Variety’s 2024 Screenwriters to Watch recognizes just 10 of the young scribes whose work will now and in the immediate future be essential to filling screens with stories to amuse, entertain and inspire.
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00:00:00Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Academy qualifying Santa Fe International Film Festival.
00:00:17We are so excited to welcome Variety and the 10 screenwriters to watch.
00:00:25I'd like to thank a few sponsors for helping making this night happen, Aspect Media Village,
00:00:31Santa Fe Film Office, the Ross Media Arts Center in Nebraska, and New Mexico True.
00:00:41So Santa Fe International Film Festival is so proud to be New Mexico True, and I'd like
00:00:45to thank our host for tonight, the Lenzig Performing Arts Center.
00:00:49I'd like to introduce you to senior editor of Variety, Todd Gilchrist.
00:00:55Hi, everybody.
00:01:00First of all, it's so exciting to be here.
00:01:02This is the first year that Variety has partnered with the Santa Fe International Film Festival
00:01:07for our screenwriters to watch, and you guys are in for a real treat.
00:01:13I started just over two years ago at Variety, and I've been sort of had the luck of coordinating
00:01:22these lists to identify up-and-coming talented creatives in lots of different disciplines,
00:01:30and it is always so exciting.
00:01:32It's sometimes tough, but what's toughest is narrowing down what is an amazing time
00:01:41in the industry with lots of different talent to just 10, or in this case, 11 people.
00:01:48I'd love to bring everybody out.
00:01:51We have an award for each of them, and then we're going to have a fun conversation about
00:01:54their work and what they do.
00:01:57First up, we have Cameron Alexander, the writer of Heart of the Beast.
00:02:06Kayla Amazon, the writer of K-Pops.
00:02:13Chandler Baker, the writer of Oh What Fun.
00:02:16I hope I got the punctuation on that right.
00:02:21Jocelyn Beo, Once on This Island.
00:02:27Dan Breyer, Sweethearts.
00:02:32Patrick Cunane, Eternity.
00:02:36Nora Garrett, After the Hunt.
00:02:40Tori Kamen, Eleanor the Great.
00:02:45Noah Pink, Eden.
00:02:49And Erika Tremblay and Mishiana Elise for Fancy Dance.
00:03:06First of all, thank you guys so much for being here.
00:03:09Just to get started, I wanted to ask hopefully a fun question, which is, I'll start with
00:03:15you.
00:03:16What was the first movie that made you want to write movies?
00:03:18What was the movie you watched that maybe taught you about that that was even a job,
00:03:23or made you want to write your own?
00:03:25Let me see, which one can I grab here?
00:03:28It's not the fanciest answer in the world, but honestly, the movie that made the biggest
00:03:34impact on me as a kid was Annie, the one with Carol Burnett.
00:03:39It was just so cool to see how you could craft this huge world and have these characters
00:03:47that were just so, I don't know, Carol Burnett just takes up the whole screen, right?
00:03:54You can't take your eyes off of her.
00:03:56Just seeing the way that all those things came together, I was like, I don't know what
00:04:00this is, but I want to be a part of it.
00:04:03Everything just spoke to me from such a young age, and it's something that just from the
00:04:08second I saw that movie, didn't let go of me, so yeah, Annie.
00:04:12How about you, Erin?
00:04:15Most of the time growing up as a kid, we didn't have cable, but there was a, this ages me,
00:04:22but there was a VHS video rental store that was a block away, and we could rent two movies
00:04:29a week from the 50 cent movie bin.
00:04:32At the time, I was really mad that I couldn't get new releases, but it really meant that
00:04:37most of what was in the 50 cent bin was old black and white movies and stuff that was
00:04:42a little bit more obscure, so I was watching a bunch of Hitchcock movies at a young age.
00:04:48I remember watching The Last Emperor way too early on as a kid, but being engrossed by
00:04:53this story of this young child, and old Laurel and Hardy movies, and Shirley Temple movies,
00:04:59and so those were the stories, just basically whatever was in the 50 cent bin in 1990.
00:05:06How about you, Noah?
00:05:09My answer's kind of a classic 80s kid answer, so I apologize, but it was definitely Jurassic
00:05:15Park.
00:05:18I remember three things about that.
00:05:20One, being blown away as an eight year old watching that.
00:05:24Two, McDonald's had a Jurassic Park burger, which just blew my mind.
00:05:28And the third thing was, I found out that they shot the scene where the...
00:05:34I went to Universal Studios when I was 10, and they were like, here's the parking garage
00:05:38where they shot the thing, and I was like, what?
00:05:41How is that possible?
00:05:42No, they shot that in Costa Rica, or Hawaii, not at the parking garage.
00:05:47And that was like, oh wait, movies are made.
00:05:49It kind of clicked there.
00:05:52And then that same year, Schindler's List came out, and I was like, what is going on?
00:05:57How is this the same person making such a different movie?
00:06:02And then I was kind of hooked from there, just looking how things are made and how to
00:06:06do them.
00:06:07Sure.
00:06:08How about you, Tori?
00:06:10I saw, in the same week, when I think I was about 10 or 11, I saw The Royal Tenenbaums
00:06:16and American Beauty.
00:06:17My parents did not give a shit what I watched, and I thought, well that's amazing, and what
00:06:23is death?
00:06:24And I gotta know more about it.
00:06:26But the movie that really made me want to write movies was Juno.
00:06:30I sort of thought that that script sort of blew my mind.
00:06:32I got a copy of the script after I watched it.
00:06:35I actually went on a first date and I watched it, and he tried to put his arm around me,
00:06:39and I was like, don't touch me, something's happening to me right now.
00:06:41But I got a copy of the script, and I carried it around in my backpack until I graduated
00:06:46college.
00:06:47Wow.
00:06:48How about you, Nora?
00:06:49That's a good answer.
00:06:54I grew up watching musicals, really.
00:06:57That was what I first started watching, and I feel like if you read my script, you'd be
00:07:01like, no, you didn't, because there's very different vibes.
00:07:05But I think that Juno's actually a great answer.
00:07:07Diablo Cody was huge and formative.
00:07:09I think especially being a young woman, and watching a young woman's story, and just having
00:07:13this incredibly witty dialogue.
00:07:18But I think I remember, I kind of came to it late because I was a theater kid for so
00:07:24long, so I was reading a ton of plays and not watching a ton of movies.
00:07:28But honestly, Aaron Sorkin was kind of the guy for me.
00:07:33It was the first time that I really paid attention to dialogue and really paid attention to having
00:07:37to be so engaged and listening to people talking in such a kinetic way.
00:07:42And I just have a vivid memory of watching The Social Network and being like, oh my God.
00:07:49This is really fantastic.
00:07:50What's going on?
00:07:51So yeah, probably that.
00:07:52Yeah.
00:07:53How about you, Patrick?
00:07:54Oh, you have a mic.
00:07:55I have a mic.
00:07:57So I think for me, there were three or four movies that I just watched obsessively as
00:08:01a kid.
