South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
‘Definitely not part of the boys club’
Women outwit bias in Hollywood with help from insiders
LOS ANGELES — Kaitlyn Yang knows it’s rare for women to work in visual effects but wanted to find out just how much company she has.
Devising an informal survey earlier this year, she painstakingly searched 24,000 LinkedIn entries for female visual effects supervisors in North America. Her tally: 30.
“So you do the math,” she said of the tiny percentage that represents. It’s not far afield of in-depth research showing women are underrepresented in behind-the-camera positions, including writing, directing and producing, despite recent progress.
A study of the 250 topgrossing films in 2019 by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that women comprise 6% of visual effects supervisors, 5% of cinematographers and 19% of writers. A center report on last season’s TV shows found similar patterns.
Yang, whose perseverance led to the creation of her own firm, Alpha Studios, is among those succeeding in Hollywood. That’s true as well of Layne Eskridge, a former Netflix and Apple TV executive who just launched POV Entertainment; writer Gladys Rodriguez, whose credits include “Sons of Anarchy” and “Vida”; and Sandra Valde-Hansen, cinematographer for more than a dozen independent films.
The four share a key credit: Each had an industry internship through the Television Academy Foundation, the charitable arm of the academy that administers the prime-time Emmy Awards.
For Valde-Hansen, the internship provided the experience of working alongside veteran cinematographer Alan Caso, who’d been part of the acclaimed series “Six Feet Under.”
Getting to learn from the man “who created the look of that show, that very cinematic look, I thought, ‘Oh, this is better than getting into college,’ ” she said. “The internship just opened up so many doors for me.”
The program offers 50 paid, eight-week summer internships on Los Angeles TV productions to college students nationwide.
“We couldn’t be prouder to have helped launch the careers of these exceptional women. They are a testament to the foundation’s crucial work,” said Madeline Di Nonno, chair of the foundation’s board of directors.
As the onetime interns have progressed in their fields, they’ve gained hardwon insights about Hollywood and the obstacles to women and people of color. Yang, who uses a wheelchair because of spinal muscular atrophy, faces other challenges.
Eskridge has found that older writers can be uncomfortable with an executive who is younger and Black. That appeared to be the case with a sitcom creator she ushered into her office for a first meeting.
“Maybe he thought I was an assistant, but when I closed the door and sat down, he realized I was Layne,” she said. “He was so flustered. And I think we sat there for about two minutes while he tried to gather himself. And then he eventually said he needed to call his agent and that he wasn’t going to take the meeting.”
Yang, who became more public-facing after starting her company, found she wasn’t what some expected.
One man “was very surprised that I attended USC film school, in a way duced by Meredith Stiehm.
“It’s not that she gave me a leg up, more that she saw me and she didn’t dismiss me,” Rodriguez said. It was on the show that she met Veena Sud, a “wonderful writer who became a sort of mentor to me.”
“She was the first person that took me aside and said, ‘I’ll read your stuff if you’re writing,’ ” Rodriguez recalled. “I think Meredith empowered her, and she was giving back to me by empowering me.”