WHERE DOES GENDER DISPARITY START?
The industry – both in Australia and globally – is under no misapprehension that gender disparity is an issue.
Sandra Sciberras, Head of Film and Television at VCA
Screen Australia’s Gender Matters report (2015), which focused on key creative roles, identified major barriers for women included gender bias from key decision makers, male dominance in related industries, time out of the workforce/childcare, lack of self-belief, and pay equity.
It also stated: “The cause of the imbalance does not appear to lie in education or training; rather, it lies in what happens after education ends.” This was based on the evidence that film schools had a 50/50 overall intake.
But as shown, the drill-down into individual course shows there are imbalances in specific areas.
Sandra Sciberras – Head of Film and Television at VCA – says gender disparity in the screen industry starts even earlier than tertiary education.
“There are definite reasons why we have diversity as an issue in our industry and half of that's got to do with just getting people to apply to film schools in the first place, or to just pick up cameras, or to write a story, or to be encouraged as young women that this is a viable industry of choice,” she says.
“What's happening before they get to us? This is a university. The problem doesn't start here. It started at high school. It started at primary school. These are the kind of discussions we need to be having with ATOM [Australian Teachers of Media] as well, who represent the media department at schools and I know they're proactive.”
Nell Greenwood, Director of Curriculum & Student Registrar at AFTRS
Nell Greenwood – the Director of Curriculum & Student Registrar at AFTRS – agrees.
“What we’re identifying as a bottleneck is people's choice to actually come here - whether it's coming from high school or people's choice to study. So for us it's thinking about if we’re doing the best we can in encouraging people to come here and actually seeing that there is a clear path [for their career],” she says.
Greenwood says prospective students – and particularly women – need to know there are viable career paths for them in the industry.
She thinks there’s no coincidence that AFTRS have parity, or even sometimes more, female producers in the BA and MA courses, when within the industry women made up 34% of producers in feature film, 49% in documentary, and 52% in television (refer data). And of the 136 Australian films that went into production over those three financial years, 80 (or 59%) had one or more female producers.
“For younger female screen practitioners it is really important to see that they're going to be in a space with females supporting their trajectory, and also to understand what that pathway for a woman in the film industry is like,” she says.
Similarly, it’s why Greenwood says it’s not surprising the 2017 AFTRS Graduate Certificate Screen: Documentary course was 89% women, when you look at how much better the statistics for women are overall in the documentary space compared to feature film or television (in documentary 49% of producers are women, 38% are directors, and 41% are writers).
“I think it's one of the great things about the Australian industry is we have a really strong female voice in our documentaries,” she says.
Zoe Diamond, Former Head of UTS Animal Logic Academy
“From Anna Broinowski to Catherine Scott to Jen Peedom, we've just got some really brilliant and high profile female documentary makers…
“These wonderfully diverse, interesting careers provide a beacon to emerging filmmakers to think, ‘I can do this. I've got a real shot here of entering an industry where I'll have my people. Where I won't have to be some frontier pioneer having to blaze my own trail. Where there's an existing, really exciting dynamic industry out there for me.”
OUTREACH AND APPLICATIONS
Zoe Diamond, the former Head of UTS Animal Logic Academy, was also previously Head of Human Resources at Animal Logic. She says outreach initiatives such as work experience can play a big role, but results don’t happen quickly.
“It takes time to plant the seed in the minds of the school children - that's where you reach them first, to make them aware of animation and film making as a career path,” she says.
“At Animal Logic, they set up a fantastic work experience program because they wanted to target the junior level students who were starting to think about their career ahead.”
Diamond says that the work experience program has had great success in helping teenagers – especially young women – realise that animation and VFX is even an option in their future. Some have even stuck with it after high school and begun working in the industry.
“[But] it does take time and I think in the next five years we are going to see a big shift.”
Herman Van Eyken, Head of Griffith Film School
Professor Herman Van Eyken, the head of GFS, is also the chair for the Asia Pacific region of CILECT, and says together the film schools have made practical changes, such as ensuring female crew are in their marketing material.
“We deliberately do that. I think when it comes to marketing you need to do that,” he says. “When it comes to your external image, you have to be very careful [about what you’re saying to prospective students], and that goes for the entire diversity agenda not just gender.”
This taps into the ‘see it, be it’ idea spoken about by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which refers to the unconscious bias built around gender roles in society based on the repetition of images. In following this line of thinking, a women might subconsciously not even consider working in the camera department if the images and role models are only men. It also would address other barriers in the Gender Matters report such as unconscious bias from decision makers.
Sciberras says they try to remove unconscious bias from the assessment process for their yearly intake by adopting a methodical, talent-based approach.
Their Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television) is extremely competitive. From 2015-2018 there were between 13 and 16 students in a single graduating year group – a number Sciberras says is whittled down from 200 applicants who each provide one short story, two ideas and a series of photographs.