00:08:02I didn't watch a lot of movies, but I watched those three movies, and it was Home Alone,
00:08:07Beauty and the Beast, and a lesser known classic called Houseguest starring Sinbad.
00:08:12It is a classic.
00:08:16I could go on about Sinbad.
00:08:17But at some point I realized, oh, someone wrote these movies.
00:08:23What a cool job.
00:08:24Yeah.
00:08:25How about you, Dan?
00:08:26It's funny because this movie came up last night, but Napoleon Dynamite truly changed
00:08:32my life.
00:08:36Obviously, it was an indie movie that achieved this true ubiquity, and I was like, so how
00:08:44did this happen?
00:08:46How could this group of people I've never seen before put together this perfect, incredible
00:08:52movie?
00:08:53And my entire wardrobe was Vote for Pedro and Preston High School and yeah, Napoleon
00:09:00Dynamite.
00:09:01How about you, Jocelyn?
00:09:02That's a really good one.
00:09:05For me, okay, people I guess now know me in terms of my writing in theater as writing
00:09:11African comedy, and I realized that the basis of that actually came from Coming to America.
00:09:17It was a huge, huge, huge, huge influence for me.
00:09:23I never heard people speaking even remotely close to my parents ever on a TV screen or
00:09:31in a movie.
00:09:33I just think Eddie Murphy's comedic work in that movie is just beyond brilliant, and I
00:09:39think I've been chasing it ever since.
00:09:40So yeah, that was a big one for me.
00:09:43That's a good one.
00:09:44I definitely did not grow up thinking that I wanted to write movies.
00:09:48I started as a novelist, so the movie that really made me want to think about writing
00:09:52movies was Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and just seeing her go from novelist to make this
00:09:58outstanding screenplay and this outstanding film was really what made me think that maybe
00:10:04that was possible.
00:10:05Yeah.
00:10:06Awesome.
00:10:07Yeah, I didn't know I wanted to write until later, but I grew up on anime, loving Cowboy
00:10:11Bebop and Naruto, but kind of a weird answer for specifically writing.
00:10:16I love Law and Order, just Mariska Hargitay, man.
00:10:22But they wrote off a character in a way I didn't like, and I was so devastated.
00:10:28So I went in my Notes app and I wrote basically what's now a spec script of the episode of
00:10:34how I would want it written.
00:10:35I'm like, oh, I think I'm a TV writer now.
00:10:37So yeah, Law and Order SVU.
00:10:41Awesome.
00:10:42There was tons of movies that inspired me growing up, but the one I think that pushed
00:10:46me seriously into consider writing as a career was probably Fellowship of the Ring, the Lord
00:10:50of the Rings movie.
00:10:51Oh, yeah.
00:10:52That came out right when I was in middle school, so it was just so well done.
00:10:56And it was actually the behind-the-scenes features, because I saw how everyone was having
00:10:59a ton of fun.
00:11:00I was like, well, I can have fun for a career.
00:11:02That started it.
00:11:03I'm curious if each of you maybe just can come down the line and talk a little bit about
00:11:08the path you took to where you are now.
00:11:12I don't need...
00:11:14We have to probably end by midnight tonight, so we've got to be careful.
00:11:19Just talk a little bit about how you got started and how you sort of found your path into the
00:11:24industry.
00:11:26Sure.
00:11:27I mean, both of my parents loved movies a ton, and it wasn't uncommon on the weekends
00:11:30where my dad would take me to a theater and we'd be there for nine or ten hours.
00:11:34It was what we did.
00:11:36And it really made a huge impact on the way I think about stories and so forth.
00:11:44By the time I got to college, I thought, this is really what I wanted to do.
00:11:49And so I spent all of college just writing screenplays obsessively.
00:11:53My classes were kind of on the back burner.
00:11:55Writing screenplays, that was like what I was all about.
00:11:58So I graduated and I had about ten of them, and one of them was good.
00:12:02And so when I went to LA, that kind of started the whole journey, which is a whole other
00:12:08hour-long conversation there.
00:12:10Yeah, I didn't...
00:12:13Growing up, I wanted to be a reconstructive surgeon for some reason, because I would watch
00:12:18those TLC shows where it's like, oh, I have a tumor, or like, I don't know, just one of
00:12:22those shows that analyze that.
00:12:24And then I took AP Bio, and I'm like, I'm not built for this.
00:12:28So if I could do anything, what would I be?
00:12:31And I'd always drawn growing up, and I've always written.
00:12:34And my mom encouraged me to do it, because she's a therapist.
00:12:37And she's like, why don't you just express yourself in your writing?
00:12:40So from there, I picked a major better for me, which was film studies.
00:12:44And then I just kind of worked in the industry.
00:12:45I thought I was going to be more of an exec.
00:12:47So I was a Devil Wears Prada assistant at Sony, Disney, and Netflix.
00:12:52And then I did internships at Warner.
00:12:53I was just trying to stack it up.
00:12:55So it was really fun to kind of see that side of it.
00:12:58But then I remember I was reading a script one day, I was like, I think I want to do
00:13:01this, you know, from what I was reading.
00:13:04And just, it demystified it for me.
00:13:06So working in the industry on the other side definitely made me want to do it.
00:13:09Yeah, I definitely didn't know that being a writer was something you could do when you
00:13:13grow up.
00:13:14I'm very risk averse.
00:13:15So I thought, I will become a lawyer, because that's what one does if you're not good at
00:13:19math or science.
00:13:22But I really sort of caught the bug for wanting to try to write and see how to get published.
00:13:26And I started ghostwriting novels for existing series in law school, and did a lot of that,
00:13:32and then sold my first book after law school, and just kind of kept publishing from there.
00:13:38But after one of my books got optioned and was in the development process, we had gone
00:13:44through like a bunch of writers that had become attached and fallen off and other takes
00:13:49that didn't get approved.
00:13:50And I kind of raised my hands to the producers and said, I'd like to be considered to adapt
00:13:55this as a TV series.
00:13:57And they were not interested in that option at all.
00:14:01And the project sort of died on the vine.
00:14:03And I said, after that, I'm always going to be attached to my own projects.
00:14:07So I made sure to write original spec scripts, and adapted some of my own stuff on spec.
00:14:13And I've just always said that I'd rather a project die by my own hand than somebody else's.
00:14:18So I've been doing that ever since.
00:14:23I had a very non-traditional path to writing.
00:14:27I was a dancer for many years as a kid.
00:14:31My end game was, there was a show on TV at the time in Living Color.
00:14:36And so my end game was, I was just going to be a fly girl on a Living Color and just dance.
00:14:40But then that show went off the air.
00:14:41Many people dreamed of that.
00:14:42Yeah, right.
00:14:43I was like, I'm going to be like Rosie Perez.
00:14:45And that was done by the time I was 12 or something.
00:14:50So essentially, dance led to musical theater.
00:14:54Musical theater led to being in plays.
00:14:56Plays led to me taking, in college, I took a class to compensate for credits that I wasn't
00:15:04getting because my school at the time was very traditional, is the word they used.
