Screenwriters Roundtable (Part 4): Jessica Bendinger, Lindsay Devlin, Stephany Folsom, Liz W. Garcia, Julia Hart, and Lisa Joy
A special treat this week and next as I will be posting excerpts from an extensive screenwriter’s roundtable I did in December 2015 with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Jessica Bendinger, Lindsay Devlin, Stephany Folsom, Liz W. Garcia, Julia Hart, and Lisa Joy.
Here is Part 4:
Scott: Does it seem to you that maybe in the last couple of years, that we’re approaching a tipping point, and there’s a lot media exposure to this stuff?
I interviewed Darnell Hunt who’s at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and he puts out that Hollywood diversity report every year. The numbers are just atrocious.
Jessica: It’s embarrassing.
Scott: It does seem like now that’s getting through people’s consciousness somehow, or am I misreading?
Stephany: I don’t know. My personal experience is that I’m usually the only woman in the room most of the time.
Liz: There’s more of a mainstream conversation, and so maybe what I’m hoping is that a mainstream conversation eventually becomes a little bit of a guilty twinge for some of the offenders, which is a place to start. The offenders then feel obliged to add women’s names to the lists, which again, is at least a place to start.
Julia: I feel like people really love talking about it, but there’s no en masse actual practical application of these ideas.
Jessica: I agree.
Stephany: That’s spot on.
Jessica: I completely agree. There’s a lot of talk. I’m not a football fan, but for anybody who knows football, there’s the Rooney Rule in the NFL. It was to encourage desegregation in hiring coaches. Basically, they have tried to mandate diversity hiring, and it actually has worked.
Similarly , there was a This American Life piece, called THE PROBLEM WE ALL LIVE WITH. It was about how desegregation in public schools actually works, and the data is so robust. The evidence undeniable, but it’s such a hot topic politically that it’s impossible to pass these mandates.
We’re in the same boat. We know desegregation works, we know women and diversity hires work. They can do the work as well, but nobody politically is willing to put their feet to the fire.
You have to have a lot of political clout to do this kind of stuff. We live in the most political town. It’s run like a weird oligarchy. It’s a very old school power structure, and they’re very reluctant to do things to change that. Studios and agencies are constantly making decisions that are against their best interest. It’s very odd.
Stephany: It’s also because there’s so much fear‑based decision making too that goes on.
Lindsay: It all is.
Stephany: Anything that seems different automatically makes the decision-makers wary of it.
Liz: This is what the ACLU, and EEOC are working on with their investigation, is finding, “Well, how do we make this diffuse problem solvable, really?” Given that they can’t build a lawsuit because no one is willing to, as you said, put their feet to the fire, and be the poster woman for this cause, they’re asking, “How do we build something concrete out of what we know is the problem, but is a problem behind closed doors?”
Hopefully, they will find a way that involves, I guess, mandates. Something concrete.
Scott: Because it’s crazy. 52 percent of the audience, women, we see consistent financial success…
Jessica: But the way they do comps, Scott, is so out of step with what’s available. I wrote about this on my blog. I don’t know if any of you ladies know Terry Huang who works with the “Black List”? I know Scott knows him.
Scott: Yes.
Jessica: He was an analyst for Google, and I basically said, “Terry, can you run the numbers on this?” If I hear comedy doesn’t travel one more time, I’m going to blow somebody’s brains out.
[laughter]
Jessica: It’s just not true. Of course, he ran the numbers, and guess what? Comedies perform better than most genres. Sci‑Fi is the only genre that beats comedy.
Seriously. Better than action movies, or something crazy, and unexpected. Look at Warner Brothers passing on Straight Outta Compton. There is no universe where you would even just go to Google, and search Straight Outta Compton, and your search results wouldn’t tell you, “Hey, there are a ton of people that probably want to see this movie.”
