Alum Spotlight: BEANIE BARNES
Last year we had the pleasure of meeting Beanie Barnes. She was one of the four exceptional writers we selected for our 3 week inaugural Episodic Drama Colony hosted in Nosara, Costa Rica. Now she has been selected for inaugural New York Screenwriters Workshop – a six-month intensive program - a partnership between the WGA East and FilmNation Entertainment. The program has just started this week.
It’s easy to get romanced by Beanie’s bio because there’s so much cool stuff in there: a Nicholl Fellowship Finalist; a BlueCat Screenplay Competition Winner; the Diverse Voices Fellow for the 2020 Stowe Story Narrative Lab; a Teaching Artist for the kids at the Ghetto Film School; a published opinion writer on matters of film, race and culture; a world traveler including a recent two month stint in Russia; a former Junior Olympian; the first woman to play with the men’s varsity football team at University of Nebraska; and an M.B.A. recipient from Yale University.
But most importantly, Beanie has a voice, passion, and a commitment to hard work. Year after year, we find these to be the essential factors in creating a sustainable writing career. We’re looking forward to reading whatever Beanie writes and watching whatever stories come off her page to the screen.
Our new Alum Spotlight shines on her. We discussed the past, present, and future, and asked her to share some thoughts about the conversations about race that have been in the streets and on the front pages for weeks.
SWC: Congratulations on the FilmNation fellowship! It’s a 6 month experience so what are hoping to accomplish during that time? I hope I don’t sound like some parental figure with that question.
Thank you! I am very excited about the fellowship and feel very fortunate to be selected for the opportunity. During the fellowship, I will receive industry exposure and training, while also completing a new feature. My mentors are writer, Jim Hart (BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, CONTACT, HOOK), and producer, Anne Carey (THE AMERICAN, 20TH CENTURY WOMEN, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?). My hope is to grow in my craft, to enrich my community, and to gain new knowledge that I can use and share as a working artist of color. And yes, you do sound like a parental figure, but you were that wonderful figure in Costa Rica…always there to talk, provide advice, and dish out a great dad joke when we needed it. That’s why we love you, Bill!
SWC: Your bio is so rich and diverse with experience, can you tell us about an early turning point in your life that pointed you toward a writing career?
Thank you for the kind words. You know, I can’t point to just one thing. For me, it’s been a culmination of points… One, is my mother encouraging me when I wrote a book of stories for her in the 4th grade. I sewed the pages into a piece of cardboard, then used wallpaper to make a cover. Totally cheesy, but my mother was kind enough to ignore the presentation and actually see potential in the words on the page. She told me to keep writing and never stop. She’s always been my biggest supporter. Second, was getting into an Advanced Screenwriting class at UCLA Extension with Paula Cizmar. The class was by invitation only, based on a writing sample, and I happened to be the youngest writer in the class. The other students were so welcoming and encouraging of me, and I learned a lot through them and Paula’s commitment to story. The script I began in that class is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever done. And, as time passed, we [the script and I] grew together. It is still the work of which I'm most proud. Third is the nudging of an old friend, Kahlil. I hadn’t seen him in a while, as I left the industry to go to business school back east. Somehow, I found myself in the world of film finance and consulting. We had a fellowship together when we were younger and while he was killing it as an dynamic director, I was in this weird limbo, not creating anything. So, he called me on it, “What are you doing, B?” He had once read the script that I began in Paula’s class, and he let me know how highly he thought of it. After leaving him, I couldn’t get his words out of my head. I went back to NY and dusted the script off…by the end of the year, it made it to the Top 50 for the Nicholl. That led to my fiancée telling me to either go all in with writing or step completely away — warning me of the incompatibility of half-assed effort with being an artist. So, I jumped off the cliff. And a few months after doing so, I was a Nicholl Finalist.
SWC: I’ve never wanted to focus on this amazing detail in your bio but I’ll do it now. Can you share something about the experience of being the first woman to play on a college football team (University of Nebraska)? What drew you to the experience? What did you learn from it that you carry to this day?
Sure. Well, when I was a kid, I was a tomboy. I used to play football after school, or in the streets, with the boys. And I was quick, smart, and agile. So, after meeting, or beating, the boys at their level…when we got to be about 10 or 11, they all started playing Pop Warner. And the only way I could get on the field with them was if I decided to put on a skirt, stand on the sidelines and cheer for them. Um…yeah...I think not. So, I found myself playing other sports to fill the void — softball, basketball and track. I was recruited by Nebraska for track, but going there, it’s impossible not to be enveloped by the deep football culture. Women rarely get to run out to a stadium of 90,000 die-hard fans. I knew that this would be the only time in my life to touch that feeling, and I never wanted to look back and wonder, “What if?" To make a long story short — that desire, that football culture, and my love for the sport — it all called out to me. So, my senior year (junior in sports eligibility), after hitting my goals and lettering in track, I walked away from track and went all-in on football. And, in doing so, I became the first, and so far the only, woman to take the field with the storied Nebraska’s Men’s Football Team. I carry several things with me from that experience. First, it instilled in me the tenacity to go after what I want. I was small and inexperienced at that level — I can’t tell you how many hours, over nearly a year, I had to put in to give myself a viable shot. It was a mental, physical and social mine-field that required stamina, tact and people skills — so great prep for the film industry! ;) Second, it taught me the possibilities and [political] limitations of my gender. It was a rare moment in my life where the boundaries of my gender were more stifling than the structural boundaries of my race. Finally, it provided me a genuinely unique experience with men. I saw men from a perspective that not only most women don’t get to see men, but also from a perspective that most men never get to see themselves — as an outsider on the inside. I use that unique experience in approaching my relationships with the men and boys in my life, and also in my writing male characters.
