Susan Cartsonis on Women-Driven Stories

Susan Cartsonis (left) with director Elissa Down on the set of Feel the Beat

Susan Cartsonis is a Hollywood producer whose latest company, Resonate Entertainment, is focused on creating outstanding and lucrative films for female audiences. Over the years, she has produced such films as Freaky Friday the Musical (Disney), Carrie Pilby (The Orchard), Deidra and Laney Rob a Train (Netflix), Beastly, The Duff, Aquamarine, No Reservations, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and What Women Want, among many others. Her latest film is a dance movie called Feel the Beat starring Sofia Carson, who is best known for Disney's The Descendants.

You’ve always advocated for more female-led films. What motivated you to champion that cause? Why is it important?

It’s important for us to see ourselves reflected in the journey of the protagonist of a story. As women we’re very empathic and we identify with male characters but if the central character is a woman, and she has agency and even heroism, well then the experience is all the more powerful. I’ve always known that women are half — actually OVER half the population. We buy over half the movie tickets and influence even more ticket sales because we often choose the movie in a couple situation or for kids. So why shouldn’t movies reflect our experiences? Why shouldn’t the movies star women? And if the movies star women, aren’t women sometimes and often the best and most qualified to write and direct those stories? And what about costume, production design, and cinematography? All of the design of a film is influenced by the central character. Wouldn’t a woman be a great choice to interpret and enhance and support female characters? I think so!

What female protagonists did you identify with on TV or film when you were growing up?

1. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
2. Samantha in Bewitched.
3. Anne Marie in That Girl.
4. Fanny Brice in Funny Girl.
5. Sybylla Melvyn in My Brilliant Career
6. Giulietta in Juliet of the Spirits
7. Norma Rae in Norma Rae

How hard is it to find the right female-driven stories to turn into films? What do you look for in a story?

It’s easy to find female-driven stories! They’re everywhere and because I’ve made so many of them I’m kind of a magnet for them.

What are the biggest barriers to getting more female-driven stories told by female-led film teams?

Movies cost millions of dollars to make and millions of dollars to market. Men often control the purse strings and the decision to make movies is not a business decision but more of a visceral one. Movies are made through the belief that they will be great films. So if a man is reading a script about a female-specific experience and doesn’t relate to that unique experience that has never been told before, then he’s less likely to stake his professional life on a story he doesn’t emotionally connect to. He might connect to it once it’s a movie—but in conceptual or script form it’s often a challenge to convince men to take that leap of faith.

There’s a prejudice that female-led teams won’t be “balanced”—perhaps fueled by a fear that there will be too much emotionality on set. I’m for gender parity and balance. But often even female decision-makers veer away from multiple women leading a movie. When you get the right mix of people and the right team, it really helps the movie succeed. Teams that are at least half female, in my experience, are very happy and very well run. As women, we are natural collaborators and we are more often about collective success, which makes for a great atmosphere on set for both men and women. And by the way, there are monstrous and awful women as well as men—-but in a team that is gender-balanced, I’d bet on the women to refuse to tolerate bad behavior.

We need more female-led media companies and more women making the green light or money decisions on movies. That along with recognizing the power of the female audience, and the importance of inspiring, entertaining, and empowering women and girls will help us get to gender parity. I recently formed a company with two partners, a man, and a woman. So we’re a “majority female-owned” company!

I am also a big believer that where women lead all inclusion follows…we think about the whole and about inclusion. Again, there are horrid women who only think of themselves but in general women, either through nature or nurture or maybe because they understand what it is to be underestimated, are more inclusive of all kinds of people!

In what ways is it easier or harder now for women to break into film directing and producing compared to when you started out?

It’s so much easier! But making media is hard. It’s a competitive business and having nothing to do with gender, it’s just plain hard and tough to get a movie or show made because you have to find the right financier/distributor/partner(s).

Think back to when you were my age (15). What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be Shakespeare. I wanted to act, to direct, to write, and to tell stories. I didn’t really know what a producer was.

When and how did you decide to get involved with film? What was your first film job?

I made my first film at 12 as part of a school project. It was called Alice’s Nightmare and it was a riff on Alice Through the Looking Glass—but Alice woke up in contemporary America and experienced all sorts of social ills. It won a prize and I was hooked. I’m forever grateful to my teacher, Mrs. Emery, for getting me hooked on filmmaking. I directed it. I so wanted to be a director—but the only female director I knew of was Lina Wertmuller, who had made a movie called Swept Away’. I thought the barrier to entry was too hard and I wanted to be creative and not angry and bitter so I made a conscious choice to express myself through producing and writing.

I was an extra on the set of A Star is Born—the old one starring Barbra Streisand when I was a teenager and lived in Arizona. I got to see producers at work and I saw some women running the show. I found out a few years ago that the first assistant director was Laura Ziskin. She later became my friend and was a superb producer, and ran a studio, and was a big supporter of other women. Seeing her on set inspired me to feel that I could run the show.

My first film job was working at a literary agency, The Kohner Agency. It was fascinating and I worked for a female lit agent named Roberta Kent for 9 months. This created a great network of friends with whom I’m in touch to this day, in the business. As an agent, you get to see the world as the intermediary in the middle between the “buyers” of material and the people who hire writers, directors, and actors or the “artists” who the agent represents. It gave me a platform from which to launch my career. I liked the writers I worked with and wanted to work with them more and determined to learn more about writing. Then I got a job for a director and a producer and then went to grad school at NYU in Dramatic Writing. After grad school I got an internship reading for 20th Century Fox, and was quickly hired full time. Within 9 months I was offered a job as a junior executive. I took the job and stayed for 10 years, after which I became a producer.

I loved all of the jobs. They were hard but I worked hard and learned a lot about writing, business, packaging, marketing, and how to make films and build teams. I left as soon as I stopped learning at each job, which I think is a good rule for life in general.

If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to your 15-year-old self? Is that the same or different from the advice you’d give me today?

I would say that this is not a dress rehearsal. This is your life. So do what you really want to do and work hard and try to learn from the best. Take the worst job with the best people—and make yourself indispensable. Say what you want. Be bold. Focus your desires so that other people can know what you want and conspire to help you!

Above: Susan Cartsonis at 15

Below: Susan Cartsonis in September on set with her star Sofia Carson of FEEL THE BEAT for Netflix and her associate producer, Clément Bauer in Toronto.

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