“Three assessors mark them and we don't know gender, we don't know race, we don't know class, we don't know anything other than just a surname [which] is purely there for administration,” she says.
“So in order to get to the interview [stage], it's anonymous as much as it can be. At the interview, two or three people individually write their own mark. We try not to discuss the applicants, other than to help them speak freely and honestly at the interview, so the panel can get to the heart of what that filmmaker is about.
“And out of that we get an A list, a B list and a C list and the offers are made.”
UTS ALA offers a one-year Masters of Animation and Visualisation, but Diamond says the application process is very open – applicants don’t even need a prior degree.
“We wanted to create opportunities for people of all walks of life whether you have been in industry for a really long time and just want that Masters qualification,” she says, adding that they’ve had some amazing applications from people straight out of high school. One student from the 2018 graduating class was 19 and doing the Masters level.
“We assess applicant's portfolios and also conduct interviews for short listed applicants to ensure they have the right attitude,” she says. “We want them to succeed and do well, and given the intensity of the course, make sure it's the right fit for them."
“It is very talent and attitude driven, which is more in line with the industry as well because people can get jobs without any degree or qualification.”
She says at UTS ALA they have naturally seen numbers that are around parity (female graduates making up 42% and 51% of graduates in 2017 and 2018 respectively). However she also thinks these numbers are because of the discussions around gender equality in recent years.
“I think five years ago it wouldn't have been the case,” she says. “We are seeing a slow change in the animation and VFX industry and the numbers here are a good reflection that it's working or that women are seeing this sector as an opportunity, whereas before they might not have thought it was possible or it perhaps wasn’t on their radar.” (Read more about the animation industry in-depth in Part 3)
Corrie Chen graduated from VCA with a Master of Film & TV (Narrative). She’s since directed on Mustangs FC, Sisters and upcoming Five Bedrooms
Once the students actually start at somewhere like VCA, Sciberras says it’s about being more mindful about the content you show.
VCA’s previous head of school – Nicolette Freeman – is a cinematographer, and it was a priority during her tenure to change this way of thinking.
“Nicolette really wanted us to look at all our materials,” Sciberras says, and that included pamphlets, but also films they screen and screenplays students read. It’s not just about women being represented, but diversity across the board.
“And we don't make a statement about it, we don't talk about it. We don't make it an issue. We just normalise it. And I feel like that's really had an impact,” she says.
Additionally, it could be argued that because film schools prepare students to enter the industry, there’s an opportunity for the schools to establish what is and isn’t acceptable early in someone’s career.
“We use industry as a way to help formulate a way of working,” Sciberras says. “So we're conscious now of putting crews together with a balance of men and women on-set. We normalise it.”
Greenwood says AFTRS similarly try to, for an area like cinematography, have female lecturers like Justine Kerrigan, Carolyn Constantine ACS (who speaks in Part 2), and Jackie Farkas.
“Certainly some of our female students take on the role of a cinematographer, but not as many as men, so it’s about being careful and vigilant in ensuring that we have female tutors, female lecturers and that we are really on the front foot in encouraging as many female students as possible to take on those roles,” she says.
CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES
But there are preconceived ideas based on gender that they’re up against.
Greenwood says something they’ve identified at AFTRS is some of the student’s perceptions – whether male or female – of who should be doing what. In the Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production course, a generalist course in screen production, students elect to take on different roles over a series of productions.
“We really encourage each project to have at least one key female creative, and ideally two female key creatives to mirror the gender equity guidelines established by Screen Australia and the state screen agencies so the students are well prepared to participate in and contribute to a vibrant, inclusive screen industry,” she says.
“We have observed that in male-dominated teams, if there is a single female creative often they will take on the role of producer. And that's great, and we then support the team to make sure that they are a genuine producer contributing to the equal dynamic of that production, and not taking on more of a production management role.”
In cinematography and directing, an oft-cited reason for there not being enough female is because women are naturally not interested in technical areas. As acknowledged in the employment data set, cinematography was the worst represented out of the five roles of director, editor, production designer, composer and cinematographer. And as previously noted, just 8% of those 132 features had female cinematographers. This lack of female cinematographers working in the industry and studying at film schools is looked at as evidence for the argument women just tend to be less interested in a cinematography career (and this will be explored further in Part 2).
But Greenwood says: “I am not convinced by that.”
“There is still quite a lot of anecdotal information that the camera department particularly has been quite a blokey environment on-set. And if you talk to female cinematographers with a range of experiences [they say] it’s traditionally perceived as a male area and it comes down to ‘are you strong enough to carry kit’ and ‘female cinematographers can’t do steadicam’ and those old worn clichés about female versus male strength.
“I think there is a perceptual issue that we need to deal with before we start writing off young women's interest in [areas such as] cinematography.”
