The Other 50%

Jill is a Director, Editor and an Artist.  She worked her way up in the editing department, until she became an Editor. Her credits include Undercovers, The Division, Switched at Birth, and Pretty Liars, among others. She then went on to direct the independent feature film, Life Inside Out, and then the penultimate episode of Switched at Birth.

She walked us through the last two minutes of working with film, transitioning to digital editing, and having a couple of very important conversations that got her to the next levels.  She talks about editing and directing through the eyes of an artist. Her enthusiasm is contagious, her conversation juicy. This is a master class.

And she has documented her bad mothering as an art exhibition. You can find her website here: http://www.jilldagnenica.com/Jill_Art/Welcome.html .

If you are one of the ones who just can’t get enough of Liz, you are in luck. Today there is more – her Tales from the Trenches.

She has stories from 9/11, the unfortunate Black Swan, and an alarming number of moviemakers smoking marijuana in all the wrong places.  SMH, Hollywood.

Liz Sayre is the Executive Vice President of Physical Production at Fox Searchlight Pictures. Catch that?  EVP. She cracked the code. She worked her way up the production ladder fairly quickly, working with Paul Mazursky, where she learned every aspect of producing a film, from development through distribution.  From there, she served as a Production Executive at Walt Disney Studios and currently at Fox Searchlight.

We talked about distribution of labor at home, the essential morning walking meeting, and what partnership really looks like. Also, she wonders why young women would distance themselves from Feminism. What do they think it means?

And, she worked with J.J. Abrams before he was J.J. Abrams.

Sara is the Head of Production at Shondaland. Wowza. She worked her way up in the business as an Assistant Director, UPM, Producer and Production Executive.  Here is her IMDB page. She has a St. Elsewhere baby, a Chicago Hope baby, and a Thirtysomething baby. Who among us can say that?

She recently joined Shondaland, as Shonda Rhimes is building an empire of badass women, of which Sara is one. Her biggest piece of advice - people are in this business a long time, and your paths are going to cross again. Be nice.

Here’s the other secret, no matter how successful you become, you still feel like that kid who was getting everyone coffee.

And remember that awesome video that introduced Hillary during the Democratic convention this summer?  Sara produced it.

Mary is an award-winning Producer of General Hospital and The Young & The Restless. She was also nominated several times for Guiding Light, Another World and One Life to Live. Seven Emmy’s, people, seven. This woman knows how to run a Soap.

Interestingly, while nonchalantly rising in the ranks of daytime dramas, she also developed and produced a series of one-man shows with Jonathan Frid, of Dark Shadows fame.

As it turns out, asking for what you want and sharing your intentions can actually open doors, good mothering goes a long way, and having the arts in high school really can make all the difference. And the world of daytime drama moves very fast…