00:15:10And so it really limited the roles that I could be in, and then it obviously limited
00:15:17the credits I could get.
00:15:18So I took a playwriting class to compensate for those credits.
00:15:21And this is why I always shout out teachers, because my professor was like, I think you
00:15:26have a really good ear for dialogue, and I think you should continue writing.
00:15:29And truly, had she not said that, I would not be here.
00:15:32That's amazing.
00:15:35I started doing a lot of improv comedy in college.
00:15:39Very cool.
00:15:41And I was like, I'll do this.
00:15:44This is the first thing I've done that I actually like.
00:15:47And then moved to LA and took one class, and I was like, no, this is not good.
00:15:55So I got a job as an assistant to a producer by a crazy connection.
00:16:00My dad's a lawyer, and his client had gone to jail.
00:16:04The guy in jail was like, I know a guy in LA.
00:16:10And that was my in.
00:16:12And then I just started writing.
00:16:13The classic story.
00:16:14Exactly.
00:16:15You got to find your way in somehow.
00:16:18Shout out.
00:16:19But yeah, I just started writing obsessively, knowing that I was making no money, and I'm
00:16:28on a very short window here of being able to justify living across the country from
00:16:32my family.
00:16:33So it was like, just kept grinding, and eventually something clicked.
00:16:40I sort of never had a good sense of what I wanted to do.
00:16:44I got very fortunate and ended up working in politics straight out of college, and had
00:16:50a fun six or seven years in the Obama White House.
00:16:53And then when that was wrapping up, I knew I wanted to get out of politics.
00:16:57Although I loved my job, I loved my time there, but I knew I got to do something else.
00:17:03So I sort of randomly, on a whim, wrote a pilot, and got lucky, got connected to someone
00:17:08who happened to be doing a tour of the White House, who said, I always thought political
00:17:11writers could be screenwriters, and I did the cringy thing.
00:17:13And I was like, I have a pilot if you want to read it.
00:17:17And I thought, oh God.
00:17:19But the guy called me, and now he's actually the producer on Eternity, which is the movie
00:17:24that I have coming out.
00:17:26So it was sort of a full circle weird moment.
00:17:29Yeah.
00:17:30I also had kind of a non-traditional, circuitous path.
00:17:38I really think, if I could really trace it back, I think a lot of writing to me started
00:17:43as reading.
00:17:44I was just a huge reader.
00:17:46And I think that that was sort of a biosmosis way of learning how to write, and learning
00:17:50about story, and learning what I was attracted to in that world.
00:17:53But I was also a dancer, and then I had the sense when I was 12 that that just wasn't
00:17:59going to go my way.
00:18:02And so I switched to acting, and then I was acting all throughout high school and college.
00:18:08And I always wrote pretty much extracurricularly.
00:18:11I always felt like it was a really kind of personal expression, and it felt like a natural
00:18:17thing for me to do, but I never was trying to commodify it or make it into my vocation.
00:18:24And then I moved to LA shortly after graduating, NYU.
00:18:31And then I got into personal training, which led to personal assisting.
00:18:36And then personal assisting kind of naturally led to helping people develop and write on
00:18:42screenplays.
00:18:43And yeah, and then After the Hunt was my first solo full-length screenplay.
00:18:49So the fact that I'm here because of that is truly psychotic, and insane, and feels
00:18:56like getting hit by lightning.
00:18:57But there's tons of really insane short stories, if anybody wants to read those.
00:19:03So there's always been a backlog of that, but yeah, that's kind of it.
00:19:09Yeah, sure.
00:19:10Wait, sorry.
00:19:11What do you mean, a ton of short stories?
00:19:14I mean, I wrote a lot of short stories.
00:19:18I saved for a screenplay, and people were like, did you just look at a computer one
00:19:21day and was like, oh my God, I can do that.
00:19:25But it wasn't that way.
00:19:26I was writing prose for a very long time.
00:19:29Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:30I have a feeling a lot of people are gonna wanna read the short stories after the movie
00:19:34comes out.
00:19:35I don't know.
00:19:36I knew that I liked writing as a kid.
00:19:42I realized it at my grandpa's funeral.
00:19:46My mom was giving the eulogy, and she got a lot of attention, and I thought, what is
00:19:49that?
00:19:50What is she doing?
00:19:51I gotta do that.
00:19:52So I went home.
00:19:53I was like seven.
00:19:54And I went home, and I wrote over and over my parents' eulogies, very alive, still are.
00:20:02And I would write their eulogies, and I would then practice them in the mirror until they
00:20:05made me cry, psychotic.
00:20:07And then I would bring them into the living room and say, I'm gonna read you something.
00:20:12And I would read them their eulogies.
00:20:15And I did this for years, and I'm an only child, and I'm sick.
00:20:21And my mom was like, oh, no, and my dad was like, yes, this is so cool.
00:20:26And then from there, I had a pretty traditional route.
00:20:29I went to school for writing.
00:20:30I went to NYU.
00:20:31I didn't know I wanted to be a screenwriter, took a screenwriting class at the last semester,
00:20:36realized that was what I wanted.
00:20:37I went to USC for my MFA.
00:20:39And from there, I was an assistant in television, and then optioned my first script.
00:20:44My first script at USC was Eleanor the Great, which is the movie that I have coming out.
00:20:50And it has been an eight-year process, and I think by the time it comes out, it'll be
00:20:54almost 10.
00:20:55So that's it.
00:20:58Thank you so much.
00:21:00You're so nice.
00:21:06My process, I went...
00:21:10So I didn't study.
00:21:11I didn't do the traditional, I guess, schooling for screenwriting, but I did meet a producer
00:21:16in college who was there giving a talk, and I went up to him and asked him for a job right
00:21:22after.
00:21:23And he was like, I like your chutzpah.
00:21:25Call my assistant.
00:21:26And I got a summer job out of it.
00:21:28And at the end, he hardly talked to me the entire summer.
00:21:30It was my first summer in LA when I was 21.
00:21:34And at the end, he took me out for lunch, and he's like, look, I got two pieces of advice.
00:21:38One, don't go to film school.
00:21:39I was like, okay, that's fine.
00:21:41And two, just keep writing, and when you're ready, send me something, and I'll read it.
00:21:46And it took me two years, and I sent him something.
00:21:50And he got back to me.
00:21:51He's like, pretty good.
00:21:52I'm never gonna make it, but let's try again, which is nice of him.
00:21:57And I basically gave myself kind of a time limit in my 20s.
00:22:01I was like, I need to make money by the time I'm 30.
00:22:05That was my goal.
00:22:06I gave myself like eight years, and I did every job under the sun in those eight years.
00:22:10And I got my first check for a screenplay when I was like 29, and so it was, so it just
00:22:15pulled off.
00:22:16So thank you.
00:22:17And that movie never got made, but that was how it started.
00:22:20Oh, I'm starting off strong.
00:22:25Oh gosh, I'm gonna try and make this quick, because my journey is so not traditional,
00:22:31I don't think.
