Learn more about diversity and inclusion in tech.
Video: Where are the Women? The Importance of Visibility in Achieving Inclusivity
THEBROADCASTKNOWLEDGE.COM
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 20, 2019
“If she can see it, she can be it,” is the catch phrase of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. The issue being if she’s not seeing it, it’s almost impossible to convince a young woman that a career in STEM is even fathomable.
For us in the broadcast industry, it’s clear there is a lot to do and this is work that needs to be done at all ages.
Please, take it upon yourself do to something this year, however small, to address the gender imbalance in broadcast.
A recent study related to me by a science teach fresh back from a conference found that if girls hadn’t become interested in science by the age of 6, then when they come to choose their exam choices at 14 and beyond, they were vastly less likely to choose STEM topics. However, many are interested yet put off by all sorts of factors later on – many of which can be addressed.
When women feature in film and TV, this directly influences real people. The Hunger Games’s Katniss Everdeen was “the major cause of waiting lists for archery lessons from coast to coast.” a few years ago. In 2018 a study was released on ‘The Scully Effect’, about the real world effect of Dana Scully from The X-Files:
Of the women surveyed, “63% say Scully increased their confidence that they could excel in a male-dominated profession.”
Diversity, Inclusion, Core Values Carry Weight At Tech-Heavy SMPTE Confab
SHOOTONLINE.COM
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31, 2018
Research shows that a broader based workplace culture yields innovation, bottom-line success
LOS ANGELES — In the midst of technological breakthroughs and assorted presentations on equipment and software innovation, a non-tech session was regarded by some as being among the most relevant events at last week’s SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held last week in downtown L.A.
Titled “Innovating People: Management, Culture and Inclusion,” the session–chaired by John McCoskey of Eagle Hill Consulting and Kylee Peña of Netflix–delved into subjects such as workplace integrity, and promoting a culture of diversity and inclusion in the media, entertainment and tech sectors. McCoskey contended that these subjects are “important to all the work we’re doing in every other session (at the SMPTE confab).”
McCoskey and Krystle Penhall, editor and visual effects coordinator at WeMat Studios, were featured speakers/presenters at the “Innovating People” session. Penhall’s presentation was titled “Where are the Women? The importance of visibility in achieving inclusivity,” while McCoskey’s talk carried the handle, “The corporate Integrity Implosion: Strategies for technology, media & entertainment organizations.”
Australian Screen Editors Guild Short Cuts Interview
AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDITORS GUILD
WITH JENNY KAPP
For the past nine years Krystle Penhall has worked as an Editor and Assistant film Editor across both live action and full CG television and features. She currently works as a VFX Editor with Mill Film in Adelaide. The ASE asked Krystle to reflect on how she broke into the industry, the lessons she’s learned along the way, and what she thinks it takes to be a great Assistant Editor.
How did you first become interested in becoming an Editor/Assistant Editor?
I remember loving my first film when I was around five years old. The film was “The Little Mermaid” and I still remember the moment my mum handed me the VHS tape and I hugged it. I specifically became obsessed with picture editing when I was first exposed to it in middle school. I then pursued it all the way through high school, and up to getting a Masters at university. I got my first job six months after graduating university. A contact recommended me to a new boutique production company in town. I interviewed for an editing job there, and to my utter surprise, got it. While there, I cut my teeth editing corporates and television commercials. I stayed at this job for two years before leaving for a bigger challenge.
How did you get your current job?
I planted the seeds to get my current job around two years ago. When you pivot from one segment of the industry to another, it can take some time to build new networks and find the right opportunities. I chose my current job because the company openly and actively cares about diversity and inclusion, which is very important in general, but especially important to me.
Diversity and Inclusion, the New Business Imperatives in Visual Effects
MILLFILM.COM
WEDNESDAY, MAR. 04, 2020
Last year, Mill Film originally shared our diversity commitments in an article just like this on LinkedIn (check it out here). Our commitment was to achieve gender equity in our creative crew, following a plan called 50/50 by 2020.
The article came on the back of our success in 2018 where we exceeded our commitments and went into 2019 confident, resilient and a little bit bullish. The article resulted in a great and candid debate, lots of new allies and eventually led to a broader peer group, all working together for gender equity in VFX.
We thought if we’d exceeded 30% in 2018 surely, we could achieve 40% in 2019, we’d just repeat the methodology, right?
Wrong.
Ultimately, we fell short of our target.
At the close of 2019 Mill Film had achieved 38% female creative crew in our Montreal studio and 29% female creative in our Adelaide studio.
Despite this, I’m still fired up and remain proud of the achievements of our team. We promised that no matter the outcome we’d share what we learned, and we’re following through on that commitment to you, today.
So why are we still committed to achieving gender equity in our creative crew at Mill Film today? Because the time is now.
‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ is a rare opportunity for Latino representation in Hollywood
LATIMES.COM
THURSDAY, AUG. 08, 2019
If you want to quickly understand the enduring appeal and impact of Dora the Explorer — who gets the live-action treatment in this weekend’s “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” — director James Bobin has a story for you.
“My daughter knows Spanish because of Dora,” he told The Times during a press day for the film. “When she was little, I remember saying to her once, ‘What’s your favorite animal?’ And she said, ‘Ardilla.’ And I went, ‘A deer?’ and got a picture from a book of a deer. And she goes, ‘No, no, no, no, ardilla’ and pointed out the window [because] ardilla in Spanish is squirrel.”
In fact, Dora has taught languages to millions of preschoolers worldwide since her debut in 2000. In the Latin American countries where the show airs, along with many of the other 100-plus countries that broadcast the show, she teaches children English. Her show has been dubbed into 30 languages, she’s had two successful spin-off cartoons and now, almost 20 years later, she’s finally getting her own big-screen adventure.
Isabela Moner, who plays a teenage Dora in the film, says she grew up watching the character every morning before school. “Michael and I talked about this,” said Eva Longoria, who plays Dora’s mother alongside Michael Peña as Dora’s father. “Even though we weren’t kids when she premiered, she’s been in our zeitgeist. Like, I don’t remember a time that there wasn’t Dora. She feels older than me.”
Why are the cats sexy? And other Cats questions you were too embarrassed to ask.
VOX.COM
THURSDAY, DEC. 19, 2019
If you’re not familiar with the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats — or even if you are — then you probably have many, many questions going into the film adaptation this weekend, especially if you’ve witnessed the widespread bafflement the trailer provoked when it pounced upon an unsuspecting and baffled nation this week.
Les Miserables director Tom Hooper helms this version, which boasts a surprising, A-list cast including Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, and Idris Elba. But the new adaptation also, unfortunately boasts blurry CGI fur, oversized set pieces whose scale seems to shift from sequence to sequence, and a completely literal, straight-faced commitment to the concept of singing cats. It’s all carried off with all the subtlety of original Cats star Elaine Page belting an E-flat.
But as you judge whether to brave the wilds of a half-CGI movie about weirdly horny London street cats, it’s important to keep one thing in mind:
This movie, relatively speaking, isn’t that weird.
That’s because Cats has always been so much weirder than most people remember.
