Q&A (Part 1): Chicks Who Script (Emily Blake, Maggie F. Levin, Lauren Schacher)
Here is a terrific, new resource for the online writing community: A weekly podcast called Chicks Who Script, featuring a trio of ‘chicks’: Emily Blake, Maggie F. Levin, and Lauren Schacher. You may check out their website here.
I asked Emily if they would be willing to do a Q&A and they agreed. It’s an interview in two parts. Today in Part 1, we learn about the genesis of the podcast and delve into the substantial issue of gender inequality up and down the work force in the Hollywood entertainment business, specifically movies and television.
Scott: What’s the one-line high concept description of Chicks Who Script?
Maggie: Three girls, two microphones, and a half-cup of revolution — just add Hollywood. Kidding. Kidding. Real talk: This world is ready for women to make movies and to talk about the movies they make. Chicks Who Script is here to help kick that conversation into the spotlight.
Lauren: Yes, I love that. Nothing to add here.
Scott: Hit me up with the particulars: Website, when and how often each podcast drops, how to access the podcasts, Twitter handles, the whole thing.
Emily: You can find us on Twitter (@CWSpodcast) and Facebook. We have a website — www.chickswhoscript.com, and if you click on “Podcast” at the top of the page, it takes you to our episodes, but we’ll have the show in Itunes as well by the end of the week. We post one every Monday. We’ve done two so far.
Lauren: There it is. That’s all our stuff.
Scott: What was the inspiration for CWS and how many margaritas at El Coyote did it require for you to actually say, “We’re gonna do this!”
Emily: This is all Twitter’s fault. I was complaining about the lack of women’s voices on a recent podcast about screenwriting and somebody said someone should start a podcast about women in screenwriting, and then suddenly Lauren was in and then I was in and then Maggie was in. It happened in the span of 15 minutes or something, and we never really questioned it. We just all enthusiastically wanted to do it from minute one. It made the work easier knowing everybody was 100% in.
Lauren: Switch that margarita for a glass of Bulleit Rye and I’m there. … to be fair, it was Republic of Pie in North Hollywood. Wah wah.
Hey Em, guess who that person was who was like, “why aren’t there chick writing podcasts?” …it was me. Haha. But yes, then all of a sudden, Emily and I had volunteered ourselves for something we were simply complaining didn’t exist, and then Maggie was in too, and BAM. We had it.
Emily: Well there you go. It was Lauren all along.
Scott: You crowd-sourced possible names for the podcast. What were some of the other finalists?
Lauren: Chicks With Scripts was the initial winner, along with The Female Protagonist, and Words With Femmes were our top. Girls on Film and briefly Script Chicks were also contenders. Our good friends Miranda Sajdak and Sandra Leviton run the fabulous Script Chix site, so Chicks Who Script it is!
Scott: For any stray Luddites out there, what would be your pitch to get them to tune in to Chicks Who Script and in general, the ineffable beauty of podcasts?
Maggie: Podcasts are a perfect example of how everything old is new again. It’s radio with pinpoint specificity, completely customizable (or curatable) to your tastes and interests — the perfect medium to learn a new skill or tap directly into a community you’re curious about. This is what makes it the perfect format to discuss screenwriting and screencraft. If movies are what move you — or better yet, if you’re the sort that’s moved to make movies — Chicks Who Script is for you.
Lauren: I would add that it makes our community even smaller. For those of us on Twitter (aka everyone reading this), you have perhaps felt the comfort of community thanks to our 140 character addictions. Especially for people glued to their computers in solace all day, this is an exciting development. Well, podcasts are a dynamic extension of this. We’re discussing topics relevant to our field while very often touching back to the Twitter community. I’d say that it breaks down confidence barriers for newbie writers. So much information and presented in a fun way!
Scott: Name five guests you would absolutely love to have on your podcast and why?
Emily: Amy Schumer. She is not only hilarious, but she does such a completely honest portrayal of women on her show in a way I’ve never seen. On just about every episode I get excited because it’s like she pulled scenes straight out of my life. And where a lot of women try to avoid calling attention to their feminism, when #YesAllWomen was blowing up, she joined in.
Lauren: OMG YES 1000x AMY SCHUMER.
