Film Courage: I think you've said 20 percent of all writers are really good
and 10 percent are great?
Kelly Edwards, Staff Writer, Author, Producer: That's what I saw when I was doing the HBO Access
Program. Every year we had about 3,500 submissions to our writers program and when we did the math
we found that 20 percent of those writers were all good, they were good.
80 percent of them were probably just not ready but 20 percent were good and any of those 20
percent could or should be working in the business and they came from everywhere, all demographics.
Ten percent were really good, ten percent are all people who were very worthy of being in the
program. It's not that the talent's not there, the talent's there and I wonder, and I've actually had
conversations with with people before about this, you just wonder if again the access is the barrier
to entry if there's going to be some part of that some piece of that that's going to be a
fraction of those people won't work in a writer's room they're probably feature writers or their
interest is someplace different or they want to do animation we didn't do animation at the time or
they wanted to do children's and we need to do children so there may be other factors that
count them out or they're emotionally not ready to take that next step which is a very valid
thing and I applaud anybody who understands that about themselves but of those of that 10 percent
those people again come from everywhere they come in all ages
and all genders and you just wonder how many of those people
are out there in the world who just don't have the entry point they don't have the access and
because they don't have that access they they give up how many people how many stories are we leaving
on the sidelines that aren't getting through because they're not getting the encouragement
which is why when we were doing our program when we even when we did our semi-final cut
we we put blasted that information out there because all of those semi-finalists had jumped
over so many hurdles and we knew that they were great voices valued could be potentially
working in this in this industry and they all needed to be recognized they all needed their
they all needed their little day in the sun because what happens is when when HBO then puts
that message out there all the agents come looking for them they see their names they're like hey we
look them up online and reach out directly and all those people get them a little bit of lift
but yeah there's a lot of talent out there you just wonder how many stories haven't been told
that should be told you say emotionally ready what does that mean when I say emotionally ready I mean
that sometimes you can get to a place where you have the path the door is open to you
but you aren't necessarily ready for all that it entails being a working writer in this industry
is not easy once you've gotten the gig it's you still putting in hours and you're still writing
on the side because you need another piece of material and you still have to work with other
people in a writer's room right on the TV side or you still have to navigate what it means to
be a writer and you and sometimes that the not knowing where your next meal is coming from is
not easy to to understand or to to stomach and then there are other things so whether you are
this about yourself or you don't you in order to sit in a writer's room and to contribute without
over contributing sometimes we don't all have the same skill set emotionally we don't have the right
tools emotionally to take all that on it is a it is a thing so that's when I say emotionally you
have to be ready for it because once you are stepping onto that train as a working writer
it can be a lot there have been times where people come out of a program and
they go what I'm not going to be I realized in the program that I don't love this process
and I would rather go direct or I would rather go write novels
or I'm actually not fitting I don't see myself fitting into this world in this way
or I'm dealing with my own stuff and it's hard to deal with that I need to take a break or I need to
take a step back and that's okay not everybody gets to this the starting line at the same time
and I do think that what we ask of writers is an emotional work and if you're not ready to expose
that you got to do it at your own pace because you can damage your soul if you are not ready
so you have to figure out a way to be okay with it and remember you're getting criticism constant
criticism whether people are saying it in a nice way or not and how you internalize that
and if you're okay with that then you're good to go and if you internalize that you cannot
you cannot make sense of it and you need to do some emotional work then sit it out for a minute
until you're ready so do you think that's a rare individual who realizes wow this big door is open
for me and I'm actually not ready and I'm going to turn it no I don't think it's unusual because
I've I've encountered quite a few people who who get that who know who understand that and
and I think that when you've got to that place where you are people are starting to set those
meetings it clicks in pretty quickly your fight or flight goes oh the the sensors go off pretty fast
like I don't think I can do this this is making me too uncomfortable
so I do think that there's a little bit of a pressure point that just goes haywire
and that's good then then you gotta figure out another way
and do you think because so many of these writers they hone their craft outside of school on their
own whether at the library coffee shop in the room and now it's a totally new ball game with input
and agendas and personalities and they weren't prepared for that well I think also remember that
beyond all that and that might be that might be true sometimes when you get into a writer's room
and you are dealing with a lot of criticism and you let's just say you have a funky writer's room
which a lot of people we saw in the last couple years a lot of people had to go through there's
a misogyny there's racism there's there's so many other things that are coming at people
that have nothing to do with the work sure teacher's pet you got to figure out a way to hold
on and I had a conversation with a with a writer Kathleen McGhee-Anderson I had a had a breakfast
at the Beverly Hills was it Beverly Hills Deli what's the one that's at the top of Van
Nuys whatever that deli was Beverly Glendale years ago and this was back when she had just
wrapped Lincoln Heights and she said I'm really concerned that we are losing a lot of our black
female writers that they just can't that it's so hard to be in a room and you're the only one
