MINUTES – SRN Executive Meeting February 2022
Monday 21 February 2022 10 pm GMT/UTC
Tuesday 22 February 2022 7.04 am AEST (via Teams)
Circulation list: Rosanne Welch (RW), Rose Ferrell (RF), Rafael Leal (RL), Jan Cernik (JC), Isadora Garcia Avis (IGA), Shaopeng Chen (SC), Margaret McVeigh (MM),
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Minutes of previous meeting
IG – nominates acceptance
JC – seconded
Minutes approved
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SRN Action Plan 2022 Review
MM – JC sent CV for possible judge of SRN book/article award 2022. Dina Iordanova. Now she is one of the keynote speakers for the Vienna conference.
JC – I did not know that would happen when I sent in her CV. We had talked about choosing someone from a non-Western country and she is from Eastern Europe but teaches in Scotland.
IG – my PhD professor had worked with her and she was impressive. I second the nomination.
MM – Thank JC for that nomination. She is quite suitable. Let us all offer up names by next meeting and discuss them. Focus on people with closer focus on screenwriting studies (as creative practice) more than film studies. We have many esteemed elders who were instrumental in our SRN who drove the network and maybe we should approach some of them. The prize is meant for best practices in screenwriting as an art form.
RW – I’m all for asking those folks for their interest – some near retirement might not want more work or others might find this just the right kind of retired contribution to make.
JC – What are our conceptions of the requirements for judges?
IG – Last meeting notes mention an attempt to replace the female who is leaving with another female.
Action Item – Add choosing to next month’s agenda.
JC – We can put the new call in the next newsletter – it is coming out after one more interview is completed.
IG – Newsletter will go out first week of March so we can include this reminder for submissions for the prize. Deadlines are May 31 each year.
IG – I remember receiving a call for the submissions – did it include the awards?
MM – Let’s put out our reminder in the newsletter.
RL – One person on the Executive Council can receive the submissions…?
MM – So next month we will decide who to approach and do it one at a time.
IG – Suggestion: Let’s ask Carmen Sofia Brenes now.
RF – We had 3 judges – Eva is who we are replacing. Kristin is staying and Tom Stempel.
MM – I will also confirm the returning judges.
RF – Steven Maras has asked for suggestions for some new editors and reviewers for the JOS. We agreed to pool a number of names for him to peruse. We sent some and agreed to add more when they come to us. Ian MacDonald and Claus Tieber suggested some names as well. We could use a central point to gather those names – I can do that so if you have names send them on to me and I’ll send them on to Steven.
IG – Do they all have to be in Screenwriting Studies?
RW – Just checked Steven’s email and he wants: “As Co-editor of Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting we have been seeking ways to make our editorial advisory board more diverse and inclusive. The pool of people we draw on is very similar so it makes sense to collaborate and continuing to build bridges into South America, Asia and Africa, especially.”
MM- Let’s move to the Action Plan.
RF – Now that we have the YouTube Channel I’m motivated to record another conversation with former conference organizers. It was motivated to help future organizers but also as an oral history of the founding of the SRN and the casual friendships that have come from joining. We’ve been following chronology using the first 4 conferences so now we’re ready to do the next 4: Sydney, Wisconsin, Chile, Potsdam. We need a coordinator to figure out times to suggest, then a technical back up (Rafael in the first one), someone to do the introduction – an anchor who then also formulates a set of questions to keep the conversation going and moderating between speakers. I coordinated the last one and will happily repeat that. I would like some feedback on the last one as we prepare for the next one.
RL – I’m happy to be tech on that again. I think one-to-one interviews or smaller round tables might be smoother. To record the memories of our organization we can do smaller ones every other month.
MM – Good idea. Putting a time limit on each speaker can be good. If you had fewer people we could go for shorter times as well. A tight set of questions can help.
RF – Speakers were primed with questions ahead of time.
We can do just two right now. Sydney and Wisconsin.
MM – I can moderate Wisconsin and whichever other one. I didn’t attend Sydney. I had not Heard of the network yet.
RF – Also I wonder if there’s a difference betwwen recording how to organize a conference and what the cultural aspects of the SRN is – the fact that we don’t charge a fee so we can be as welcoming as posible. So we could do 2 kinds of interviews – one with organizers and another on memories of specific conferences.
Action Item – RF will send out synopsis of ideas.
RF – Then by next meeting we will have something scheduled. And I don’t have to be the coordinator of all of these – I’m more than happy to open up the opportunity to whoever is interested.
MM – JC and IG will have the newsletter ready next week.
SC – I have been posting to social media and am working on being as regular as possible with them.
RF – I wanted to repost another message about diversity in newsletter and on FB if there’s space.
MM – I have been planning an event to bring together Asian-Pacific screenwriter academics. I have meetings next week with my Herman Van Eyken is Head of Griffith Film School – he is president of CILECT – The International Association of Film and TV School so we hope to be able to make these connections. Many emerging countries want to study screenwriting and we want to expand this to those academics and filmmakers. Our film school has a focus on Asia and one of our key mission statements is to connect with Asia. We have other colleagues who are specialists in Asia-Pacific film who will help me with this. Perhaps we can organize a master class online.
RW – When will your conference happen?
MM – ASPERA (Australian Screen Education production and research association) conference is in July (11-13th) and this might be connected to that so we can open a bit of it to SRN in some way.
Meeting Adjourned 12 past the hour.
