Female Representation in Film Production with Amanda Sayeg
Our guest Amanda Sayeg reflects on her own personal experiences often being the only woman on a film crew, and how female representation is most needed in positions of power on film productions.
The following interview is an excerpt from our video series, Production – In Conversation. To watch the full interview and see more video content, click here. Or you can listen to the Shift In Conversation podcast here.
Amanda: My name is Amanda Sayeg and I’m from San Paolo, Brazil. I’ve lived in LA for a little bit over six years now working on productions. Mainly music videos, commercials, short films and documentaries.
Grace: For those not familiar with film production, would you say that it is a male-dominated industry?
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. And I think we are moving forward, but we have a lot of work to do on that. Overall I think it depends on the production. I’ve worked on some smaller productions that were female-led, which is wonderful, but overall bigger-sized productions are 60-70% male.
Grace: Why do you think that is?
I think it’s not, unfortunately, something exclusive to the film industry. I think it’s part of all industries, it’s part of the society we live in which is a male-dominated society.
Amanda: I think it’s not, unfortunately, something exclusive to the film industry. I think it’s part of all industries, it’s part of the society we live in which is a male-dominated society. You see in positions of power not only just males, but white males — so it’s a racial question too. It’s part of a very archival concept that we are still breaking from. The industry that we work for works like any other one, you have a hierarchy of position and power and roles. But also as an industry that forms opinion, we create a very big impact in the society and in trends and behavior. So it makes sense that everything we have lived so far also has a lot of white male dominance.
Grace: Have you ever had the experience of being the only woman on a film set? What was that like?
Amanda: Yes, I have. Many times. And I’ve been lucky for the most part to work with amazing people, and amazing men that I admire and respect a lot. Many of them are role models to me. But it is different when you have a crew that is only male, and you can’t relate to anyone. When you see people that you look up to it’s very different when you see a man versus a woman. How do you see yourself in those positions? That’s a huge part of it, it’s very important to have representation on set. Production is problem-solving, 24/7. That’s what the role is. So by having different perspectives, that helps a lot.
Grace: When you have a position of authority on a film set, like as director or producer, do you think people relate to you differently than they might relate to a man in the same position?
Amanda: Yes. Coming from the structure we are coming from where it is a male-dominated industry, when you start to have women in positions of power there can be a lot of second-guessing the authority of a woman that’s in charge. Something that bothers me a lot is if you are strong and you know what you want and you are taking charge of the situation, for men those traits are respected and admired by everyone. But when you are a woman that can easily come across as being upset, or bossy, or loud. It can seem like something small or silly, but the impact that it has makes you rethink your behavior or think you are doing something wrong. There is so much pressure on women to be nice and to please everyone, and those things can’t work well together on a film set. This pressure is immensely bad for us.
There is so much pressure on women to be nice and to please everyone, and those things can’t work well together on a film set. This pressure is immensely bad for us.
It creates such a hostile environment to work in. That second-guessing feeling from the crew, and even from women too! It’s something that happens with us as well. It’s something we need to break too, the work is not just for men. I had an experience on set working with this woman that wore her hair up in a ponytail the whole time. At the end of the day I ran into her in the bathroom and she had this long, beautiful hair when it was down. I asked her why she always wore her hair up, and she said, “I feel that we are not really respected and listened to on set. So I just always wear a ponytail, so I kind of look more like a man”. That made me so sad, because I know it’s true and I know she had reasons to do that.
Grace: Why do you think it is important that films have female directors and producers? What difference does it make?
Amanda: Our job is to tell stories that represent our society. In order to tell the stories and in order to portray an accurate picture, we need to have diverse people behind the scenes. We’re slowly seeing diversity on camera, but it’s very important in order for the stories to be told right that we have representation behind the cameras too. Those are the people writing, those are the people crewing up, those are the people making decisions. There is so much more authenticity and truth when you not only see diverse actors on screen, but you have a whole crew of diverse people supporting that actor. It’s important to come from a place of truth. I can write any story I want, but the work we are doing is meant to connect people. I don’t think we can truly connect if it doesn’t come from a place of authenticity and truth.
Grace: Do you think the audience can see that difference when they are sitting in the theater watching that film?
Amanda: Absolutely. From women to women, we know what we go through. And we know what we are going to keep going through. When stories come from that place, as an audience you’re listening to and watching stories that you can relate to versus watching content that tells you what you should be based on some stereotype that society creates. There is such a difference in seeing big female directors and big producers and writers, because you can project and you can see yourself in positions like that too. The representation is so important to inspire young girls and adults at any age. When a little girl watches a movie and of course she thinks, “I can be an actress”. But if she sees an amazing female director, she knows that she can do that, or she can produce, or she can write, she can do absolutely anything. Until very recently we couldn’t really see that because there were just so few of us.
