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FEMALE FRIGHT DIRECTORS AND LIVE TWEETING HORROR AT SXSW
I like live tweeting panels if the panels hold up to the process, and yesterday’s “Directing the Dead 2,” here at SXSW, did. (The funny thing about live tweeting is that people entering mid-stream can become confused — as happened yesterday, I realized, as I tweeted Vikram Gandhi’s comments on religion at the Q&A for his Kumare. I’d write, “Ghandi” before his comments, and several people tweeted me Jesus quotes or passages from the Bible back.) The panelists were James Wan (Insidious), Simon Rumley (Little Deaths), Ben Wheatley (Kill List), Jacob Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Nicolas Goldbart (Phase Seven), Xavier Gens (The Divide), and Emily Hagins (My Sucky Teen Romance). Tasked with surveying current directions in horror, the panel worked due to the intelligence of both panelists and audience, and by moderator Scott Weinberg’s decision to go right to questions at the start. He prescreened at least the first couple, and the first question — “How do you reinvent the monster archetype” — got the conversation going on a thoughtful note. But it picked up steam when an audience member asked about women horror directors. With so many women horror fans, why aren’t there more females behind the camera?
I’d direct you back to my Twitter stream for the comments that followed, but the Wellywood Woman blog does one better. She’s quoted me, filled out comments with quotes from director Hagins from other sources, and, I think, corrected some of my spelling. At a panel I usually have to decide whether to take detailed notes that may make it into a longer-form piece later on, or live tweet. The latter comes at the expense of the former, so I’m happy that there’s now a more amplified take on this panel.
Here’s my Twitter quoted by Wellywood Woman:
@FilmmakerMag Scott Macaulay
Weinberg asks why there aren’t more women horror directors? Lots of female horror fans. #sxsw ‘Directing the Dead 2’Eisener: “Don’t know why — I had babysitters growing up who could tell me scary stories better than any of my current friends.” #sxsw ‘Directing the Dead 2’
Rumley: “Well, forget horror, why aren’t there more women directors?” #sxsw ‘Directing the Dead 2’
Read the rest — and more from Hagins — at the link. (And then scroll back through my Twitter feed for the rest of the panel’s topics.)
And why aren’t there more women horror directors?