00:22:32I grew up on my native reservation in Oklahoma from the Seneca-Cuyahoga Nation.
00:22:39And I remember sitting in fifth grade, and we had an elder come in, and he was speaking
00:22:47in our class, like telling one of our traditional stories.
00:22:50And he was about to reach the climax, and I saw this kid like lean in.
00:22:54And I was like, whoa, wait, what's that power?
00:22:57And I like recognized right then and there, like the real power of storytelling and how
00:23:02I wanted to have the prowess of being able to get people to physically respond to story.
00:23:11But I kept that in my mind.
00:23:13I was always writing plays, and I was the bossy kid on the block, like directing trampoline
00:23:18routines and whatever the kids would allow me to do.
00:23:22And it wasn't until in the 90s, I grew up watching all these films kind of written,
00:23:28directed by all these guys, like all the Tarantino movies and the PTA movies and all that.
00:23:33But it wasn't until I was 21 years old that I knew that women wrote and directed movies,
00:23:38which I think is like kind of shocking, because this was like pre-internet.
00:23:41But like, it kind of surprises me all the time that I was 21 years old, I was watching
00:23:46a movie called High Art.
00:23:48And I was coming into my queerness at that time as well.
00:23:51And I saw like written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko at the end of the film.
00:23:55And I was like, whoa, what the hell?
00:23:57Like I can do that as a job?
00:24:00And so I was working as a stripper at the time at a strip club, and I was like, well,
00:24:04if I can save up $2,000, I'm going to drive my Mitsubishi Mirage to LA.
00:24:09And so I saved up $2,000, and I drove out to LA, and I worked as an assistant for a
00:24:14few years.
00:24:15And I realized, and as a stripper for a couple of those years, it pays well if you can get
00:24:22the money.
00:24:24And I realized at some point I needed health insurance, so I got a job in an advertising
00:24:28agency and I built a career out over 12 years as an advertising producer.
00:24:34And then I just decided one day that I really wanted to go back to like that traditional
00:24:39kind of like calling that I saw in that fifth grade classroom.
00:24:43And I quit everything and I moved to a small reservation where I spent three years learning
00:24:46my indigenous language Cayuga.
00:24:49And while I was in that program, Mishiana and I wrote Fancy Dance, incorporated a lot
00:24:54of the language into the film.
00:24:56And just last year, actually one year ago today, we took that film back to those same
00:25:03elders that had me leaning in as a kid.
00:25:05And after they watched the film, the first time in the history of their lives that they
00:25:09saw their language on the screen, I got like a cheek squeeze from one of the elders.
00:25:15And I was like, well, if that's not the best lean in that I've ever seen or experienced.
00:25:22So I'm just thrilled to be here and to get to share those stories from my community with
00:25:26everyone.
00:25:27I get all the microphones.
00:25:36So I grew up in Juneau, Alaska, and it's a super like isolated place.
00:25:44The only way in or out is by a ferry or by plane.
00:25:48And so if you're a kid growing up in that kind of environment, you either have to be
00:25:53good at sports or, you know, really good in school.
00:25:57And I was all right in school, but I was really good at going to the movies and like not really
00:26:05good at sports.
00:26:06So I kind of always like just glommed onto these creative things because they got me,
00:26:13you know, in my mind out of this small town.
00:26:16And like, there were ways that I could see the world, even though I couldn't reach the
00:26:20world yet.
00:26:21And so I was always fascinated by that.
00:26:23And I've just naturally took to writing as a child.
00:26:27So I grew up writing stories, writing poems, entering contests in school.
00:26:33And it was just always something everybody told me, you know, you kind of have a knack
00:26:36for this.
00:26:37But it was also something everybody told me, this is not a job that you're ever going to
00:26:41be able to live off of, don't even bother trying to pursue it.
00:26:45So I did the traditional college thing, got my degree, went back home and got a job with
00:26:50my tribe.
00:26:51And, you know, even though it was a job in the communications department, it was just
00:26:57soul draining work.
00:26:59And I was like, I cannot do this for the next 40 years.
00:27:02And like in that same week that I was having that realization, there was an ad for the
00:27:08Sundance indigenous program that came across my Facebook feed.
00:27:12And I was like, well, why not give it one last shot, send in my first ever feature script
00:27:17that I wrote in three days, and I'm sure it was awful.
00:27:21But thank God they saw something in that, because that's where I met Erica.
00:27:25And then the following year, we were writing Fancy Dance.
00:27:28And now we're here.
00:27:29So it's yeah.
00:27:31And neither one of us are stripping.
00:27:34We don't have to strip anymore.
00:27:36Well, I want to open this up for anyone who wants to answer, but, you know, one of the
00:27:42things that's fascinating to me about the writing process is people always draw from
00:27:45different things.
00:27:46You know, some people like to, to, you know, create stories that are wish fulfillment.
00:27:52Some people like to create stories that put visibility on, you know, harsh truths, you
00:27:56know.
00:27:57So I mean, anyone who wants to start, maybe just talk about like what your sort of North
00:28:02Star or your philosophy is when you start writing.
00:28:04Is it something that is fantasy?
00:28:07Is it reality?
00:28:08Is it, you know, whatever sort of inspires and draws your creativity out?
00:28:15Anybody who wants to start?
00:28:16I'll do a quick answer on this.
00:28:18I like to just find the most relatable people possible and put them in really weird, freaky
00:28:26situations.
00:28:27And I think that's normally a good jumping off point for any script.
00:28:31And that's sort of how I get going.
00:28:35Anybody else?
00:28:38Yeah, specifically with Eleanor the Great, I asked myself, what's the worst thing that
00:28:44my grandmother could do and I would still love her.
00:28:47So I actually kind of like to ask myself big questions like that and try and unpack why
00:28:52I feel that way and answer them.
00:28:53Anybody else want to chime in?
00:28:58I write a lot of character driven work.
00:29:02So sometimes I actually don't know where the story is going.
00:29:06And I just commit to that.
00:29:10Because it may end up kind of good, you know, or it may end up trash.
00:29:14And then I just rewrite it.
00:29:16And I just, I'm committed to rewriting, but I'm also committed to maybe not always knowing
00:29:23where it's going right away.
00:29:25There of course are lots of screenwriting formulas, there's books to tell people how
00:29:29to do it.
00:29:30Do you guys, Jocelyn, do you tend to just purely follow your muse and then you figure
00:29:35out the structure later on or, you know, does it sort of emerge organically or how's that?
00:29:40Yeah, I mean, I'm coming from the theater world.
00:29:43I think I would say I'm a playwright first.
00:29:45And so, yeah, you don't know, you know, where it's going.
00:29:50So no, it's all instinct, I think.
00:29:54I mean, we all have stuff we've pulled from that we're inspired by.
00:29:58I think that always will subconsciously seep into your script.
00:30:01But for the most part, I feel like I try to just trust my instinct.
00:30:06That doesn't always mean it's good.