and so we started a group and we got and we did it for a couple years where we got I was an NBC
at the time we got a lot of senior level we had I think three or four senior level writers brought a
mid-level and a junior writer and it was to foster more mentoring and to give them some
place where they could they could a soft place of land essentially a touch point
because we needed people to wrap their arms around the people who are coming up and go
oh yeah they're going to call you the diversity hire whether you were or not. They're going to
try to shame you into that and they're going to want to touch your hair and they're going
to want to throw racial epithets up that said to you and they're going to want to push your
buttons and they're going try to undermine you and that was just very common probably still is
and navigating that takes a lot of emotional fortitude
now I've been the diversity gal so I've had a lot of stuff slung at me I don't
I've got tougher skin than a lot of people so I think I could probably weather it but it wasn't
easy getting there there was a lot of times that I would go home and just be emotional wreck because
nobody wanted to see that coming nobody wanted to see the diversity person come in
because I was always there to tell somebody that they're racist and they probably were
but then I wasn't the I wasn't very well liked in that role personally I could be have friendships
with them but but they're not looking for that right they're not looking for that criticism
so it gave me a tougher skin than maybe some other people added as a network executive I had
to be had a tough skin so but not everybody starts there you develop that as you go along you created
can you develop it without becoming bitter oh sure I think you can I think I think it's
hard I think there are times when you're dealing with it but but that's a bigger question because
it goes way beyond Hollywood we're living in a time when we are
seeing the rise of it but we never really left it we my parents went through the 60’s and and
so there's always been strife there's always been struggle before that we've
had struggle here for 400 plus years that's not going to go away and then
mix in every other culture that's tried to assimilate here and try to get a foothold so
there's going to be a sense I mean what what does James Baldwin say to be black man, to be black in
America is essentially to be in a rage all the time. I'm paraphrasing terribly but to be in a
rage all the time and that's of course that's part of it it's an undercurrent because we are looking
for fairness in a place that fairness doesn't exist nor does anybody want there to be fairness
the people who should be should be fair are not fair right so we're constantly struggling we're
constantly looking for a place to exist peacefully and do the best of work that we can against
terrible terrible odds but that's part of it that's part of where we are I've
had a conversation the very first conversation with with my boss at NBC one of an amazing woman
named Paula Madison and she sat me down for lunch and she said though almost the very first
thing she said at this lunch it's so seared in my brain was she said make no mistake this
is a civil rights job this is civil rights that's what we're doing in diversity right
and I think of my role as a diversity executive and and I think in my place in that world
it's funny because a young man just asked me about this recently in the last couple weeks
and I said we are part of a chain we are just one link in a chain the change stretches out way far
behind us and away in front of us and we're not going to fix this in our lifetime won't be over
but we are doing our part because we cannot allow the chain to break we have to keep going right
so if you think about all the people who came before us there's been
terrible terrible atrocities and I know we're going we're like going off script here right
and our conversation but terrible terrible things have happened and we keep standing on
the shoulders of those who come before us so I'm standing on the shoulders of of my boss and her
predecessors and a long legacy of people and there will be people who stand on my shoulders as well
so yeah there's going to be some bitterness because it's not fixed yet but that there's
also a lot of other things that come into my daily existence I'm not all bitter that's not my
I don't wake up feeling bitter I wake up and I do the job that I'm tasked to do I create material
hopefully I come to the material and try to create something that then again you are touched by that
then bridges that gap between US just a little bit more and that's the job that's my job right now
so you can't you can't live on bitterness you have to get up and do your job every day you gotta go
make something happen so there's a there's a time and a place to to be angry and to fight back but
then there's another time and a place to say okay I'm just going to focus on the task at hand and
I'm not going to but they might be one of the same they might be the one in the same so every
single script that I write has a black lead black female lead so far I actually had a conversation
with a friend of mine who was like she was reading my scripts she's really really great
I don't know she helps a lot of people with their material and and I hadn't written in like my
description that the lead was black and she says well you have to write that in she said otherwise
we assume it's white and I said why would you assume that why would you assume that it's coming
from me and a lot of other writers that I know who are of color were like why would you assume that
but that assumption is really like it just gets it gets to me I'm like don't ever assume that about
me you should have to assume the opposite and that if I tell you that the character is white then
it's white but again I feel like there's like all of this stuff that goes into
into how I'm presenting my material is by its very nature advancing the cause it's putting
another perspective out there it's showing you that this other care this character can be whoever
she is and navigate the world so that's part of it it's all part of it and by the way the first
script that I wrote that got into Sundance was all about bitterness she the character was like
a Joy Reid kind of character and she was on a terror the whole time and I likened it to
being how I sound in my head all the time that's not every character I have not every character's
like that but there's an element of just by that character existing in the world just by people
reading that script just by who I'm putting out there that's also advancing the cause.