
Heather: Yes and Lauren Schuler Donner doesn’t have the hatchet-woman persona.
Virginia: No, she has a true gentle aspect to her. I can see why she’s a great producer. She has this really nurturing, ‘lifting up’ of the people who are working with her. Again, a female producer, and let’s talk about directors…
(Some etiquette editing takes place)
Cheryl: I wish someone would write a book on Sophia Coppola that tells how she got to be a director. And she has her brother, Roman, working with her very closely, directing the second unit. He collaborates with her on the scripts. There’s an example of a man who’s willing to…
Heather: …play second fiddle. And here’s a little factoid that’s kind of off the subject, but not really. Probably several of you know this, but, the women suffragettes, all the way back to Mary Wollstonecraft, Emeline Pankhurst, Susan B. Anthony, all of them, Elizabeth Katy Stanton– the one thing they had in common. Does anybody know?
Virginia: They were single. (laughter)
Heather: They were not put into the school system. They were all hand educated, usually in the classics, by the father from the age of understanding.
Suzy: And women with strong father mentors do incredibly well.
Virginia: Maybe it has to do with the egotism of the patriarch, you know, that, “My daughter is not going to play second fiddle to anyone!”
Cheryl: And the girl role-modeling the father. I role-modeled after my father because my mother I perceived as weak, a housewife. I love my mother dearly, and now I’ve completely changed my tune about the strength of selflessness, but growing up it was always Dad, he was the one I wanted to be. It fit my personality.
Heather: My father was my heroine. (laughter) He taught my mother how to be a feminist!
Suzy: So that’s another question about partnerships, whether it’s brother/sister, or peers; what makes them work and what makes them not work? It’s probably the same with partnerships everywhere, you have to fill that gap of needing the other person.
Virginia: There’s got to be mutual respect. In a marriage it’s the same thing. If there isn’t, you don’t succeed. You have to feel you have something to give the other person. Making film is collaborative; although I am in charge as the director, the DP I choose, the people who are supporting me, the people who do the art direction, the actors, they’re all making me better. You have to allow them to be creative. You feed each other. Being a director is letting people flourish, and I think women do that really well, so I don’t understand why there aren’t more women directors.

Do you feel you have more trouble with men on the set because you’re a woman?
Virginia: No, there are men who I work with who have known me for years, and some who I have never worked with before, and they respect me and are super supportive. But I have had situations, not often, and I’ve had to quietly tell someone off. Once an AD, actually. They just try to take over, and I have to use a part of myself that I don’t like to use.
Cheryl: I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody try to usurp my authority, but I’ve had plenty of freak-outs, actors always freak out, but other people do too. It’s part of the director’s role, learning how to talk with them, doing that better. With the crew, it’s about your relationship, your communication issues. I’ve had problems with ADs constantly, and I don’t know what that is.
Virginia: In the studio system, ADs are not on the path to becoming directors, but in Seattle and on indie’s many ADs want to become directors.
Cheryl: And part of it is my problem. These people are on set a lot more often than I am. I’m on set once every three years when I have the money to make a movie. I’ve had great relationships with male DPs who knew much more about the technical process than I did, but they were so willing to let me run the show-to be in service to me-and they said that from day one, that’s why I hired them.
Heather: As well they should be, and even if they know ten times more than you, they should be willing to help you get your vision.
Cheryl: The one time I did have a run-in with a DP was with a female DP, she was fighting me all the way, telling me I should do it this way or that, and talking to the actors. The men DPs were more respectful and obviously in service to the project and the guys had more confidence. But I felt for this woman, she was trying to make it.
Virginia: She was struggling.
Suzy: Don’t you think that’s the underpinning for a lot of these positions? There are fewer women in L.A. doing these jobs. There are women making a stand for themselves as ADs, DPs, and it’s tough, they’re up against the same things.
Cheryl: Those positions are traditionally so male dominated.
Heather: There’s getting to be more but there are very few female camera people. It’s a very fraternal department.

A lot of women are not very forgiving of themselves. The opposite seems to be true of men, some of who stumble and blunder, and it seems their confidence carries them forward.
Virginia: I think men are brought up with a sense of entitlement; women are not.
Heather: And with, “I don’t know how to do that, but I can fake it, because I’ve got bravado.” (laughter)
Virginia: And either this is something we need to learn, or… and you’re right, some blunder through, but a woman making that mistake is a hair brain. We get a bad rap, and we always have to be better than everybody. We are also really hard on ourselves, and hard on each other as well… Women have different gifts.
Peggy: If there’s one thing we should tell women, it’s, “Trust your instincts. Don’t not listen to them.”
Heather: I’m always second-guessing my perception, but when it comes from here, if the belly button’s beeping, that’s when you have to listen.
Cheryl: It’s below rational thought and it’s not in the frontal brain. But it’s wisdom. I like to say, “Find your wisdom and listen to that.” Used to be the way I, as a woman, could be entitled, was to pursue the path of the intellect and the rational. I realized I had skills that I could apply, so I decided to not deal with emotions, not listen to women’s intuition. I thought, “Rational thought, that’s how you get ahead, that’s how you make your way.” It’s been really hard for me to relax and find that voice.