00:30:08I do like to reiterate that.
00:30:09It doesn't always mean it ends up being good, but it's something.
00:30:13Sure.
00:30:14Kayla, I saw you grabbing the mic.
00:30:16Did you have something you wanted to?
00:30:17Yeah, because I was looking, I love your question, because I was thinking about, okay, what do
00:30:20I write the most?
00:30:21And I think I write very anxious characters.
00:30:25They all have debilitating anxiety.
00:30:26And it's cathartic.
00:30:28It's so great because the pilot that got my career started is called Black Anxious, and
00:30:33it's about being black and anxious.
00:30:34And that was it.
00:30:35Like, there was nothing, no other hook.
00:30:37And people just related to it.
00:30:39And it was a cry for help, but thankfully now it has my career.
00:30:46And then I got another opportunity for like a Spider-Verse short film.
00:30:50And they're like, well, what are you thinking about it, Kayla?
00:30:51Like, what are you thinking for it?
00:30:52I'm like, what if he's anxious?
00:30:53And they're like, great.
00:30:54And then now, thankfully, it's helping children.
00:30:58So it's playing with the Kevin Love Foundation to help children.
00:31:01So I love taking like whatever your worst flaw is, and then putting that into a character.
00:31:07And then just the challenge of, like, I think most characters can be made likable, or relatable
00:31:12rather.
00:31:13Maybe not likable, but relatable.
00:31:15Does anybody else want to chime in?
00:31:21I just eavesdrop a lot.
00:31:23I find like, you know, if you're sitting at a cafe, and you hear the table behind you
00:31:28talking about like, oh, my God, and her boyfriend dumped her, and do you know what he said?
00:31:32You know, you get a lot of character information that way.
00:31:36So kind of like people watching and just being observational, and then taking those situations,
00:31:43and I just have this log of experiences, or like things I've heard people say, that
00:31:49will inspire like, maybe it's just a scene in a film, or maybe it does spark into an
00:31:54entire idea.
00:31:56One of the best shows I've seen recently is Beef, and like that came from, you know, traffic,
00:32:01which we've all experienced.
00:32:02And so yeah, I like to draw from those kinds of things.
00:32:06Yeah, I was just going to jump in and say, one of the things that really inspires me
00:32:14just to like, look for characters, and like recently, I was just talking with a friend
00:32:18of mine, I guess it's been like a couple of years now, but we were talking about like,
00:32:22how many, we're trying to count up how many feature films have been written and directed
00:32:26by Native Americans since Smoke Signals, which was 1999, and like in the United States, and
00:32:33we couldn't come up with 10.
00:32:36And like, when you think about like, how deplorable that is, and how like, it's not shocking,
00:32:41but just like how painful it is that like, there's this like, incredible community of
00:32:47stories that just hasn't been explored, because we just haven't had the resources.
00:32:51And I was so lucky enough to get to write and direct on Reservation Dogs as well, which
00:32:56was just like, kind of the first of its kind and being able to have actual resources to
00:33:02like, go into the community and like, explore like, these stories that haven't been represented.
00:33:07And so for me, when I'm like, working, I'm always like, thinking about my aunties or
00:33:10my sister or my nieces or my uncles, or just like the funny people that exist on my reservation
00:33:16or reservations that I've traveled to, and then trying to like, figure out how to like,
00:33:20bring drama to that, like, to their characters and like, express that, because there's just
00:33:26so many beautiful stories from Native America that haven't been told yet.
00:33:29And so I feel like cheating a little bit, that like, I get to like, you know, that we
00:33:34get to kind of be some of the first that have these resources to pull from those places.
00:33:40But it's, it's a real, it's a real thrill to get to write those characters.
00:33:44So anybody else want to chime in?
00:33:49Yeah, I mean, over the past couple years, I've been writing a lot of true story stuff.
00:33:55And I might be the only one here doing that.
00:33:58Yeah.
00:34:00For me, it's, you know, like, people are fucking crazy.
00:34:06And in some, you know, obviously, it's fun to make up characters and stuff.
00:34:09But like, when you actually, you know, tell a true story, and just, you know, and look
00:34:13back in history, I feel like we've lived, you know, the stories we're living now, we've
00:34:18lived before.
00:34:19And we kind of forget that, because we just have this cultural amnesia that we're always
00:34:23like living in a new moment.
00:34:24But if you just look back and read a bit, I mean, you know, so many things, we just
00:34:28keep repeating our same mistakes over and over again.
00:34:31And it's fun to kind of look back at like, very, very specific moments and just watch
00:34:35how, you know, whether it was 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, you know, people are people.
00:34:40And, and so it's really fun to kind of explore that.
00:34:42Well, to follow up on that a little bit, you know, some of you have already spoken about
00:34:46sort of a sense of responsibility or an opportunity that you're trying to take advantage of, especially
00:34:51for the adaptation or the telling of the story of a real person.
00:34:56Where is your risk?
00:34:57Where do you place your responsibility?
00:34:59Is it to the story?
00:35:00Because, you know, people can experience a life that's not that exciting on screen, you
00:35:05know, and it may be better to dramatize something, you know, I mean, how do you sort of find
00:35:12the balance?
00:35:13Yeah, I mean, for me, it's, it's, my North Star is more like emotional truth, I'd say.
00:35:20And really getting to the heart of, I don't want to betray the character and the real
00:35:25person it's based on.
00:35:27Sometimes you do have to, you know, compress time, you know, change the stakes a teeny
00:35:30bit to make it a little more movie-y, but, but, but really, it's the, it's the character's
00:35:36journey is, and what they stand for, I really try to stay true to.
00:35:41And sometimes the external pressures have to be, you know, upped a bit, but, but for
00:35:46the most part, it's, it's really emotional truth for me.
00:35:49Sure.
00:35:50Well, again, some of you have sort of answered this already, but can some of the other screeners
00:35:55talk about sort of, to whom you hold yourself accountable?
00:35:59Is it to the characters?
00:36:01Is it to the story?
00:36:02Is it to, you know, to, to the event, eventual emotional experience that an audience is going
00:36:08to have?
00:36:09Or, you know, again, as do many of you like Jocelyn sort of go through the experience
00:36:14which is sort of writing and expecting that it will come together and down the line.
00:36:21Yeah, I, I generally try to stay out of the idea of like how it's going to be perceived
00:36:29or what's going to happen on the other end of it, just because like, I will make myself
00:36:33crazy if I do that, you know?
00:36:37And also I think that generally like some of the best advice that I've ever gotten is
00:36:41to basically write what you like and what you would really like to see or participate
00:36:46in or what you'd really like to watch.
00:36:48And I think that's generally a good guidepost because ultimately like a certain amount of
00:36:54specificity is going to create more universality as opposed to having like this ultimate end
00:36:59goal to be impactful or to be important or, because it's, to me, it's like having those
00:37:05kind of goals, it, it changes the way that the work generates, you know?
00:37:13And then it becomes about something else other than like what's happening.
