Dinner With Dames #18, With Erica Lee & Ester Hornstein (Recap)

Dinner with Dames Case File

Who: Erica Lee, president of Thunder Road Pictures, & Esther Hornstein, creative executive at Thunder Road, & Cinefemme board, fiscal sponsorees, and referrals – Sarah Bullion, Charlotte Grace, Shenee Howard, Toy Lei, Katie Letien, Elle Schneider, and myself, founder and program director of Dinner with Dames,  Jenna Payne

What: Dinner 2.8 – a casual discussion on industry issues facing women & ways to excel in their careers over dinner & drinks. Special thanks to Roadmap Writers for buying wine!

When: Monday August 20, 2018

Where: Thunder Road Pictures

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

Dinner with Dames celebrated its two year anniversary with not one but two incredible women executives from Thunder Road Pictures – Erica Lee and Esther Hornstein. This was our 20th Cinefemme dinner mentorship program pairing up and coming women filmmakers with mentors, and what a great dinner it was!

The table was stacked with a few Thunder Road mega fans, like branding expert and writer Shenee Howard whose appreciation for John Wick runs deeper possibly even than Keanu Reeves‘ determination for revenge and Toy Lei, an actor, director, and stuntperson who admires Thunder Road’s work with action afficianados 87Eleven Action Design.

Thunder Road was kind enough to host us at their Santa Monica office, and we munched on Mexican food while discussing the state of the business and the opportunities and obstacles for women in Hollywood. Erica Lee spoke with great candor about her own career and experiences both as a working woman and as a business person trying to book diversity at a company known for its machismo.

She’s a new mom and quipped about her relief that #MeToo gained steam as she announced her pregnancy. We all agreed that changes have come, and we’re hopeful that they will stay. Esther and Erica are working to recruit women and diverse directors but have found many want to work on personal projects or their own scripts. Thunder Road isn’t known as a production company for auteurs.

Elle Schneider, a cinematographer who also writes, directs, and produces, mentioned that film festivals tend to select films, especially for diversity picks, that focus on a very narrow, personal window, which can set diverse filmmakers up to fail when they really want to direct, say, the next Sicario, and the slots are still fewer than those given to white men. These choices at festivals also uplift filmmakers who prefer to work outside of mainstream Hollywood. Stories of struggle play great at Sundance but don’t give women and other diverse filmmakers the reel they need to go out for the next superhero movie. We also talked about Etheria Film Night, of which Toy Lei is an alumna, and other outlets working to specifically nurture and boost signals for women in genre filmmaking.

We chatted about gatekeeping through representation, and I expressed frustration at finding readers for my own projects, including my Appalachian Godfather series Shiner that has placed in multiple script contests. The few managers who have read my scripts have reacted uniformly positively, but I remain unsigned (so far). I mentioned that while we understand the need for gatekeeping, it does seem to be a Catch-22 for women putting projects out into the world.

Sarah Bullion, writer and director, agreed that women often seem to need representation to put a project together but can’t get signed without a project to showcase their work. Esther and Erica then offered to take a look at one project by each woman at the table, and we recognize that that is a really special offer. Thanks, Thunder Road!

Esther talked about how she accelerated her own career to executive status by networking like crazy. While Erica got her start at talent agency CAA, Esther worked as an assistant at a production company and was recruited by Erica due to her complementary skill-set. Erica joked about her early bedtime and inability to catch midnight programming anymore, but Esther is happy to scout for new talent and projects on the film festival circuit and around town while Erica focuses on more of the nuts and bolts of Thunder Road projects and production.

Esther emphasized how important it is to develop relationships and nurture your connections. She said that if she reads a good script that isn’t quite right for Thunder Road she likes to connect the writer with someone more appropriate for the project. She’s also happy to meet with creatives to keep them in mind when something crosses her desk that is the right fit.

We wrapped up with a little more wine from Roadmap Writers, and Charlotte Grace talked about collaborating with her producing partner to finance a feature while sharing skill-sets and sweat equity. Erica agreed that 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing, and you can’t make a movie without a small army anyway. As the late summer evening turned into a muggy night, we cleaned up, reveling in the connections made and holding a lot of hope for the future.

Photos and video by Katie Letien

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 Jenna Payne

I’m a scrappy, DIY New Yorker who fell in love with movies at a young age. My first short film is the award-winning “Feline Frenzy,” which screened at festivals, and I’m developing an Appalachian Godfather tale called Shiner for television. The pilot script was nominated to the 2016 #WriteHerList and placed in Capital Fund’s Screenplay Competition, Table Read My Screenplay, Women In Film’s Mini UpFronts, and more. I have a feature length slasher set against the backdrop of Flint, Mich. and a zany series Zompire Vixens from Pluto! Aside from writing and directing, I have long advocated for parity and representation inside and outside of the film industry. To that end, I created and run Cinefemme‘s Dinner with Dames as the Program Director. More information at www.jennapayne.com