Even if you did it three years ago, Warner Brothers puts it in turnaround for New Line. It gets made elsewhere, it’s a huge hit. What else did they do that with? Ride Along. That is such a smart niche. If you’re a studio executive, those are movies with a robust audience.. Either of those movies, and they’re not doing it. Sure, they made a piece of profits without bearing the brunt of the cost, but there is a net/net to the exemptions in their decision-making that is hard to ignore.
It’s not just women’s movies. It’s all kinds of niche comedies. They just don’t have the bandwidth or the correct data to get the right answers, or they’re old white guys, and they just can’t relate.
Stephany: The marketing formulas are just insane, and I think you’re absolutely spot on. It’s about the comps, where they compare the data and financials of a released movie that seems to have similar characteristics to the movie you are in the process of making. They are using data from the past to project the future success of your project.
They’re dealing with data that’s often inaccurate, and outdated, and that’s why we are in the position we’re in now. Marketing essentially runs everything in the studios.
Jessica: Yeah, and they hide behind that data.
Stephany: Oh, completely.
Jessica: They can’t argue it, because if there’s nothing to argue. Sometimes, it’s just a math problem. They can’t do the calculus and so they say no.
Stephany: Yeah.
Jessica: They just want the math problems so they can say no.
[laughter]
Scott: Jessica, you mentioned you wanted to talk about problems inherent in development currently. This is kind of in that territory…
Jessica: Yeah. This is it. You’re right smacked up in the middle. The geopolitical decisions to me, and forgive me if I sound like I’m playing Stratego right now. Studios are these very old-fashioned systems where the people who get work are politically advantageous to the people hiring them.
It’s these political, decision-making strategies in place, and the power of the agency. The agencies have all this power. Huge, vast amounts of power. As we saw with what was the recent Angeline Jolie, Brad Pitt movie, By the Sea. Reportedly, Warner Brothers is saying that movie cost one thing and it’s rumored to have cost double that. Who benefits or loses if stars can’t open movies anymore? Well, the talent agencies take a huge hit.
If you can’t open with Angelina and Brad, who does that hurt? It doesn’t hurt writers and directors who want to do original content. It hurts the agencies. It hurts their commissions and it impacts their power to leverage.
Stephany: All the packaging that they base everything on.
Jessica: Correct, so it’s like the crumbling of this old, 1950s mindset of, “I have the biggest stick in the room. I’m CAA. I want this to happen. Therefore, it will happen. Because I said so.” Versus, “This is the best movie. We know there are hungry audiences who want to consume this kind of content. We know, because we’ve implemented robust and rigorous analytics to figure that out.” They could be using endless amounts of available data to support talent, and move potentially profitable and diverse projects forward, and they’re not doing it. Artists sometimes have an allergy to data, but it’s not going away. It serves you to know exactly what your data is and how your analytics translate. You shouldn’t have to audit iTunes or Netflix to get your numbers. They should be accessible all writers and directors and actors and — ideally — we should be able to use them on our own behalf. Real transparency with the companies could be revolutionary for creators. Not to mention revolutionary for the agencies.
Each day this week, I’m going to highlight one of the writers. Today: Lisa Joy. Lisa Joy got her start as a Hollywood writer working for the ABC television series “Pushing Daisies,” then as writer-producer on the USA series “Burn Notice.” She wrote the spec script “Reminiscence” which made the 2013 Black List and sold to Legendary Pictures for a reported $1.25M. In addition, she co-creator with her husband Jonathan Nolan and co-executive producer of the HBO series “Westworld” which will debut in 2017. Finally it was recently announced Lisa is writing a movie reboot of Battlestar Galactica.
Lisa Joy
Please take time to leave a reply with your observations and follow-up questions, and while you’re there thank these writers for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this roundtable for GITS readers and the wider online screenwriting community.
On Twitter:
Jessica Bendinger: @JBendinger
Lindsay Devlin: @DevlinLindsay
Stephany Folsom: @StephanyFolsom
Liz W. Garcia: @lizwgarcia
Julia Hart: @juliahartowitz
Lisa Joy: @lisajoynolan
For Part 1 of the series, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Tomorrow: Part 5 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.