Diablo Cody is pretty damn high on my list. I’ve probably read the Juno script 20 times and count it among my favorites. One of my favorite things about that script is the tone, aside from the character work of course, which is also genius. I also just find her to be a rad, admirable human. She’s also someone who’s actively sharing her voice and refuses to back away from it. I recently went to a writer’s chat with Writing Pad at We Work in Hollywood with Diablo and Nia Valdaros, both powerhouses, both on my list. The way they talked about being women in Hollywood… I know they’re fighting.
Lexi Alexander, who will be on the show, is one of my heroes. I feel like she’s going to call me out for saying that about her, but she’s an exceptional human. Green Street Hooligans is one of my all time favorite films despite the fact that I rarely watch violent movies. Talk about someone who’s actively fighting for better representation for women in this business.
And if we’re talking heroes… which we are… Emma Thompson, Ava DuVernay, and Mindy Kaling. I would lose my shit (in the best way) if they came anywhere near this podcast.
Emily: I’m so excited about Lexi. I’m excited about all of this. We record the episodes in my house, so all of these amazing people come into my home and it makes me clean things more often and dust my DVD collection because I want to impress them.
Know who else I want? Shane Black, although the greatest struggle in a Shane Black interview would be to not turn it into The Chris Farley Show. “You remember how the original script for Lethal Weapon is the most amazing read ever? Yeah that was cool.”
Maggie: We’re way past our five person quota, but I’m just gonna leave this here…Katie Dippold, Caroline Thompson & Shonda Rhimes.
Lauren: Dude. All those. YESSSSS.
Scott: In a post on her blog Bamboo Killers announcing CWS, Emily wrote this: “We’ll be discussing screenwriting from a female perspective, and we will have a guest each week. It won’t always be woman-centric, but it will always include the female voice in the conversation.” Putting on my producer’s hat here, let me ask you a basic question: Who is your target audience?
Lauren: I think it’s important to note that while we’re women discussing films, this podcast is not only for female listeners. We embrace ALL listeners! Male-led podcasts aren’t just for men and ours isn’t just for women. There simply wasn’t a Scriptnotes-esque podcast run by women and we wanted to fill that void. We wanted to listen to something like that! It didn’t exist, and so we made it. I’d also say that our target audience is people looking to get into screenwriting and those at the beginning of their careers. The three of us are all relatively early on in our writing careers. We’re not pretending to be veterans. We’re somewhat new with a few cool things under our belts: rep, water bottle tours, indie film production, scripts in development, script options, film festivals, fellowships, getting your short made and out there to the world, competitions, writing in general, etc.
Emily: And the fact that we’re all pretty early in our careers is one of the main reasons we decided to center the episodes around guests. We’re learning from the people who visit us the same way we hope our audience is.
Maggie: Absolutely. Our target is probably more early-career and aspiring writers, but I do hope that anyone wishing to be a part of the larger “Women in Film” conversation will drop in from time to time. Especially to hear from our incredible guests. Our guest lineup is out of control. I can’t wait to do our next batch of recordings.
Scott: The institutionalized gender inequity in the film and TV business is longstanding and extreme. For example, some of my blog readers did an analysis of spec script sales from 1991–2013 and discovered that only 1 our of every 8 scripts that sold was written by a woman. What’s your analysis on why that is?
Lauren: You’re in the belly of it, Scott. Ok, here goes.
Emily and I touched on this today and I think about it a lot when I work with kids (among the day jobs I’ve worked, tutoring kids/teens has been the most rewarding). I think there are a few things at play. First of all, the number of women putting themselves out there. Even at a young age, girls tend to exhibit more apologetic behavior, while boys display their work proudly, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong. This mindset, as you can imagine, bleeds into adulthood.
I want to be clear about two things: 1) The problem is not that there are not enough women who want to write. If I never hear that argument again, I’ll be happy. 2) It’s also not that women don’t have the tenacity required to have a writing career. That shit makes me some kind of furious. I do wonder, however, if women simply aren’t putting their work out there in the kinds of numbers that men are because of some irrational fear about it not being good enough. I almost wish that were the case because then we wouldn’t have to talk about discrimination…which is the real issue.
The more women I meet within this industry in increasingly higher rankings, the more I discover what I had always imagined to be true: as with directors, there’s a stigma against women writers. I wish I could ask every woman who comes on the podcast about her experience with this, but I know there will be those who don’t want to talk about it.