SWC: What was going on in your life when you were accepted into the Episodic Drama Colony?
Hmm…I had just completed my first stint as a features programmer for the Bushwick Film Festival, had gone on a “field trip” with my Writers Group to the Austin Film Festival’s Screenwriters Conference, and had recently returned from a month-long writing sabbatical in Russia where I had completed the first draft of a new feature.
SWC: I suppose it’s self serving but, I can’t help but ask, how the Colony benefited you? Did you take away any specific learning or relationships from the experience?
The Colony benefited me in a number of ways. First, it brought me together with three very talented and beautiful souls…people I am honored to call my “friends.” Second, it put some amazing mentors (shout out to Veena and Jess!) in my life who taught me different ways of how to break a story, different approaches of how to run a room, and life lessons that I use to help me conduct and value myself in the industry. Piggybacking on that is the confidence it helped instill in me when it comes to pitching. I never really knew what I was doing in that department, but SCW kind of tossed me in the deep-end while assuring me that I had the skills to swim my way out. I mean, I was totally green…then next thing I knew, I was pitching to Beau Willimon and Stephanie Berk. Somehow, I dug deep and just bared my soul. And by the end of it, pitching had turned from a fear to a strength. Now, I actually look forward to doing it.
SWC: We’ve had some in depth conversations about race in the past, but I’m wondering if you could reflect on what’s happened in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. Where have your thoughts been going during these weeks of protest?
There are so many things to say, but I’ve been more focused on doing.
I’ve had many white friends reach out to me with open ears and hearts…and I’ve taken the time to engage in those conversations. It’s a taxing process. Some white people get belligerent or defensive when you point out that they have been passive purveyors, and beneficiaries, of injustice because it robs them of their willful ignorance and forces them to choose to be active participants in a cruel, unjust and inequitable system. It exposes a lack of empathy, through quiet complicity, which blows up any “I’m a good person,” “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps,” “I don’t see race,” etc. mantra. They realize there are cracks in their own personal narrative — one in which they worked hard and played by the rules — when they acknowledge that black people did those things too, but that the fruits of black labor have not only been repetitively stolen/undervalued/destroyed, but also that those same rules that white people “play by" have long been rigged in their favor.
On the flip side, the loss of willful ignorance seems to be liberating for other white people — those who avoided speaking about racial injustice because they feared being ridiculed or ostracized by family or friends, those who avoided doing anything because they doubted the extent to which their efforts could be effective, etc. And now, seeing that they are not alone, they feel compelled to do something.
The Sisyphean boulder in all of this is that, even as more and more white people speak out, not only do 75% of white people not know a single black person, but the social networks of white people are also over 90% white. That’s why diversity is so important. Window dressing does nothing, but real exposure — meaningful relationship development between different people — helps bring about mutual respect and empathy, which ultimately leads to change. Because if you have someone in your life that you genuinely care about, then you will have skin in the game, and you will not quietly tolerate a system that dehumanizes and harms them.
SWC: Finally, what has your writing life been in the quarantine days? Personally, I like to hear stories of suffering and conflict but it’s up to you!
During quarantine, I’ve been doing research for a new project, but I’ve spent most of my time teaching storytelling and production. I work with young people (ages 15-19) at The Ghetto Film School, in the Bronx. I am a Teaching Artist there, and I’ve been teaching a class (of 21 kids) in prep for their thesis film, which was to be shot in South Korea. However, Covid-19 happened and their trip, which they have been looking forward to for 30 months, was cancelled. Now, we have to pivot from writing a Korean story set in Korea, to having that same story filmed in Paramus, NJ! And the kids couldn’t be more excited, nor could I be more proud. This past week, the selected script (from my NY class, and from the thesis class in LA) had a virtual table read in which Alfre Woodard, Rosalind Chao, Eva Longoria, and Sandra Oh were the cast actors, Christian Slater and Janet Mock read the action, and filmmakers David O. Russell, Barry Jenkins, Lulu Wang, and Spike Jonze provided feedback. It was moderated by Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List. I felt honored to worked with the kids on finding their voices, growing in their craft, and evolving in their artistry during this bizarre time. It has grounded me and given me a bigger sense of purpose — gifts that I take back to my own writing. And now, after six months of addressing storytelling and development, the kids and I are pivoting to taking the script to the screen. So long as we can safely do so, we will shoot the film in mid-Aug…so technically, we are in pre-production now!