00:37:16And I think, I think it's just also about like that is such a, there is such a responsibility
00:37:21I think as a, as a screenwriter, anybody who makes any type of art that's seen.
00:37:26And I think that film and TV just happen to have a larger ubiquity and therefore more
00:37:31audiences that they can potentially reach.
00:37:34So there is a responsibility, I think, to like have some type of, I mean, I'm more interested
00:37:39in stories that have like some socio-political bearing or have some, I don't know, presence
00:37:45in what's going on in our current moment, even if it's about something in the past or
00:37:48something in the future.
00:37:51But yeah, I think that, I think generally it, I'm most interested when I watch something
00:37:58and I, I can, or read something and I can tell that it's just what that person is so
00:38:03interested in or obsessed with or like grappling with.
00:38:07And that to me always feels like where the, the best and juiciest kind of stories lie
00:38:12regardless of the life that they have.
00:38:15Does anybody else want to chime in?
00:38:18I was similar to Nora, just, I think the responsibility that I feel is like just to the audience of
00:38:25like there's so many ways to distract yourself now.
00:38:29And like if someone gives you the, their 90 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever of their
00:38:34time to like work hard enough to make it worth their while and their investment of, they
00:38:41could literally be doing anything and they chose to watch your thing.
00:38:44And I'm sure it's different if you're writing about Winston Churchill or something and you're
00:38:47like, I don't want to completely butcher this, but I think character wise, it's like to serve
00:38:54the experience of the audience watching this thing and hopefully enjoying it.
00:38:59Yeah, I feel like my philosophy is very simple and that is I write what my interests are
00:39:04because if you're not interested in what you're writing in, it's going to come across as disingenuous
00:39:09and your reader is not going to like it.
00:39:11If your reader is not going to like your audience, isn't going to like it.
00:39:13So it's like you have to worry about that foundational layer of just be true to what
00:39:17you want to see.
00:39:18Like what kind of movies do you want to see?
00:39:20And I never wanted to be a part of something that I wasn't interested in seeing.
00:39:25I wouldn't pay for a ticket for it.
00:39:27I'm totally with you, Cameron.
00:39:30I feel like I always start coming up with ideas by sending literally text messages or
00:39:35going on walks or talking to my friends at book club and thinking about what are the
00:39:39things we can't shut up about?
00:39:41What are we ranting about?
00:39:43And finding just a thread of social commentary in there, whether it's the mental load of
00:39:48women around the holidays and how that drives us crazy or the division of domestic labor
00:39:53and modern marriage.
00:39:54And then just trying to find a high concept, like fun premise to hide it in.
00:39:59But it's those topics that just capture my emotion and my time and my headspace that
00:40:06feel like they take hold.
00:40:08Well, we only have a few more minutes left, but Cameron, maybe you can start down at the
00:40:14end.
00:40:15You guys can come down.
00:40:16Given the projects that we've sort of recognized you here for, can you talk about what initially
00:40:22inspired you?
00:40:23What the kernel of, in a nutshell, what it was about that story that you wanted or felt
00:40:28like you had to tell?
00:40:29Sure.
00:40:30It's kind of funny.
00:40:32The story came about because the project I did preceding it didn't work, didn't get the
00:40:37interest I needed to.
00:40:38And it was like a very exhausting research dense process.
00:40:42And I was pretty sad.
00:40:43And I felt like my only buddy was my dog.
00:40:45So it was the only script I've ever written that didn't have an outline.
00:40:49And it inadvertently kind of was just a love letter to my dog.
00:40:53The way the character talks to his dog in the script is the way I would talk to mine.
00:40:58And yeah, I kind of captured the spirit of...
00:41:01My dog was extremely bad.
00:41:02It was the worst dog in the world.
00:41:04But he was great.
00:41:05He was great.
00:41:06And I tried to capture a lot of that relentless energy in the character of that.
00:41:10And it somehow worked against all odds.
00:41:13But yeah, that's the genesis of it.
00:41:15Gotcha.
00:41:16Kayla?
00:41:17Sorry.
00:41:19Yeah, so my film is K-Pops, which I co-wrote with Anderson .Paak.
00:41:22He's one half of the duo, Silk Sonic, love that guy.
00:41:25And it came from him, basically, because in the pandemic, he couldn't tour.
00:41:29So he would just sit at home with his son doing these YouTube skits.
00:41:32And he got the idea.
00:41:33He's like, wait, what if this was a movie?
00:41:35So he ended up pitching it to everywhere.
00:41:37Greg Silberman at Stampede took a shot at it.
00:41:40He's like, you know what, we're going to make your dream come true.
00:41:42We need a writer.
00:41:44And I showed up, I got paired with him.
00:41:46And I was like, look, half the credit, half the work.
00:41:48And he's like, bet.
00:41:49So literally during the Silk Sonic residency, we were co-writing this film.
00:41:53And it's beautiful because it has his real life son in the film playing opposite of him.
00:41:58And I was like, have you guys acted?
00:41:59And he's like, no.
00:42:00I was like, oh, okay.
00:42:01So for a year and a half, he and his son would do dance lessons, would do acting lessons
00:42:06and really just commit to filmmaking.
00:42:09And I call it a very expensive home video, because he and his son have this beautiful
00:42:15just moment within the film.
00:42:16I wrote in his sisters.
00:42:19He has his engineers.
00:42:21And every musician cameo you see is Anderson's friend.
00:42:24So Jaden Smith pops up, Saweetie pops up.
00:42:26And it was just a real big family film.
00:42:29And I think when you watch the film, you could see that we had fun in there.
00:42:32And I guess the last thing I'll say, too, is that there was a responsibility, at least,
00:42:36because it was his true story.
00:42:37It was what he thought could have happened if he didn't end up with his son's mom.
00:42:44And I felt a responsibility to him and kind of let him take the lead and saying, how can
00:42:48I make your story true?
00:42:49And how can I make this cathartic for you?
00:42:52Because your son's going to see this when he's older.
00:42:54You're going to see this when it's older.
00:42:56And I look back at that film, and it's a part of my personal history as well.
00:43:00So it was interesting.
00:43:01Sure.
00:43:02That's nice.
00:43:03Chandler?
00:43:04Yeah.
00:43:05I had just come off of writing a novel and adapting it called The Husbands, which was
00:43:10sort of a gender flip Stepford Wives about the division of domestic labor in modern marriage.
00:43:15And one of the pain points that I kept hearing from the women in my life while writing that
00:43:20book was just the insanity of the holidays and making them special.
00:43:26And so I had this idea to write a short story about a matriarch of a family that goes missing
00:43:33after she gets home-aloned by her family over Christmas.
00:43:39And that became a what fun.
00:43:41And it just came at a time where I was in the process of becoming the mother in charge
00:43:45of the holidays for my own family and for my own kids while thinking about all the things
00:43:50that my mom and my grandmother did to make the holidays special for us.
00:43:54And yet still feeling really annoyed by my mom sometimes during the holidays and not
00:43:59being able to shake that.