Have you found that choice has affected your writing?
Cheryl: Actually my writing is one of the ways I’ve gotten in touch with this deeper voice. Everything brilliant, creative, comes from back here (she touches the back of her head). That’s where the brilliant person is. The back of the head, I call it. That’s what I say when I’m teaching. When you’re working up here (touches her forehead), that part pieces together the brilliant stuff.
Heather: I really like what you said about shifting gears from logic to instinct, because it is a real gear shift. We are taught to value logical thinking. Trusting your instinct sometimes feels impulsive.
Virginia: Yes, that’s true. But I find that whenever I don’t trust that instinct, and it is really the speedy source of information, I get screwed. I have to keep on reminding myself of that. I say to myself, too many times unfortunately, “You knew it. Next time do something about it. Next time, listen,” whether it’s about people or creative ideas.
Cheryl: And how many times have you sat in the editing room, “Why didn’t I listen to my instinct? Now I have nothing to cut to.” (laughter)

I hear from directors that editing is its own circle of Hell; they watch again and again how they went against their instincts.
Heather: Directors are the storytellers, but the ultimate word on telling the story is the editor.
Virginia: I do my own editing first, but then I let somebody else have it. I’m very invested in what I do, but I know I need to give it over to new eyes, new creativity, to help tell the story. I’m too close.
Heather: There’s the priceless co-operation… then sitting next to that editor and saying, “This is my intent, this is what I want.”
Virginia: Right. “I want this, because, “She turns her head just so, and it says something to me, so don’t cut that.” Those are the little subtle things– and I think this goes with that female thing-I think women make the best editors (general agreement and nodding of heads), and I think it’s because…
Heather: Nuance.
Virginia: Yes. So many people say, “I don’t know why I’m affected by this piece,” –because they don’t see it outright. It’s not obvious.
Peggy: And it’s also putting in that which is a little messy.
Virginia: …the authentic thing that affects somebody viscerally, and they don’t even know what they’re affected by.
Cheryl: Here’s another piece of advice to young women: find a way for it to be O.K. to not know the answer right now, because it is about the process. Being a woman is a big part of it; I’m scrambling to already know the end point so they know I know what I’m talking about, so that they all respect me.
Virginia: You’re their leader. You’ve got to be the one who knows.
Cheryl: Right. You know how everything always changes on a set, all your carefully wrought plans go out the window half the time.
Virginia: That’s why you need a good AD. That’s where a good AD will cover your back. There should be a whole support system for the director to make it all happen. For the most part that’s the way it is, especially if you put your crew together well.
Peggy: It’s to feel comfortable enough with the people around you so you’re not worrying about being perfect; you’re just really… there.
Cheryl: It’s hard to have to prove yourself constantly. I think it’s harder when you’re a woman. So my other piece of advice is to cultivate mystery and not knowing, no matter how much pressure there is. There’s this great thing called, “Acting as if.” It’s acting as if you know what you’re doing, but not let that concept take over inside: that secret place that is making your decisions.
Virginia: Your team does want you to know what you’re doing and that they’re not spinning their wheels. That’s one thing I stay aware of, they’re here for me, they’re all professionals and they’re all here to help me execute my vision, and it’s worthy.
Peggy: It’s O.K. though if you’re heading into the unknown. Just as long as you’re comfortably heading into the unknown.

Virginia, you really radiate authority; I’m pretty sure you can get anything done, anywhere in the world, under any circumstances. But I’ve been on some sets where I’m not inspired by the leaders, nothing about them says to me, “I’ve got it together, People, I’ve got a big vision, let’s go, trust me.”
Heather: Even if you do have a big vision and you have a strong presence and you’ve got most of the people on your page, you might have a group of grip and electrics that are there to collect the paycheck and overtime and there’ll be hell if there isn’t overtime; and they’re just not on your page. It’s not about the big picture and the vision, the greater idea, and this altruistic thing of making a film. It’s, “I want my meal penalty, I want my overtime!”
Peggy: That, and you have to learn, “I don’t care what that sound guy thinks.” If he says to me, “That was the longest interview!” So what! If you’re worrying about what the guy in the corner with the cable is thinking…

