I have been raising money for grants in an attempt to increase the numbers of women taking advanced production classes in RTF at UT-Austin. Now, the Women in Cinema Director’s Grant for Women and Minorities is officially open! That’s right, you can apply RIGHT NOW. Check out the application to see if you meet the criteria, and apply for a chance at some $$$ for your film! Women in Cinema is administering the grant. The deadline for submitting is October 8th, 2016 at midnight.

In addition to cash grants, one recipient could receive an hour of professional ADR from Austin’s Shayna Brown. This will not only be a nice improvement on the final quality of the audio of the dialog in someone’s film, but it will be a great learning experience for the grant recipient and her actors to work with a professional like Shayna on an ADR session.

The grant will not be judged by Women in Cinema, it will be judged by outside professionals in the film industry. Either people working in filmmaking, film festivals, or film services.

Each semester there are some advanced production classes in RTF that have a large gender imbalance, e.g. in a class of 20, there often may be only 1-5 women. In spring 2016, the undergraduate thesis film admitted 13 directors, but only one woman was admitted to the class as a director.

While we have raised enough funds to cover the first semester of grants, we continue to raise funds for next semester and future semesters. We want this grant program to run at least four years so that we can tell if we are making a difference.

To donate, please visit the crowdfunding page.