00:44:02And yeah, it was nice just to continue pulling from that.
00:44:10The film I'm working on is Once on this Island.
00:44:13It's actually an adaptation.
00:44:15It's an adaptation of an adaptation.
00:44:18So the original source material is a little known story called The Little Mermaid.
00:44:26And in the late 80s, early 90s, an author named Rosa Gee adapted that to a Caribbean
00:44:35tale that was kind of a classism story of a young dark-skinned girl who falls for a
00:44:43fair-skinned French-descendant boy on this island.
00:44:47And they kind of have this unrequited love, really.
00:44:54And so that was a really popular Broadway musical.
00:44:58Anyway, years later, obviously, I was approached to write it and I said yes.
00:45:04But I think I said yes for personal reasons because I'm also an actor as well and I spent
00:45:12so much of my life feeling the kind of sadness and depression of being a dark-skinned woman
00:45:21and having a really long journey to owning my own beauty as a dark-skinned woman and
00:45:27what I felt like my place was in the world.
00:45:30And so it feels really important to me, I think, to be able to put that into a story
00:45:35and to update it a little bit because some of it's a little archaic.
00:45:40But we want to just update it a bit and make it feel like it can speak to another young
00:45:47girl who's like me, who's maybe having that, is in the middle of that journey and maybe
00:45:53hopefully speed up the process.
00:45:55And so I'm thrilled and honored to be able to work on something like that.
00:45:59That's beautiful.
00:46:00I have a movie coming out on Thanksgiving called Sweethearts.
00:46:06That's like a college, going-back-to-your-hometown-from-college comedy.
00:46:12And it came out of just talking with my friend and co-writer, Jordan.
00:46:17We didn't go to college together, and we were just on a road trip and started telling
00:46:21college stories.
00:46:22And it was like...
00:46:23I've been out of college for 10 years now, and it just felt like opening a vault of shit
00:46:27that I don't think about anymore.
00:46:29And it was just like...
00:46:31The stories just couldn't stop, and it sort of, to Chandler's point, it's just these themes
00:46:37and arcs that I didn't see then, but I see now.
00:46:41And so it's about going home and breaking up with your first high school boyfriend or
00:46:47girlfriend.
00:46:48And yeah.
00:46:49It just felt like a great way to...
00:46:52New coming-of-age comedy, a lot of college jokes.
00:46:55Great.
00:46:56Nailed it.
00:46:57I have a movie called Eternity that's coming out in the summer or fall.
00:47:05And it's about a woman in the afterlife who has to choose between her two husbands who
00:47:09she was married to in life.
00:47:11And...
00:47:12Big reaction.
00:47:13I'm trying to pitch it.
00:47:14Audience here.
00:47:15So...
00:47:16But the way this came about is that growing up, my mom never heard of a funeral that she
00:47:22didn't want to go to.
00:47:24So I would get schlepped to a funeral a week for a person I kind of didn't know.
00:47:30She literally called me this morning to see how things were going, and she was coming
00:47:32from a funeral.
00:47:35And so I think I developed a fascination with death quite early.
00:47:40And the idea of the afterlife, I just got to thinking, well, there's some tricky logistics
00:47:45if that place actually exists, given some relationships that can happen in life.
00:47:50And so once I got into the industry, I had written a few romantic comedies and ended
00:47:54up pitching it to the guy I met on the tour at the White House, and off we went.
00:48:03I want to meet your mom so bad.
00:48:05Like, is she here?
00:48:06I'm just like...
00:48:07She's at a funeral.
00:48:08She's busy.
00:48:09No, it's just...
00:48:10It's great.
00:48:11I feel like most people kind of run from death, and your mom's like, no, we're going straight
00:48:17there.
00:48:18Why?
00:48:19But has she planned her?
00:48:20Sorry.
00:48:21This is a conversation for another time.
00:48:22I just am so fascinated by that.
00:48:24I think that it's so funny always looking back and kind of narrativizing something that felt
00:48:31kind of, I don't know, not random, but more instinctual in the moment, and then looking
00:48:38back and realizing like, oh, there was all of this stuff kind of steeped in it.
00:48:43I think that just being in Hollywood for, and as an assistant for as long as I was one,
00:48:49which was like almost a decade, I experienced a lot of really interesting power dynamics
00:48:54that I feel like people tell you about, but until you're a part of them, and especially
00:48:58in such a myopic place as Hollywood, and as a young woman, it's just like something that
00:49:06I heard about, but until I experienced it, I couldn't believe that it was quite as real
00:49:12as it was depicted.
00:49:13And I think living in those dynamics for as long as I did, and also sort of what was happening
00:49:22in our culture at the time with everything that's going on with cancel culture and sort
00:49:27of this punitive way of looking at people's behavior, a question that I found myself
00:49:32asking a lot was like, do we deserve to be punished for the worst thing we've ever done
00:49:36for the rest of our lives?
00:49:38And that can be on a scale, right?
00:49:40It's a question of if you feel like the worst thing you've ever done was cheating on a significant
00:49:45other, or the worst thing you've ever done was killing a person.
00:49:49This is a spectrum, obviously, but this notion of do we actually believe in grace?
00:49:54Do we actually believe in rehabilitation?
00:49:56Are we actually capable of that?
00:49:58And if the world doesn't see us that way, are we going to constantly punish ourselves
00:50:04for that action for the rest of our lives?
00:50:06Or is there a way of letting ourselves off the hook through, I don't know, honesty about
00:50:12your past behavior or not?
00:50:14I don't know.
00:50:15Basically, if we're punished by our actions or for them.
00:50:19And so the central character of Alma in After the Hunt was really a person who was dealing
00:50:23with that and the extenuating circumstances that really bring that to the fore and caused
00:50:30her to grapple with her identity in that way.
00:50:33So really casual, like light, casual stuff.
00:50:37You know?
00:50:38Sure.
00:50:39Nora, your movie sounds good.
00:50:42It sounds really good.
00:50:45I was inspired to write this script by my grandmother, Eleanor.
00:50:52At 95 years old, she moved from Florida to Manhattan for the first time.
00:50:57Yeah.
00:50:59Moved into a one bedroom by herself with the want to expand her social circle and make
00:51:06more friends.
00:51:07All her friends had died.
00:51:08So she was looking for friendship.
00:51:10And it was at the same time that I was moving to LA.
00:51:12We had one month of overlap.
00:51:13I'm from New York, so we had one month of overlap.
00:51:15And then I moved to LA, and I didn't know anybody moving there.
00:51:19And she didn't know anybody but two family members moving to New York.
00:51:23And so we used to Skype every night and talk about how lonely we were and how hard it was
00:51:28to make friends.
00:51:29But I was 23.
00:51:31I went to grad school.
00:51:33I made friends pretty immediately, not to brag.
00:51:37But she didn't.
00:51:38And it was extremely hard.
00:51:39And she would talk about how she felt like the only people that wanted to talk to her
00:51:42wanted to talk about her past.
00:51:45And she felt like a novelty.