Emily: One of our great hopes for the podcast is that maybe in some tiny way we can help with that. I think when women hear stories of other women succeeding, it will encourage them to take the risk and put their work out there.
Lauren: Exactly. Also, Maggie said something really smart in episode one of CWS, which was that so often the conversation about the lack of women in film and lack of women writing is a conversation had without women. To be fair, we do need both male and female voices on the matter, but we also need action. The more we actually move in that direction, aka the more we just MAKE our work, get our work out there, the better our chances for a shift to occur. I think it’s happening. I do.
Scott: What is it going to take to significantly increase the number of women writers, directors, and film crew members getting hired?
Maggie: I think it’ll take a whole sea change. It’s been said in article after article — women AND men have to advocate for women. Girls who are just starting out in the business have to accept that they’re in for an uphill battle and refuse to quit — then turn around and help others up the ladder. But something everyone has the power to do right this instant is talk about it. Take it from a trending topic to the center of industry discourse. The louder the conversation gets, the harder it is for the powers-that-be to ignore.
Lauren: It’s going to have to be a conscious effort on all of our parts for a while, but then, after the shift, we won’t have to work so hard to support women. Often I hear people say, “yeah, but you don’t want to be hired just because you’re a woman, do you?” And to that I say, it’s not just about me. It’s not just about us. It’s about future generations. It’s about all women. The more of us who succeed in this business, the better. PERIOD. If you hire me because you need a diversity hire, will I take that job? Hell yes I will! And I will bust my ass to keep it and excel at it so that other women can see one woman’s success and keep pushing themselves to do better.
…so basically what Maggie said.
Tomorrow in Part 2, Lauren, Maggie and Emily share advice to both women and men writers, and reflect on what the success of movies with female leads like Lucy may mean in terms of Hollywood’s conventional wisdom.
Emily Blake
Emily Blake enjoys writing fight scenes with accurate tactics. She’s written more screenplays than she can remember, all action or action comedy. She was a finalist in the TrackingB contest in 2011 and is currently repped at APA. She cowrote and is executive producing a short film about Doctor Who fans called Tenspotting, which will star Chloe Dykstra. She’s a message board moderator, an amateur dog trainer, a former high school teacher, and an experienced Twitterer. In a zombie apocalypse, she’d probably be okay. She believes Terminator 2 is the finest movie ever made, although Galaxy Quest is a close second.
Maggie F. Levin
Maggie F. Levin is a film & theatre artist with rock n’ roll roots. Since arriving in Los Angeles, she has worked as a director & concept artist for music videos, a script doctor for indie producers, and a pop music reviewer for MXDWN.com — in addition to her ‘regular’ work as a screenwriter, fit model and script reader. Maggie writes fractured fairy tales in movie form — so obviously she thinks Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the greatest thing ever. Besides Prince. Prince is actually the greatest thing ever.
Lauren Schacher
Lauren Schacher is an actor/writer combo. …don’t worry if you haven’t heard of that. It’s a totally new thing. Yup. She’s got degrees in Biochemistry and Italian Literature, has performed on stage at Lincoln Center and on screen opposite some of the world’s greatest movie stars, has seen the inside of the human body (dude. it’s SO BEAUTIFUL) and is in development on her first feature film. She was one of three (all female) Big Vision Empty Wallet Screenwriting Fellows in 2013 in addition to having been a semi-finalist for the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab with her psychological thriller, Dream Catcher. Lauren’s focus as a writer is on human relationships, most often in terms of sexuality. Films like Short Term 12 and Rachel Getting Married make her coo. …then cry.
Website
Facebook
Twitter: @CWSPodcast
Emily: @Bambookiller
Maggie: @MaggieLevin
Lauren: @LaurenSchacher
The Chicks Who Script podcast is also available on iTunes.
It’s folks like Maggie, Lauren and Emily, along with each of us, who are going to drag Hollywood kicking and screaming into the 21st century. As @MysteryExec would say: “Be the change.” I hope Chicks Who Script can become a leading voice in that movement, as well as providing insight, information and entertainment for all creatives, regardless of gender, along the way.
So check out the podcast and spread the word, folks!
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