Dinner With Dames #16, With Peter Van Steemburg (Recap)

Dinner with Dames Case File

Who: Peter Van Steemburg, producer, Vice President of Acquisitions and Production at Universal Pictures, & Cinefemme board, fiscal sponsorees, and referrals – Michelle Kantor, Morgan Lariah, Jenna Payne, Jeanne Marie Spicuzza, Allison Volk, Joyce Yoo, and myself, Betty Sullivan

What: Dinner 2.6 – a casual discussion on industry issues facing women & ways to excel in their careers over dinner & drinks. Special thanks to Roadmap Writers for buying a round of drinks and appetizers!

When: Wednesday May 23, 2018

Where: The Village Idiot

Why: To propel women to bigger and better career opportunities within studios and networks

The festivities had begun when I arrived fresh off a flight from the East Coast where I nearly pulled an all-nighter shooting a short with girlfriends. Glasses of Cava were passed around. I didn’t know the treat that was to come at Cinefemme’s monthly Dinner with Dames. I found like-minded women and a mentor and acquisitions expert, Peter Van Steemburg, who really cared about ways for female filmmakers to nab more work.

The projects these fearless women had in the can blew my mind. It validated the journey. Jenna Payne, Cinefemme’s program director, gave us stats on the staggering lack of female representation in industry jobs. She heard at a panel that about 60 out of 1300 qualified women DGA member directors who work regularly. According to official DGA statistics, 262 women directed 955 episodes of television in the 2016-2017 season – up from 180 in the 2015-2016 season. Women DGA directors make up about 2,300 women out of approximately 15,000 members.

Jenna also mentioned that for feature film budgets under $25 million, women regularly receive 75% of the budget men directors do for similar genres and concepts and screen on one third of the screens, according to research by Slated. We talked about how it got that way and how it could change. Dinner with Dames is one such vehicle.

Peter Van Steemburg gave us a rundown of his Northeastern roots and stints at Miramax Films, Cinetic Media, Magnolia Pictures, ICM, and now Universal. He loves crunching numbers. The way he spoke about his current boss’s savvy negotiating skills showed his respect for her, and he offered the negotiating hint of using silence in your favor. It was endearing. We learned tips on cutting a deal with distributors, down to contract details like getting mutual consultation, especially on marketing and trailers. Peter spoke of the effectiveness of festivals to sell films and how many of the old tried and true festivals aren’t posting sales anymore.

Totally comfortable in a room with women, Peter listened to each of our projects, and he had done his homework, checking out Cinefemme’s one sheet of dinner guests and watching everyone’s trailers ahead of time. I just finished writing a thriller feature Saving Esperanza that landed on this year’s Athena List. It’s inspired by the true story of an American woman who smuggled a Mexican child into the USA to save her life.

Orphans and the border are important social issues, but its budget is too big for me to produce myself. Peter gave advice on building a team for the project. He liked who was on my team so far and gave me pointers – like getting a sales agent in early, pre-buys, and having the budget ready before pitching. That lead to general advice on building a reputation, working with good people, and obstacles that women may face like the fact men indeed hang out with men more often than women. We need to break down those barriers.

Joyce Yoo’s award-winning short documentary El Cap Wedding about her wedding on a harrowing ledge at the top of El Capitan in Yosemite Park makes her a heroine to me. We all wondered how did her dress make it up the mountain intact. She is seeking distribution and got an inside scoop on next moves. Morgan Lariah told us about her female-lead sci-fi thriller feature 5^TH Passenger set in space that will be released this summer. The effects are seriously well done.

We all left jazzed. Maybe it was the karma or kismet, but I got good news afterward – a small feature with financing attached to write and produce. So maybe that pilot, Table Manners, I shot three years ago might actually sell. My version of Nurse Jackie meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – me trying to desensitize mental illness for the masses.

I’m grateful to one of the sponsors, Roadmap Writers, for referring me to Cinefemme and Dinner for Dames. Women that support each other without malice. I encourage our sisters to shoot something, join Cinefemme as a member, and go if you are invited to Dinner with Dames. And you mentors, come join some dazzling dames for dinner.

About Cinefemme

Cinefemme is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by women filmmakers, for women filmmakers in 2002.  Cinefemme provides fiscal sponsorship to women filmmakers and artists, as well as peer-to-peer networking, mentorship, and strategy for project fundraising.  By advancing women’s careers in film and the arts, we empower women’s voices to create gender parity in the arts and equal representation in the media.

About Betty Sullivan

Betty Sullivan is the 2018 Athena’s List winner for her script Saving Esperanza, an epic tale of a mother’s love inspired by her own experience.  Her filmed pilot Table Manners landed her as a semi-finalist in the digital series section of Austin Film Festival, and she won LAFF for the pilot Freelancers and has placed and won in many competitions around the U.S., including Launch Pad Top 100 pilots, Top Ten WAN, Stowe Story Labs, and Athena Labs.  She is an executive producer on the feature Endgame, and a reader for both the Austin and Nashville Film Festivals.  The focus of her projects motivated by life experience is exploring social justice and strong female characters.

Betty is an entrepreneur who built a multi-million dollar family business from the ground up and raised a blended family. She lives in Maryland and California and is currently writing and producing a feature.