Mentor Profile: Darrien M. Gipson
SAGIndie Executive Director, Creative Producer, and Stowe Mentor on Creating Inclusivity in the Industry
By Marian Cook
David Magee
“You know it doesn’t happen all the time, but there are times, in your gut, you just feel like something is yours. It's so clear. I felt that way at DEF Pictures, and I felt that way when I was interviewing for SAGindie,” Darrien M. Gipson explained, creative producer, executive director of SAGindie, and Stowe Story Labs mentor.
Darrien’s work at SAGindie is nuanced. At first glance, Darrien’s job is to help independent filmmakers understand the ins and outs of casting professional actors and how to navigate the SAG-AFTRA process, but it’s much more than that. Darrien also works toward enhancing the industry through dismantling barriers of access and creating a more inclusive world.
Part of her work to make the industry more inclusive includes a now four years partnership with Stowe. SAGindie funds a fellowship to a top emerging filmmaker of color to attend Stowe’s annual Narrative Lab. This year, Stowe and Darrian have agreed to expand the fellowship. It now includes free tuition to a Stowe Lab and a follow-on Writers’ Retreat, a small travel voucher, and script notes from Darrien.
As I sat with Darrien, I realized two things: she knows what she wants and goes for it, but she does it with selflessness and confidence. She’s a natural born leader, so it’s no surprise that before Darrien was at SAGindie, she was a producer.
By age 12, she had it all figured out: she was going to go to UCLA, work in movies, and work with scripts because she loved to read. And she accomplished it. After graduating from UCLA with a major in English literature, she got a job at Columbia Pictures TV and worked there for a bit.
But in order to make the leap from TV to movies, which at the time wasn’t as easy as you’d expect, it required going back to school. So Darrien applied for the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC, one of the top programs for aspiring producers and execs, and got in. Two for two; meaning, this was Darrien’s second university application and her second university acceptance. Consistently, Darrien has shown that she’s self-assured.
After graduation, she interned at Samuel Goldwyn Films and eventually landed a position at DEF as a creative producer. In just one short year, she became vice president of production and remained in that position until the company shut down.
For about a year, she was unemployed and battling a severe illness that she wasn’t sure she would recuperate from. However, Darrien has always been a fighter, so she overcame and realized that “life is too short to do something that doesn’t make you completely happy—to not feel good about yourself at the end of the day.”
So it was around the time of her wedding when she tripped on an ad for a position at SAGindie. It read: “Hey do you like independent film? Do you like to travel? And do you like nonprofit work?” Darrien’s interest was instantly piqued, and it was extremely fortuitous because the ad was only up for 48 hours. By then, the ad had already received over 400 responses.
Darrien continued, “I just went in and said this is my job. I was weirdly super confident about it. I made it to the second round and he said, ‘Oh, there's eight people that I'm looking at.’ And I replied, ‘No there's not.’ He was like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘I refuse to believe there's seven other people that are as good as I am.’ So ultimately he hired me.” Four years later, she bought the company.
“It's been a joy because I spend all my time with filmmakers, which is what I wanted,” Darrien said. “I say yes to people; even if I have to say no to them, I can say it constructively. And I've never eaten with anyone I don't like.”
Stowe Co-Founder David Pope, Darrien M. Gipson, 2017 SAGindie Fellow Selena Mars, and Stowe Founder and Director David Rocchio at the 2017 Stowe Narrative Lab (L-R).
Naturally, when a mutual friend introduced her to Stowe, she was intrigued. “It’s six days in Vermont where people are really diving into your project and helping you hone it. It just occurred to me that this is something that quite frankly for POC, it's not on our radar,” Darrien explained.
She continued, “So every retreat that I sponsor, we’re bringing somebody in who would never normally have been able to do something like that, that’s a thing of access. Me personally, I get to come in and scratch a mental itch. I love development. I love the process of reading. Weird as it is, I love giving notes. And I love putting the puzzle together of a movie.”
Stowe’s labs are four-day intensives where participants are given tremendous amounts of content and then use the content in small group settings to challenge themselves on three questions: what is this story about? Why does this film or show need to get made? And why am I the filmmaker that must make it? Stowe’s retreats are more expansive and center on one-hour, one-on-one script note meetings with three different industry mentors. Participants leave with a strong sense of direction for their story and a solid start on tackling knots in the themes and structure of what they are working on.
For Darrien, her partnership with Stowe is special because it speaks to a question of access, but community, too: “Writers write. And if you have a good person who can give you feedback, you can get there without going through an expensive film school program.”
She expanded, “At a time where we're trying to lower the barriers of access to filmmakers and writers of color, Stowe provides a singular experience where talented writers are given access to the smartest people who are willing to help them hone their story. It is a rare chance at getting great feedback from the best minds in the industry that you may not meet in any other way."
Marian Cook is a former journalist, Stowe Story Labs staff member, and current USC student pursuing an MFA in directing. She’s been published over a dozen times, covering topics from local news to federal healthcare legislation. Although she loves the world of journalism, having done documentaries on a range of topics from plastic surgery to segregation in the church, her real passion lies in narrative film. She one day hopes to be a writer-director and tell strong, female-led stories, especially that of Latinas. When she’s not filming, she likes to explore, listen to blues and jazz, brush up on her French, and absorb everything science fiction related. Learn more at http://mariandcook.weebly.com/. At Stowe Story Labs, Marian assists with all aspects of operations, writes for the newsletter, and assists with research and writing to support fundraising and communications about programs.
