"Hidden Figures" writer Allison Schroeder (who was just nominated for a Writer's Guild award) tells us why she was the right person to co-write the film “Hidden Figures”; In the film “A Monster Calls,” director J.A. Bayona talks about how families might view his dark and personal coming-of-age story; Elliott Smith’s landmark 1997 album, “Either/Or,” gets a 20th anniversary re-issue.
'Hidden Figures' scribe Allison Schroeder is used to being the only woman in the room
"Hidden Figures" co-writer Allison Schroeder was one of just two female screenwriters nominated for the 2017 Writers Guild of America Awards, but she's used to being outnumbered.
Before becoming a screenwriter, she navigated the male-dominated fields of economics and finance. And as a high schooler, she interned at NASA, following in the footsteps of her paternal grandparents, who both worked for the organization.
Schroeder says these experiences all informed her adaptation of "Hidden Figures," which is based on the true story of a team of African American women who were instrumental in calculating flight trajectories for NASA missions like the Apollo and Mercury in the 1960s.
At the time, the only women who shared offices with men at NASA were their secretaries, and African American employees were forced to use segregated bathrooms.
Schroeder joined Frame host John Horn in studio to talk about "Hidden Figures" and the work she's doing at the Writers Guild of America to get more women "in the room."
Interview Highlights:
On personal experiences that informed the script:
A lot of the scenes in the movie are influenced by my own experiences as a woman studying math and a woman sort of struggling in the industry and not being taken seriously. When Janelle Monáe walks into the classroom and the professor says, "This curriculum is not designed for a woman." [That's] verbatim what happened to me when I was studying abroad... So that was an easy one to put in there. [The character of Katherine Johnson] trying to get her name on something and the man just not wanting that at all. When you start early and you're writing for free, there's a lot of producers that will take advantage of you... It is seared in my brain forever.
On the importance of women championing and working on the film:
I think that it's extremely important that it started out women and it continued to be women throughout. There were moments where I think the script and the story started to go down old tropes and old stereotypes, and we would pull back and say, No, no, it's important to show it this way. It's important that you have a scene with thirty black women, because we need to show that it wasn't just one. We need to see that image on screen because we don't see it enough.
On discovering the true story behind "Hidden Figures":
This story was hidden to me, and I knew a lot about NASA. They used to time our elementary fire drills so we could watch the launches. I thought that was normal. I thought every kid watched every NASA launch. I would go to the old buildings and read about the history. I knew women had worked at NASA in the sixties because my grandmother was one of them, but I didn't know that there were segregated computing pools and I didn't know that these three women had been so vital to the program.
On her work as co-chair of the Women's Committee at the WGA:
The biggest thing is [getting] people in the room together. There's so many gatekeepers to getting in front of showrunners or executives. If we pull those middlemen out and we get women in rooms with the executives, the people hiring, it seems to break down barriers. Because they can no longer say, There just aren't any women to hire, when you're surrounded by fifty of them. As Hamilton would say, you gotta be in the room.
"Hidden Figures" is in theaters Friday, January 6.
'A Monster Calls' uses fantastical elements to tell a dark coming-of-age tale
"A Monster Calls" isn't just a film about grief or a monster movie or even a fantasy movie — it's all of those rolled up into one.
The film follows 12-year-old Conor O’Malley (played by Lewis MacDougall), who is coping with the attacks of a school bully and the terminal illness of his mother (Felicity Jones).
One night Conor encounters a "monster" (played by Liam Neeson) in the form of a giant humanoid tree who comes to help Conor fix his unhappy life.
The fantasy drama is directed by J.A. Bayona and is based on Patrick Ness’ children’s novel of the same name. Bayona has created a dark coming-of-age tale using monster movie imagery and an honest portrayal of grief and coping.
When Bayona recently spoke with John Horn, he started by talking about how families would view this movie — specifically the age group it was crafted for:
"The story was written for kids. It's about their world. It's about emotions, they go through it every day. It's about loneliness, sadness, rage, self blame, bullying. Things that they know ... and the movie talks about it in a very accessible way, using fantasy. So, somehow it makes them understand their own feelings and their own emotions in a cool way for them."
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
"Stories are like wild creatures: when you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?"
One of the things that sets the movie apart from the book is the underlying theme of how fictional stories can help us deal with problems in the real world, but it also could be a dangerous idea:
We all have stories — stories that help us to understand each other, to understand ourselves. Stories are about truth, and this is what the story is about. It's Conor trying to find the truth and express it. I always like to compare information versus knowledge. It's not the same thing.
You can watch the news and it's all about information, but when you hear a story it's about knowledge. There's a learning. I mean, somehow, stories, movies ... they reveal some kind of truth about yourself. And I think that's a beautiful thing about storytelling — that you can go to the movies and leave the theater and go back home. And instead of thinking about the film, start to think about your own life and your own experience.
Common themes throughout Bayona's films
"The Orphanage," "The Impossible," and "A Monster Calls" — one is kind of a gothic horror story, the other one is about a family trying to survive a tsunami, and the other one is a fantasy story about a young boy whose mother is dying and he has a friend who comes to visit him in his nightmares. They don't seem like similar stories, but Bayona makes an argument that they are connected:
At the center of the story, there is a motif of the mother-and-son bond. I think there's no stronger link or bond than the one that mothers and sons have. I thought there's always a chance of creating a very powerful story using that bond. And somehow I feel attracted to it, I don't know why. I think in mediterranean culture, the family is the center of society and the center of the family is the mother so, somehow the three films talks about childhood. And a mother is the most important piece in that world.
A 'Jurassic' undertaking
All three of Bayona's films are very personal stories and they're shot in a personal way. From this film, the director is moving into the "Jurassic" franchise. Bayona spoke about maintaining the things that are important to him as a filmmaker and storyteller, and bringing them to the massive franchise:
I grew up watching Steven Spielberg movies, so from the moment I had the offer of working with him I felt very excited. I'm working with Colin Trevorrow who did ["Jurassic World"], I'm working with Frank Marshall who's producing the film, and I'm working with Steven. And the three of them are directors, too. So, for me it's more like a collaborative team and I'm inheriting a franchise, like a collection of movies that I enjoyed when I was a kid. For me the experience is to take care of their creature as much as possible.
To get more content like this, subscribe to The Frame podcast on iTunes.