How do you deal with that stuff?
Virginia: Don’t start nurturing him! Men do feel they can tell you exactly what they think, if you’re nice.
Suzy: He’s getting paid, he’s showing up.
Heather: On the bigger films they can start union revolts. You’re as fair as you possibly can be but there’s still one guy keeping track of every fifteen seconds, and he’s going to get everyone all worked up.
Virginia: That can happen on the big films, that doesn’t happen so much on the independent films here.
Heather: No, here we’ve got more of a club. But you get one once in a while, and it’s harder when they’ve got that mentality and it’s your own 50 bucks you’re spending to make the film.
Peggy: The worst is that you think they’re all judging the content.
Virginia: I do think about not wasting people’s time. We did a massive search locally for talent for Tootie Pie and we found two girls; they were lovely but they were just not right for the part, getting older by the minute, and they were not professionals. I realized, because of all you put into making a movie: your life, for a while, I needed to have really strong talent. They’re going to carry the picture. (nods of agreement all around) So we sent to LA, and got two great little girls. And every single day on set, Susan LaSalle, (my fabulous producer) and I looked at each other and said, “Oh my, thank God we got these girls,” because the crew-we would have lost them, maybe not physically but… I mean, we didn’t go into overtime, they ate well (laughter), we had some rough days, and they were only getting honorariums, but they just wouldn’t have been with us if content and production wasn’t stellar.
Peggy: That’s another good point, actually they are a barometer. When it’s really happening, everyone can tell.

Seeing the film, I have no doubt you could direct a feature.
Virginia: And I intend to but needless to say it’s tough. I think I do a fairly good job of promoting myself, but not marketing myself, and I think you have to market yourself and your work. Take it around, knock on doors in L.A. I really don’t know how to do that well.
Peggy: It’s so much easier to do that for somebody else.
Heather: Somebody else can go toot your horn.
Suzy: Men are better at self-marketing. We get attached to the outcome, and it gets tricky.

Is there an age or a point at which confidence makes an appearance? Does anybody want to go on record about what age that stuff all happens? (laughter all around)
Peggy: There is an evolution. I realized if I’m going to make something, I’m going to make it the way I would make it, not the way my wonderful male boss/mentor would have made it.
Virginia: You have to be true to yourself or else you’re not putting anything out there, if you’re not putting out, “Who you are.”
Peggy: Right, if you’re trying to mimic something else.
Heather: I don’t think it’s an age process, I think it’s a very personal, internal process and it’s a bit generational. All the things we were talking about: perception versus what the real limitations are, the tendency to want to nurture, trusting instincts, wanting to blame ourselves; it’s all to do with how it’s intricately put together in the woman human being. A story — I was putting a bathroom in my house and I had this guy come and he drew up a plan, he was a contractor, and it went boom boom boom. He came in, measured, and this is where the tub was going to be, where the sink was going to be… Well, I immediately gave all my power to him, because he’s the expert, he’s the one who knows. Then he said, “Well, now you have to find a tub,” so I went out to find a tub. I found this beautiful six-foot tub, and he says, “You can’t have that tub.” And I say, “What do you mean, I can’t have that tub?” “That’s a six-foot tub, and there’s only room for a five-foot tub.” Immediately in my mind, I see this older guy, he probably only takes a shower and it’s probably over and done with (mimics scrubbing), bam, and he’s out. Maybe I want to lie down, maybe I want to have someone at the other end. (laughter) He never took me through the process of, “What do you plan to do in this room besides shower and sit on the throne?” There was no process that I was involved in to figure this out. He was telling me what I was going to do.
Suzy: And what did you do?
Heather: I went out and I got a bigger tub, with Jacuzzi jets. (laughter) But I had let someone take the power of that creative process from me because I thought he had the recipe and I didn’t; so for whatever that’s worth– it’s a parable.
Virginia: I think females fall prey to that. And there’s a lesson there for sure.
Heather: Again, I’m going to throw the generation card in because I think that Suzy and Virginia and I can identify with that a little bit better than Alicia, who probably doesn’t think there’s anything in her way, (I’m assuming that), but I just know that some younger women nowadays tend not to see as many obstacles.
Virginia: No! I want a six-foot tub! (laughter)
Peggy: Women are judged more on merit now, so I think things are slowly evolving. I love seeing really young women who are totally full of confidence.
Heather: Yeah, they don’t think for a minute that this is not their game.
Alicia: There’s a line from Shakespeare in Love, that Dame Judi Dench speaks: “But I know something of a woman in a man’s profession, yes, by God, I know something about that. ” Every time I’ve got to lead a band that’s all guys, or I’m in a room with directors that are all men, I hear Dame Judi whispering to me, “Yes, by God, I know something about what it is to be a woman in a man’s profession.” (laughter) It’s ok, man. You know? That’s my method.
Heather: Trust in yourself.
Cheryl: Trust in the inner Dame Judi. (laughter)
Virginia: Amen.

- Guest Editor for On Screen: Virginia Bogert, director, Laughing Dog Pictures and Experience Music Project, Pres. WIF/Seattle.