NYWIFT Blog

Meet the New Board Members: Kathryn O’Kane

What do NASA, The Walking Dead and Maya Angelou all have in common? All have worked with new NYWIFT Board member Kathryn O'Kane! In the next installment of our Meet the New Board Members series, O'Kane talks to us about her 15 year career as a nonfiction producer and director for TV, web and advertising.

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Terry’s Picks: Crystal Emery, Emmy Noms, Netflix Queue

Crystal Emery: Read NYWIFT member Crystal Emery’s piece in Time about how living at the intersection of three marginalized identities – black, female and disabled – has made her stronger. Crystal’s film Black Women in Medicine premieres on public television this Fall. Emmy Noms: Congratulations to all of the NYWIFT members, Muse Award recipients and...

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Meet the New Board Members: Christine Bragan

NYWIFT is governed by an 18 member Board of Directors, elected by the membership in late Spring. This diverse, accomplished group of women are at the top of their game in TV, film and digital media. They steer NYWIFT in advocating for equality, providing unique professional development opportunities, funding women filmmakers, and celebrating women's achievements. In the coming weeks, join the NYWIFT blog as we profile the four newest members of the Board. We start this week with Christine Bragan.

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Terry’s Picks: Busting Sexism, Girl Power, Cultural Change

Busting Sexism: Paul Feig’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot premiered this weekend and sparked an important conversation about the importance of women’s voices in film criticism, diversity in Hollywood, and how children are affected by seeing themselves represented on screen. Girl Power: Can’t stop watching the new amazing feminist makeover the Spice Girls’ hit “Wannabe.” Check it...

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Terry’s Picks: Women’s Pictures, Underwritten Characters, Stony Brook

Women’s Pictures: This interesting piece in Vulture makes a strong case for the idea that in modern times, the “women’s pictures” of Hollywood’s Golden Age have moved to television. Underwritten Characters: Laugh (or cry) along with Underwritten Female Character: The Movie, a fake trailer for a movie you’ve seen unfortunately too many times. Stony Brook:...

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Terry’s Picks: Designing Women, Equality Database, Power Producers

Designing Women: Last week marked NYWIFT’s 17th annual Designing Women gala as we paid tribute to another phenomenal group of costume, hair and makeup designers. See photos from the red carpet, awards presentation and reception, and read a great write-up from Bust Magazine. Equality Database: I am happy to see that some of the brands...

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An Invitation from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund – WE WANT YOU!

The NYWIFT Women's Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) is currently seeking volunteers for significant positions within its committee: Head of our Fundraising Subcommittee, additional Fundraising Subcommittee members, and post-production professionals, especially with film experience, to serve on our Preservation Subcommittee. These positions are essential to strengthening our ongoing work to SAVE WOMEN’S FILM LEGACY. The WFPF, since its inception in 1995, has saved over 100 women-made movies, from silent to contemporary eras, in all genres. The films are on all subjects and represent women makers of all colors and a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. WFPF is the only fund in the world that focuses solely on preserving women’s cinematic heritage.

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Terry’s Picks: Patricia Clarkson, Grace & Frankie, Ben Kingsley

Patricia Clarkson: 2015 NYWIFT Muse Honoree Patricia Clarkson tells it like it is about Hollywood sexism: “Women have risen,” she said. “[But] we’re still underpaid and we’re still a vast minority in this business.” Grace & Frankie: Deadline ran a great profile on the female-driven success of Netflix’s Grace & Frankie. More than 50% of...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Feeling the Love for Hair Stylists

After honoring costume designers annually starting in the year 2000 at what was then called Designing Hollywood, NYWIFT added a category for hair stylists in 2006. After all, hair literally - and figuratively - is what tops off a character's look on screen! Our very first hair stylist honoree was Lyndell Quiyou.

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Terry’s Picks: Annetta Marion, Poor Taste, CXX Speaks

Annetta Marion: NYWIFT Board member Annetta Marion, an award-winning director and Primetime Emmy-nominated producer, shared her thoughts on the industry and her career on a recent Film Talk Podcast. Poor taste: 20th Century Fox came under fire for their insensitive adverting for X-Men: Apocalypse, which featured Jennifer Lawrence’s character being strangled on giant billboards. Was...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: The Diverse Range of Makeup Artists

In 2004, four years after NYWIFT began honoring costume designers at what was then called Designing Hollywood, we added a category for makeup artists to the mix. We began paying tribute to the subtle artistry of designing an actor's, well, face - how makeup artists use their tools to catch the light a certain way, portray age, stress, culture and other factors that make a character real, alive and unique.

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Costume Legends Patricia Field and Ann Roth

They say "clothes make the man" - or woman - which is one reason why every year NYWIFT honors costume designers at our Designing Women awards. When a character appears on screen, his or her clothes are often the first thing we see. Costume designers don't just make actors look pretty (though they sometimes do that too) - they pack a wealth of information into every thread. We look back at two costume legends we honored, including one from our very first ceremony.

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Terry’s Picks: Screen Tales, Joss Whedon, Michele Spitz

Screen Tales: This month, thanks to our friends at Lifetime Broad Focus and WIF LA, The Writers Lab presented 10-minute readings from the scripts from the inaugural 2015 Lab to audiences of industry movers & shakers in both New York and LA. We’re so proud of all those involved and are looking forward to working...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Orange is the New Black

Every year at Designing Women, in addition to honoring an individual costume designer, hair stylist and make up artist, we recognize the full costume, hair and make up team of one New York production with the Variety Ensemble Award. Past honorees include Boardwalk Empire and Sex and the City 2 but none was perhaps quite so buzzworthy as last year’s honoree, Netflix’s Orange is the New Black.

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Terry’s Picks: Equity Trailer, Nancy Drew, Wendy Blackstone

Equity trailer: Loving the new trailer for Equity – starring Anna Gunn and Alysia Reiner – as unapologetic “she-wolves” of Wall Street. Nancy Drew: Deadline reports that even though CBS’ Nancy Drew pilot tested well with viewers, it “skewed too female for CBS’ schedule” and was not picked up to series. Too female – seriously?...

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Designing Women Celebrates Design, Character and Story

What do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, HBO's Confirmation film about Anita Hill, the rom-com It's Complicated and Showtime's The Affair all have in common? All feature the work of talented female costume, hair and makeup artists who will be honored at New York Women in Film & Television's Designing Women gala on Monday, June 13th in NYC! Now in its 17th year, Designing Women, co-presented by Variety, has become a staple of the NYC entertainment industry's spring calendar, celebrating the creative alchemy of design, character and story.

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Terry’s Picks: Swim Team, Shots Fired, U.K. Women

Swim Team: Congratulations to 2015 NYWIFT Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant recipient Swim Team, whose all-female creative team has been selected for the 2016 IFP Filmmaker Labs annual yearlong fellowship for first-time feature directors. Shots Fired: Check out the riveting trailer for Writers Lab mentor Gina Prince-Bythewood’s new event series Shots Fired, which examines the...

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Terry’s Picks: Goodbye Alicia, Independent Women, Preserving the Legacy

Goodbye, Alicia: This weekend we bid farewell to The Good Wife, a classic made-in-New-York show with a marvelously complex female-driven storyline, starring our own 2009 NYWIFT Muse Honoree Julianna Margulies as power attorney Alicia Florrick. It will be missed. Independent Women: A new study from Martha Lauzen at the Center for the Study of Women...

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