Reader of the Week: Chelsea Spear

This film buff schools VZ on the long, and short, of the biz

By Molly Lynch
Published: November 24th, 2008 | 2:30pm

The recent opening of Twilight proves that female directors can make bank at the box office, but how far have we really come? Venus Zine reader and filmmaker Chelsea Spear opens up about how women are really represented in the industry, the genesis of girl hero Nancy Drew, and her own latest project.

Tell me about your film, The Missing Matron.

The short picks up in the middle of a Nancy Drew-type girls' adventure story, in which a young detective starts to put the pieces together on a kidnapping case. Just as she's exhausted all the leads, she receives a box of vintage valentines as a gift from her boyfriend, and the box contains a surprising clue.

How do you feel women are represented in the film industry?

Women have always been relatively well-represented in the field of experimental film, going back to Gilded Age film pioneer Germaine Dulac, through animator Mary Ellen Bute, to groundbreaking experimental director, choreographer, and voodoo historian Maya Deren, to the present day.

Catherine Hardwicke's feature Twilight opened to a record-breaking $70 million (the largest opening gross for a film helmed by a woman). On the other hand, studios make the vast majority of feature films for men between the ages of 18 and 35, and anything aimed at women that becomes a major box-office hit is considered a fluke. Very few women hold down positions behind the camera that don't involve directing, design, or editing. Women directors still make up less than 20% of the DGA membership, and only three women have been nominated for the Best Director Oscar.

What are your tips to being successful?

Be resourceful … know your skills and abilities and the different resources available to you, and incorporate those into your films. When you work with your crews, assign tasks according to your friends' interests and strengths. Treat them well and ethically, feed them, listen to their ideas, and inspire greatness within them. Do what you can to get your foot in the door. Yes, this involves working for free. Volunteering on student film sets is a great networking opportunity and can lead to paid positions down the road.

What is the inspiration behind your films?

With many of my films, I am inspired by the aesthetic of earlier eras. I like working within very structured genres such as educational films, movie trailers, music videos, and photo romans, and the elegant aesthetics of the ‘20s, ‘50s, and early '60s holds great appeal for me. For every film I make, I compile a file folder of inspirational images downloaded from the internet and clipped from magazines, and I make a playlist of music appropriate to the story I'm telling.

In "The Mystery of the Missing Matron,” I wanted to evoke the optimism of the post-war years, which you see in Dior's "New Look" collections of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and in the plucky teenage protagonists of teen series books like Nancy Drew. However, I also wanted to make the audience aware of the unrest under the surface, which Edward Hopper depicted in his painting "Nighthawks,” Weegee captured in his photographs, and Hitchcock portrayed in many of his films.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

By the time I'm 35, I would love to have completed production on my first feature, but I don't want to jinx myself. In 2009 I'm challenging myself to write and direct four very short films for Internet distribution and entry in festivals around the country. At the very least, I hope I'm employed in some aspect of filmmaking, and I'm still able to make short movies and connect with the world.