If a young girl sees an amazing female director, she knows that she can do that, or she can produce, or she can write, she can do absolutely anything.
Grace: What is your vision for the future of representation in the film industry?
Amanda: It definitely looks like a much more female-led industry. And of course there is space for men, there is space for everyone, but right now we are in a moment where we need to prioritize. Guarantee that there is female representation in all departments. We need to create more situations for female-led projects and fully female crews. There are so many associations and organizations doing a beautiful job on that, and it is so valuable. I know this is going to keep going because there is no way back right now, thankfully. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the future is much brighter for us. We’re going to get there. We’re also realizing as women that we don’t need to compete against each other. Society has made us believe that it’s a competition, but it’s not. I see women bringing other women on board and supporting each other, there’s such a beautiful sisterhood going on. The more we enjoy that the farther we are going to go together, there’s going to be more space for us at the table.
In addition to searching for a review link by its title, you can now search for your link by entering its URL. On the Reporting page, paste your URL in the search bar in the top-left to access your link’s view counts, viewer information, and other activity details.
You can now access global search right from the Projects homepage. Use the search bar at the top of the page to search for assets by metadata, uploader, and other properties.
To quickly find a specific project, click the Options button and enter your project name in the “Filter by title” field.
Simplify your Spotlight workflow
You can now create a Spotlight presentation directly from the Spotlight homepage. Simply click on the Create New button and select Spotlight.
A new modal will guide you to choose your spotlight settings, browse our growing library of pre-made templates, or select one of your custom templates.
Add dynamic text to your Spotlight presentations
Spotlight presentations now support dynamic text that changes based on the content you are viewing.
To enable dynamic text, click on any text box and go to the new Dynamic Content tab in the properties panel on the right.
Use the dropdown menus to select the stage or video player that contains your content.
Choose the dynamic-text fields, such as Title or Description, that you wish to display alongside your content. Your audience will see the metadata values you have set in Projects.
General Improvements:
When you reopen the Media Browser panel in the Spotlight template editor, you are now redirected to the last folder you visited.
You can now resize additional panels, including the Layers panel and the Playlists panel.
Update Shared Links
You can now update an existing or new link from Reporting or Feed.
On the Reporting page, find your link and select Edit in its action menu. From Feed, select the gear icon in the bottom-right the link’s Feed card and select Edit Settings.
In the Share wizard, click the File tab and then select Add to open your projects and assets.
Drag and drop assets to add them to the link. To remove an asset from the link, hover it and click X.
Note that assets from a watermarked project cannot be added to a public share link.
You can now make changes to your sent links by adding or removing recipients from your private shares.
On the Reporting page, find your link and select Edit in its action menu. Or, from your Feed, click the gear icon along the bottom of the Feed card and select Edit Settings.
In the Share wizard, go to the People section and enter the workspace users you wish to add to the link. To remove a user from the link, hover over their name and click the X button. Removing a user will revoke their access to the link.
Click Save to apply your changes and send email notifications to the users you added.
With the SHIFT GO app for iOS and Android, you can now create folders and upload files directly from your phone. To start uploading, simply tap the plus button in the bottom-right corner of your project screen.
In addition to downloading files for offline viewing, you can now save files straight to your phone to use them with other mobile apps. On the Files page, find the file you need to download, tap the action menu next to it, and choose “Save to Device.”
Note: You can only save a file to your device if you have download permission on a project or a review link.
What I love about working with film production crews and teaching a film class are the highly collaborative relationships formed while working towards a common goal. The interactions between students and their professor when working on a major project are just as “passionate” as the discussions between the director and cinematographer when discussing the art of the shot.
I have been fortunate to experience this collaboration from multiple perspectives, having spent more than a decade working in post-production on documentary and non-fiction projects for television and theatrical release. And I continue to work in this field designing collaborative workflows for filmmakers and facilities as a senior sales engineer with EditShare in Los Angeles, CA. I also teach giant screen (IMAX) film production to the next generation of filmmakers at the USC School of Cinematic Arts – my alma mater.
Matt Scott with his students at USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Teaching Students Across the Street and Halfway Around the World
The collaborative relationship between teacher and film student is a core element of film school. From my perspective as a professor, the pandemic has created unique problems – students and teachers are struggling to collaborate across time zones and geographies. They are also experiencing difficulties accessing materials and resources. This impacts the ability to teach, access to real-world experiences and more importantly, the students’ ability to learn.
As we start the Fall 2020 school year, my students live as near as across the street to as far as across an ocean from our classroom. My colleagues and I are finding that many US-based students are staying local to their hometowns, and the overwhelming majority of international students are unable to return back to campus at all. With students spread around the world, some in countries with online access restrictions, we have extreme time zone differences that add another hurdle to collaborating in real time.
While sometimes the course work is independent, filmmaking, especially for juniors, seniors and grad students is a highly collaborative course of study with teams of students working day and night to create their projects. Compounding the challenges of connecting and collaborating is the lack of access to real-world experiences.
