Young Women in Film & Television
The winning project in the Best Small Sponsorship category of the Allianz Business to Arts Awards is empowering girls interested in a career in filmmaking while also driving gender equality and creating a legacy
It’s not every day girls in Transition Year get to meet and learn from the likes of Stefanie Preissner, famous for her debut TV series ‘Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope’. This was made possible last November thanks to support from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (DLR) County Council of a special scheme devised by the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT).
Called ‘Young Women in Film & Television’ (YWIF&T), the three-day scheme involved a series of intensive workshops focused on key aspects of filmmaking, such as storytelling, scriptwriting and cinematography – all guided by high profile female mentors including Preissner, director Neasa Hardiman and producer Rachel Lysaght.
IADT is home to the National Film School and the Fís Film & Digital Literacy initiative. Promoting gender equality is high on the agenda of president of IADT, Dr Annie Doona, as she is also chair of the Irish Film Board (IFB). In 2015, the IFB announced major steps to address gender imbalance in filmmaking following the ‘Waking the Feminists’ campaign in the theatre sector.
“Senior lecturer at the National Film School Jean Rice identified that while IADT does have reasonable gender balance in our programmes, guys tend to gravitate towards the filmmaking gear and equipment and girls don’t always get a look in,” says Jessica Fuller, head of the Directorate of Creativity, Innovation and Research at IADT.
“We wanted to address this and saw an opportunity for a course just for young women, to allow them to get stuck in with the gear and be exposed to all aspects of filmmaking.”
Initially, the plan was to take 15 girls from transition year onto the course, which IADT ran in partnership with Young Irish Filmmakers. In the end there were 22, as, once word got out, 45 girls from schools in the area had requested places.
“The young female voice is important to hear in filmmaking. We wanted to prepare them for a career by giving them all the skills they need and the ability to work equally in teams,” says Fuller. “It is all about giving them confidence. All the girls rated the course as 9 or 10 out of 10 in terms of success. The mentors also commented on how engaging it was.”
As well as allowing IADT to engage the best mentors possible, the DLR support meant it could invest in marketing and social media – which had an “astonishing” outcome, according to Fuller.
“We had a social media commentator tracking the project for the three days and produced a film about the event – which had 23,000 views within two weeks,” she notes. “Our global contacts keen to promote equal access to the industry, such as the Geena Davis Institute in Hollywood, also got on board. This, combined with so many young people tweeting and posting on Facebook, meant it really took hold and captured people’s attention.”
The overall audience reach of the project on social media was 127,000, a high proportion of which was organic. “The social media impact showed us there is a space for this type of course. The intention is to run YWIF&T annually for at least five years with our current partners and support from DLR County Council,” says Fuller.
For DLR County Council, supporting the project made sense from the outset and was beneficial on many levels, according to arts officer there Kenneth Redmond.
“It has highlighted the fact that the National Film School is based in the county as well as our interest in supporting access to training in the industry – and in particular gender equality within that,” he says.
“We have an ongoing partnership with IADT. YWIF&T has strengthened our joint objective of promoting arts as a career and film activity in the county. It was a pleasure for us to visit on one of the days and see how excited and inspired the participants were.”
❝Our global contacts keen to promote equal access to the industry, such as the Geena Davis Institute in Hollywood, also got on board.❞ - Jessica Fuller, head of the Directorate of Creativity, Innovation and Research, IADT.