Yolanda Ramke (right), the co-director and writer of Cargo, is a Griffith Film School alumnus
Van Eyken says finding a balance can be difficult, because as much as they want parity in every course, “we can't push a student to go and do something that they don't want to do.”
“That would go against the spirit of the course layout,” he says.
For instance, he says Erika Addis (who is interviewed in Part 2) is the Head of Cinematography at GFS, and is passionate about there being better representation of women in cinematography.
“But she cannot do that at a level where she will have the wrong people there, because then you go beyond your duties.
“But we can do a number of things and I think awareness is very important here. Every [women] needs to be aware that it needs to be possible [to be a cinematographer]. And we will proactively use marketing material and other materials to make sure there is no hesitation that we promote this.”
For Sciberras, it can be as straightforward as bringing more cameras to classes.
She noticed in one particular post-graduate class years ago, that when she entered the room, the male students were gathered around the camera, but the female students stayed back.
“And so I learned very quickly, just have two or three cameras out. It's a really simple strategy. And through that, again it just helps. It's a proactive way in which film schools can contribute,” she says.
For the same reasons, Greenwood says AFTRS has been considering trialling an all-female camera class.
“Where they can find their way of working, they're not worried about how that might look, they can be talking to female lecturers about how they work, how they want to work, what's it's like to be on a crew where the support roles like grips and gaffers and assistant cameras traditionally has been quite male and how they can navigate that and assert a leadership position as a Head of Department in those roles,” she says.
“Just to have those conversations, just to try and fail, and that be ok.”
LOOKING AHEAD
All three of the film schools are optimistic for the future.
Van Eyken says at GFS they are keen to help all students with the hurdle that faces them once they graduate – actually breaking into the industry.
“It’s that incubator area. So we're seeing what we can do there and where we can work with the industry more closely. We're very happy that the Australian Director’s Guild for instance has been proactive there,” he says, referring to the ADG’s Gender Matters-funded programs.
“We have an incubator program (the Asia Pacific Screen Lab) that we've launched together with the Asia Pacific Screen Academy a couple of years ago… that is basically to help them breakthrough with their first or second feature film.”
But Van Eyken says more needs to be done in terms of collecting data, so people can focus their efforts for the future. “If you don't do any data gathering it's very difficult to have an opinion or to make up your mind.”
Sciberras says change is definitely happening.
“I feel very optimistic because serious discussions are being had over the last five or six years and that has to evoke change,” she says.
She also acknowledged that there have been concrete movements.
“What Screen Australia did with Gender Matters, the reality is as much as there was criticism, we know perfectly well it mattered and we know perfectly well it had an impact. You take that away, what would have happened? We'd have just been going round and round the round,” she says.
Greenwood says the industry feels like a far more open place for these conversations to happen than it was even five years ago.
“I think we are getting more confident about saying, ‘are there female ways of working?’ And for me, thinking about a film industry where the voices are evenly balanced and able to have a fair dialogue, it might lead to some really exciting possibilities and different ways of working… whether it's a different approach to collaboration, creative preparation, making it less hierarchical, or different ways of generating content. I think until we get that balance right, we are really missing a trick, because we are missing a whole other approach that might exist.”
She says both male and female students seem to be galvanised by the prospect that armed with practical advice, such as the gender balance of their teams, they can make a difference going forward. And AFTRS are also considering options such as targeted scholarships, as well as initiatives, like the She Shoots program they co-ran in 2016 for women in camera and sound departments for unscripted television.
“I think we are still really keen to get something like that back on the agenda. She Shoots had some really amazing results, which shows some of those targeted initiatives can be really effective,” she says.
“So yes these statistics are troubling, but there is a really positive story here, which is it's changing. And at the film school, I think that we can see we have a unique place in trying to bring in as many talented young female cinematographers, sound designers, sound recordists, and composers as possible and give them that training, that confidence and those connections with key networks, role models and mentors like the Justin Kerrigan’s, the Erika Addis', the Bonnie Elliott's, just to really allow these young female filmmakers to have long sustainable careers.”
Title image (L-R): Miranda Nation (Writer/Director), Olivia DeJonge (Angie), Laura Gordon (Claire), Kitty Allwood (1st AC), Bonnie Elliott (DOP) and Lisa Cushing (2nd AC) on Undertow.
Note: At the time of interviewing, Zoe Diamond was still the Head of UTS ALA, but has since moved on from the role.
*Data Note: Since 2015 and the introduction of The Screen Guide, Screen Australia has been more targeted in the collection of credits and roles in addition to the three key creatives (writer, director and producer). However, the agency is reliant on producers providing this information and acknowledging their Heads of Department to have a complete data set to work from. In the case of this story, Screen Australia data was supplemented by data from IMDb and other Screen News interviews, but there were still gaps in the data set. Because of this, note that the phrase ‘at least’ suggests that these figures could in fact be better (or worse), as a several features have been excluded due to incomplete data sets.
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15 May 2019
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