00:51:46And she felt invisible.
00:51:48She felt small.
00:51:49And I wrote this story in hopes that maybe she could read it one day and know that somebody
00:51:57was listening.
00:51:59And really what I wanted to do was take her to the movies and show her that I cared.
00:52:05And she passed a few years ago, but I did give her the script to read before she passed.
00:52:10And the type of woman we're dealing with is that she read a script entirely about her,
00:52:14and then she said, you spelled my name differently.
00:52:17My name is E-L-I-N-O-R-E, and you spelled it.
00:52:21And I was like, all right.
00:52:22You know what?
00:52:23Take it.
00:52:24That's a great story.
00:52:34For me, my film that I wrote is called Eden.
00:52:38And in short, I call it Crazy German Murder Island.
00:52:43And it's basically about a group of Germans who all decided to leave civilization and
00:52:50start anew on this completely uninhabited island, the Galapagos.
00:52:54Which sounds crazy, and then 2020 hit.
00:52:58And I was like, I kind of get it.
00:53:02And just the allure of going off the grid and starting again, and then really having
00:53:09to face yourself, because there's nothing else along.
00:53:13And so that was kind of how I came into it emotionally.
00:53:18And just, you know, this sounds kind of haughty, but we all go through these moments, especially
00:53:22as writers, just kind of sitting there looking at a blank screen, or wondering what to do
00:53:25with the day, and really questioning what the fuck we're doing with our lives.
00:53:31And I had that a lot.
00:53:32And so when this story came to me, I was like, oh, these people are really just questioning
00:53:37the meaning of life, and coming about it in very, very different ways.
00:53:41So that was a kind of juicy drama for me.
00:53:44Well, first of all, I just want to watch all these movies, and I want to like experience
00:53:54them.
00:53:55Wow.
00:53:56It means, truly means so much.
00:53:59Like we all hung out last night, and I just kept being like, how did I end up with these
00:54:02amazing people to be on the same list as them?
00:54:05So wow.
00:54:07Fancy Dance was largely inspired by language learning.
00:54:13When I was studying Cayuga, you know, the language is considered extinct.
00:54:18Less than 20 people speak the language.
00:54:22And while learning the language, though I grew up in community, and grew up, you know,
00:54:27going to ceremony, and grew up with my people, so much of what we, you know, so much of our
00:54:36history has been like kind of ripped and taken away from us.
00:54:39And I kept getting fed these like really amazing things in the language, because the matriarchal
00:54:45ties and the matriarchal, you know, basically the matriarchy that we were, was still reflected
00:54:51in the language.
00:54:52Like, for example, if you don't know the gender of a person, it's a she, if it's a mixed gendered
00:54:55group of people, you're all she's.
00:54:59And like our translation for the word chief is she holds him by the horns.
00:55:04And so as I was learning the language, I was realizing how much patriarchy and white
00:55:08supremacy has, you know, impacted the modern way that we live, even though we've held on
00:55:13to so much.
00:55:14And I'm so proud of that.
00:55:15And I was really inspired by learning the familial words.
00:55:19We learned that the word mother is Knoha.
00:55:22And the word for aunt, your mother's sister's Knoha'a, which means little mother or your
00:55:27other mother.
00:55:28And I was so deeply touched by the way that women are related to each other and how important
00:55:36we are to each other.
00:55:38And I thought about wanting to make a story in a modern setting about modern Native Americans
00:55:44speaking our language fluently in a modern setting, and how to bring that to life on
00:55:49the screen.
00:55:51And when Mishiana and I started talking about, you know, okay, well, we know we want to tell
00:55:57the story of an aunt and a niece.
00:55:59We know we want to end it in a certain way.
00:56:01We were immediately drawn to the topic of missing and murdered Indigenous people, because
00:56:05it's such an epidemic in our communities.
00:56:08And as a Native person, we're impacted by it so often that we knew that we kind of couldn't
00:56:13tell this story about modern Native women without that being part of the story.
00:56:19And we're so inundated with these stories that are written and directed by non-Native
00:56:23people.
00:56:24I'm Taylor Sheridan.
00:56:26And when I watch—I don't care, I'll name names.
00:56:30Let's be real here.
00:56:33And you know, when we watch those films, you don't really get to see inside.
00:56:37You know, you kind of see this poverty porn portrayal of what Native American life is
00:56:41like, but that is not what I experienced growing up in my community.
00:56:46And you kind of see these white saviors arriving on the res, and they're going to solve the
00:56:49murder and the case.
00:56:51And when they go to the families, you kind of just open the door and see a sliver inside
00:56:55of the house.
00:56:57And that's the only—you know, it's either the image of the dead body or the tiny sliver
00:57:02inside of the trailer park.
00:57:05And we wanted to upend that, and we wanted to go inside the trailer.
00:57:10We wanted to, with humility and laughter and love and humanity, showcase the beautiful
00:57:17women—it makes me emotional—that we love and laugh with every day.
00:57:24And so that was the inspiration for Fancy Dance.
00:57:27See it on Apple TV right now.
00:57:29Yeah, so, well, we're here for the same project, so all of that.
00:57:39And so when Erica came to me with this idea, what really allowed me to latch onto it is
00:57:46I'm also—I don't have children of my own, but I'm an aunt of just a whole ton of little
00:57:52Indian kids running around, and they are so much a part of my life and what keeps me
00:57:59going that it felt like it was something that was so needed to see that relationship on
00:58:06screen.
00:58:08Because in speaking about, like, representation, so much of what makes our community, what's
00:58:13allowed us to survive things like genocide and relocation and reservations and all these
00:58:20unfair things that have happened to our people is our connection to each other.
00:58:25And we aren't just, you know, your mother or your father.
00:58:28We don't use the terms, like, second cousin twice removed, like, that's just your cousin.
00:58:33You don't have, like, your grandma's sister is whoever, that's just another grandma.
00:58:39And so it was important to me that we represent that authentically in these stories.
00:58:47And it kind of goes back to your question of responsibility.
00:58:51And I really loved all the answers down the table, but I just felt, I don't know, it kind
00:58:57of made me a little sad for us, because that's—we're just not afforded the opportunity to not have
00:59:04the responsibility to the story and to the integrity of the character.
00:59:09I wish we had that freedom, and I believe one day we'll get that, we'll get there.
00:59:14But as Erica said earlier, when there are only less than 10 feature films that were
00:59:20created by our people, we have to hold on to that and hold that part of our storytelling
00:59:29sacred in these moments.
00:59:31And I just felt like Fancy Dance just fully encompassed all of these things, but in such
00:59:38an authentic way.
00:59:39I don't know, people ask us, like, what research did you do?
00:59:43And we always tell them, like, we just lived our lives and watched the world around us.
00:59:48And it felt like it was the time to tell this story.
00:59:53And so I'm just eternally grateful that she came to me with this idea and that I got to
00:59:57be a part of it.
00:59:58Let's have another round of applause for the Variety's 2024 class screenwriters to watch.
01:00:07Thank you all so much.