Opportunities for students to gain hands on experience have taken a major hit. In April through June of this year, production nearly evaporated. Dropping 98%, only 194 shoot days were recorded in Los Angeles vs. the 8,632 shoot days recorded during the same period in 2019. It was the lowest filming level on record. Of the few internships still available, most are remote, denying students both real-world experience and industry relationships they will need to succeed.
Then there is access to the material that we teach in class. Some of the media we rely on to convey the concepts of our lessons is not readily available via Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime, yet it’s an important component to the core curriculum.
So, as educators, how do we enable creative collaboration that exposes our students to real-world production, including access to the materials they need – when they are attending class from across the street to half-way around the world?
Options for Collaboration, Access, and Continuity
This is where I’m proud to be part of a company that has a solution for educators who are facing this problem.
For more than a decade, EditShare has been actively used in higher educational settings all over the world. It has given thousands of students real-world experiences in filmmaking, journalism, sports, and production. Its project sharing features let teachers collaborate on a deeper level with students, while useful admin tools and SSO integration manage hundreds of student profiles from a single dashboard with ease. And with the release of EFSv, our cloud-based solution, EditShare can virtualize an entire education focused post-production environment, allowing students to upload and share their raw or proxy media and collaboratively edit directly from the cloud, collapsing the distance that may be separating students from their peers and teachers.
EditShare’s cloud-based EFSv solution, which is runs in cloud infrastructures such as AWS, Google Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and other public cloud environments, enables instructors to securely store and share raw or proxy media in the cloud, providing students seamless access to footage from their team’s project, regardless of where in the world each student may be.
Where EditShare cloud-based solutions really help education is through its remote editing capabilities. It supports all industry NLEs, so no matter the toolset a student has access to, they can participate in any project. Everything, including project sharing, editing, and bin locking, is virtualized. As a teacher, I can easily spin up an entire virtual classroom in moments, with all the computing power needed to complete real-world projects in the cloud.
EFSv solutions also optimize the cost of editing in the cloud. EFSv puts high-resolution files into cost-effective object storage but makes those files appear as if they are on a normal mounted block storage file system. At the same time, EFSv provides the scalable high-performance block storage needed for low-latency access to proxy files and renders. Proxies are generated by our FLOW media management system. Both high-resolution and proxy versions are accessible at all times, streamlining the editing workflow while minimizing costs.
For institutions that do not want to put everything into the cloud – EditShare’s FLOW and AirFLOW media management applications enable students and instructors to securely access the university’s private on-premise storage. Students can log-in, access course materials, including films they need to review as well as share their own projects. Teachers can use FLOW to review student work and provide feedback on the next steps.
Many hybrid cloud + on premise workflows are also available. Most popular is storing raw footage locally on campus and sharing proxy media through the cloud.
Making Lectures Accessible…Globally
Another new challenge with distance learning has been teaching via video conference, and institutional mandates to record our classes for asynchronous learning or other requirements. This is a great idea, but as anyone who has actually watched a recording of their class will know, there’s plenty of class time taken up with minor admin – like attendance, 1:1 conversations with students and even some technical issues that don’t need to be or shouldn’t be replayed publicly. This is where FLOW’s integration with Zoom has become extremely useful. FLOW is now able to automatically download all angles of a class recording, including the shared desktop, plus it downloads the AI speech to text transcription as markers on your video. Now instructors can quickly edit out any material that’s not germain to the lesson either with FLOW Story or with the NLE of their choice. We can even cut our recordings down into pod size modules making it easy for our students to find specific sections or topics they wish to review.
It’s All About Being Flexible
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Productions will return, many already have, and we’ll get to collaborate in person once again. But many of the new habits we’ve adopted during this pandemic might be to be so efficient that in many ways, there is no going back to how it once was.
Either way, EditShare has the flexibility to offer the classroom of the future—whatever that will look like–the capabilities it will need.
Pin your most important projects to the top of the screen by selecting them as Favorites.
Simply hover over a project tile and click the star icon. This will anchor the project to the top of the page under a new section called “Favorites.” To remove a project from your Favorites, simply click the star icon again.
Note: Project Favorites only apply to your account and not to other members on your workspace.
Spotlight Alignment Guides
In the Spotlight builder, you’ll now see visual alignment guides appear as you drag elements around the page. Line up your playlists, media players, and text on the page.
Download Watermarked Files in Spotlight
Authorized users can now download watermarked files in private shared Spotlight presentations.
In your project settings, turn on watermarking in the SafeStream tab. Then, create your static playlist and check Enable Download.
In the Spotlight builder, place your playlist onto the layout. With the content block selected, go to Link Settings in your right-side panel and check Allow Download.
Once you save and share the presentation, a download button will appear over your content.
