Illustration: Hayley Morris

“Find me a woman who can direct comedy like a guy and I’ll make... whatever is left of my mark-ups. Or at least provide the industry something it’s conspicuously lacking.” So wrote Epoch Films’ Jerry Solomon on his blog Confessions of an Executive Producer in January about the scarcity of women directors in the industry.

We at Boards could make a similar pronouncement, “Find us a woman director who is consistently awarded the best boards and can therefore crack the top tier of talent and we’ll... save a lot of time on email replies.” Every time we release our roundups of the industry’s top or rising talent, like this issue’s Top Directors feature, the lack of women on the list elicits the type of criticism that can be summed up in one question: “Where are the women directors?” It’s a good question. When we make calls for entries, like in our September ’09 Directors to Watch feature, and of the 250 reels we receive only 17 are from women, we even ask it ourselves. So we decided to gather a roundtable of voices from all parts of the industry to provide a little clarity.

Our roundtable includes BBDO, New York EVP/director of TV production Regina Ebel; Epoch Films, LA managing partner Jerry Solomon; newly-signed Epoch director Jessica Sanders; Prettybird, Santa Monica co-founder/EP Kerstin Emhoff; UK-based Trio Films director Jackie Oudney; Park Pictures, NY owner/EP Jackie Kelman Bisbee; and Psyop, NY co-founder/director Marie Hyon.

During the course of the conversation many issues arose – as did a declaration that this discussion should be seen as anything but a bitch session – but four stood out as best addressing why there continues to be a dearth of female directing talent. One, it’s a problem that goes right up the line – a lack of female creative directors can contribute to the lack of women directors considered for certain types of jobs. Two, it’s not always a question of where women aren’t but where they are, and women directors are often marginalized into directing “women’s” boards for fashion, retail, household products, etc. Three, landing a job isn’t always about having the best reel; the ad industry is relationship-based and women aren’t always seen exploiting those relationships to their advantage. And finally, it’s about support and opportunities that need to be identified to make the industry more equitable.

Boards: Why are there so few women directors? Is it a larger problem that spans the production community as well as agencies when it comes to awarding women directors work, or signing women directors to rosters?

Jackie Bisbee: Regina, are you surprised at how few female creative directors there are?
Regina Ebel: Well that’s a big issue. On my desk I have a [Bain & Company] article called “The Great Disappearing Act: Gender Parity up the Corporate Ladder.” We talk about it a lot here that women reach a point where you’re choosing between lifestyles and families. A lot of women hit a very successful career point but say, “This is where I pull the plug on it. I’m going to keep doing this but I’m not going to push.” I don’t have kids, so I’ve managed to stick with this career path and give my all to this place. But I look at people with kids and you have to make a choice. I see it in the agency at the very senior creative levels and I think that’s where you therefore have the problem of female directors.
Jerry Solomon: I don’t think it comes down as much to ability as opportunity. Regina, like you said, women on the creative level, if you want to have a family you make certain decisions. Do you want to have a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, on-call, all-the-time, executive creative director job?
Regina Ebel: I find that the women [creatives] that I’ve worked with, they’re constantly challenged by stuff. [Former BBDO creative director] Donna Weinheim, who is one of these crazy, creative geniuses, pursued her career but at some point she got perceived as “too aggressive” and a little crazy... and she was. But if she hadn’t been that she would have never gotten to the point she did.
Jackie Bisbee: I feel like someone like [Park Pictures director] Alison Maclean, who like Jackie [Oudney] does comedy, performance and dialogue, has been my biggest challenge to date, and she doesn’t have children. She leaves to do films once in a while, but she’s someone who’s very focussed on her career. We always would joke: if we changed your name to Al Maclean and we had an interpreter on the phone, we’d get you 10 times more work. My challenge has always been getting women the comedy scripts. It’s the most competitive category so when we do get those jobs, we’re really excited. Women getting the female hygiene boards? It’s such a cliché but it happens to her and I’m sure it happens to all the female directors. The funny thing is, a great script came out [U by Kotex “Apology” from JWT, New York] – finally a comedy spot about getting your period – and I got it for one of my male directors!  He couldn’t do it so I said [to the agency]: “Even if it’s not mine, you should get a female comedy director to do this. They didn’t.” [Tim Godsall of Biscuit Filmworks directed the spot.] There was an opportunity... I’ve been doing this long enough to say that, yes we do need a little help sometimes.

Boards: Let’s talk about those “women’s” boards. Should we be embracing it as work directed by women that speaks to women, similar to the way that in the agency world there are African-American shops and Hispanic shops built along the idea that those within a group can speak best for that group?

Jackie Oudney: The problem is that it just encourages people to pigeonhole us even more.
Marie Hyon: I co-directed the China Olympics work for adidas along with [Psyop co-founder/director] Marco [Spier], who is also my husband, and we’ve done a lot of sports, NASCAR and very “manly” subjects. I’m also Asian and when we created this campaign for adidas what I found to be really interesting is that there’s a different language in the way they communicate in the Chinese agency world. Culturally, it was really exciting for me and there’s definitely a connection there. There are differences that we can play to our strengths when it comes to [work like] tampon commercials – there could be an inside joke or something that we could make light of and use to our advantage.
Jerry Solomon: I’ve got to tell you, if you took the frat boy humor of Bud Light and you put a female director’s perspective on it...
Regina Ebel: It might be good?!
Jerry Solomon: ... it might be good! It might be reel worthy. That’s what I find fascinating – women buy 75% of stuff in the household, not just retail, beauty or fashion. They’re the consumer, yet we’re not even their voice. To develop women talent is [important] not only because there’s a real voice there but also there’s a need out there. Kerstin Emhoff: … you just bring a different perspective.