DGA Monthly - Volume 3 - Issue 11 -November 2006 - click here to return to table of contents
DGA Magazine VOL 28-3: September 2003

Mark Travis lectures about the writer/director relationship. - photo by Robert Hale - Click image for larger view
Mark Travis lectures about the writer/director relationship. - photos by Robert Hale - Click images for larger view
WSC Co-Chair Carole Leigh Podell served as moderator. - photo by Robert Hale - Click image for larger view
WSC Co-Chair Carole Leigh Podell served as moderator.
DGA members get tips on handling the relationship between directors and writers. - photo by Robert Hale - Click image for larger view
DGA members get tips on handling the relationship between directors and writers.
On Tuesday, September 12, 2006 the Women’s Steering Committee (WSC) presented A Conversation with Mark Travis following the committee’s monthly meeting in the Los Angeles headquarters boardroom.

Travis, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and author of Los Angeles Times #1 Best Seller The Director’s Journey: The Creative Collaboration between Directors, Writers and Actors, had been invited to speak about the writer/director relationship and how to make the most of it.

“The event was designed to shed some new light on the relationship between the director and the writer,” said WSC Co-Chair Carole Leigh Podell, who also served as moderator.

“Mark Travis is an insightful teacher who has a unique way of using the traditions of the theater to address the obstacles of filmmaking. He showed that you can always, as the director, get your point across and allow the writer to have their expression all the while keeping the communication open and safe to continue the journey together.”

In addition to directing series television and documentaries, Travis has directed over 60 theatre productions in Los Angeles and New York and received over 20 awards for theatre directing. He has been sharing his techniques at film schools and organizations all over the world since 1992.

“I think the members got some new tools to work with,” Podell observed. “Many of those I spoke with appreciated some of the techniques on how to work with different kinds of creative artists to get their vision from the page to the screen.”

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