What you already know...

Women are woefully underrepresented in the world of narrative film and women filmmakers face enormous hurdles when they try to make the jump to features. While this leaves the market under-served, audiences deprived and women filmmakers frustrated, the real problem is that women’s voices are left out of the culture.  In 2014 I decided to do something practical to help solve this. 

Our Solution

The idea was to collect a group of women filmmakers and work together on all the skills, tools and connections needed to launch our features.  I brought the idea to Terry Lawler at New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) and she gave us a home, listened to all my ideas, improved them, and then opened her rolladex.  And in 2015 we launched From Script to Pre-Production (FS2P).

How does it work?

Many filmmakers are trained and accomplished artists but lack the business experience needed to make independent, low-budget features.  The FS2P lab helps fill that gap in three ways:

·      our curriculum organizes the process of building presentations. 

·      we provide mentors and guest experts. 

·      we work together as a group, helping one another through this often lengthy and challenging experience.

The filmmakers selected for the lab meet once a week for about five months to create all the materials they need to apply to contests, labs and funding organizations, and to reach out to producers and investors: loglines, synopses, pitches, artistic statements, lookbooks, social media sites and pages, reels, preliminary schedules and budgets, and financial plans. At the end of the lab, their final presentations will be shared with a group of producers who will meet with us to discuss their ideas about the best next steps for each project.

Along the way the filmmakers will gain a much deeper understanding of the films they want to make. They will become part of a supportive community of filmmakers. And they will make valuable connections in the industry.

Look who's helping us!

The industry loves this idea and has been very welcoming.  New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) gave us our first home, Entertainment Partners gave us software and training, and LightIron gave us so many parties.  And since our first session in 2014, we have had counsel and support from:

ISABELLE LINK-LEVY

NAOMI MCDOUGALL JONES

MARTINE MELLOUL

EKWA MSANGI

VICTORIA NEGRI

LYDIA PILCHER

TAYARISHA POE

CELINE RATTRAY

CORNELIA RAVENAL

FRANCESCA ROOT-DODSON

INGRID RUDEFORS

SABINE SCHENK

PAUL SCHNEE

SONEJUHI SINHA

DEBBIE VANDERMEULEN

PIERCE VAROUS

RACHEL WATANABE-BATTON

JOANNE ZIPPEL

Mentors and Angels

We have to give a special shout out to the people who've gone above and beyond.

First and foremost Terry Lawler who believed in us and has had our back every step of the way.  The wonderful staff at NYWIFT - Katie Chambers, Victoria Vasquez, Elizabeth Estrada and Rashiek Smart.  Our fabulous board members read all the scripts, listen to all the pitches, look at all our presentations, gIve us feedback and encouragement and always have my back.  John Hadity who is not only the nicest man in the industry but takes the time to explain how this business really works.  Marcia Murray and Janet Guillet from DDB who help transform our lookbooks.  Flo Mitchell-Brown for convincing EP to give us software and Rich Guay for training us so that we could make preliminary budgets.  Seed & Spark for training us in outreach and crowdfunding.  Light Iron - thank you, Megan Marquis and Freddy Hernandez - for throwing us our annual party.

Thank you.