Dear Jennifer,
I live in Barrington New Hampshire, five miles away from the University of New Hampshire. I read that you grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island and went to UNH as an undergrad. Those are the opening synchronicities between us. I am a psychotherapist and screenwriter who has written five heroine’s journey scripts over the last 20+ years. Despite incredible praise, none of my projects have sold yet. If I lived in LA, perhaps they would have by now, but I never wanted to live in LA. There are no maple trees there, and so my soul would have shriveled before too long. I was able to write in the first place because I lived within the soul-provoking New England woods. Like Elsa, I belong to the forest, and literally raised my two daughters there. To briefly share my backstory is the best way to introduce myself.
I live in Barrington New Hampshire, five miles away from the University of New Hampshire. I read that you grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island and went to UNH as an undergrad. Those are the opening synchronicities between us. I am a psychotherapist and screenwriter who has written five heroine’s journey scripts over the last 20+ years. Despite incredible praise, none of my projects have sold yet. If I lived in LA, perhaps they would have by now, but I never wanted to live in LA. There are no maple trees there, and so my soul would have shriveled before too long. I was able to write in the first place because I lived within the soul-provoking New England woods. Like Elsa, I belong to the forest, and literally raised my two daughters there. To briefly share my backstory is the best way to introduce myself.
|
My ex-husband and I built a post-and-beam house ourselves from the pines in our backyard in the southwestern New Hampshire hills. We carved out a rough and rugged life on “Fantasia Farm” when our daughters were 7 and 8 years old. Winter after winter we plowed a mile-long driveway to get the girls to school, and even home-schooled them for two years during their tenuous middle school years.
Rachel (my biological daughter) graduated from University of New Hampshire in 2006, then attained a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Brown University and is taking on the world. She is the brilliant and loving daughter I always dreamed she could be, and my best friend. Christine (my stepdaughter) is now a nurse with a daughter of her own. As you can see from these pictures, Hazel is madly in love with Elsa. She dressed like her for her third birthday and then again for Halloween. |
|
|
|
In 1998, I wrote my first screenplay, The Widow’s Walk, based on the true story of Mary Ann Patten, an American heroine that very few people have heard about, but every young girl should.
And so began my introduction to the entertainment industry. An agent with CAA admitted that even though he really liked the project, he could not take me on as a client since I lived in New Hampshire and has only written one script. Although a Vice President with the William Morris Agency considered it well-written, it was 1999 and a script with a female lead, and so it was sent to the television division (to five cable channels) and spit back out within three weeks. The only taker I had at the time was a local production company run by a former Navy Captain whose director dismissively admitted he cared more about the ship than Mary’s story.
At my attorney’s recommendation, I turned down their option offer, even though I knew it was my only opportunity to get this story produced. It was excruciating but as the steward of Mary’s story, I could not let them diminish her. Considering patience was a theme of The Widow’s Walk, like Mary I had to conjure up faith and strength and know it would be produced when the time was right.
Over the years, I came to accept these ups and downs as my personal heroine’s journey, and I kept writing. My next screenplay was based on Boston’s Cocoanut Grove fire. Here’s my favorite description of it written by my friend, Boston-based Author Saul Wisnia:
“COCOANUT GROVE" is a film that deserves to be made – about nearly 500 lost souls who deserve to be remembered. It has everything: An uplifting love story, heroes and villains, quirky supporting characters you root for, comic relief, a hero's journey, a romantic time period (early World War II), a dramatic build-up to a horrific tragedy, great period music, a twist ending, and a powerful coda – life-saving advances in medicine and fire safety that give meaning to a senseless tragedy. And here's the best part: IT IS ALL TRUE AND NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT.”
There were many near-misses with Cocoanut Grove in the form of people who would claim they had contacts that could help but turned out not to be the case. Some were well intended, some not. Many times, I had to fight for the love story so that it would not turn into another stereotypical Boston gangster story. In Saul, I am blessed to find someone of integrity who believes in the love story as much as I do. He is writing the definitive book on the Cocoanut Grove fire and plans to highlight the incredible safety and medical advances that came as a result of the fire. Saul was a godsend in terms of editing the script, and he is currently looking for its Producer through his contacts, and I have never been more hopeful.
Yet I am not writing you about The Widow’s Walk or Cocoanut Grove. I am writing you about an animation project that, after seeing what you accomplished with Frozen II, I am hoping you may fall in love with as much as I have.
Watching Frozen II through the avalanche of tears now permanently etched upon my heart, when Elsa happily found her way back to the woods, I recognized what you accomplished with your astonishing story. “There is a profound difference between writing a story of a successful woman and writing a heroine’s journey. For the audience, a film produced from the first may be interesting, while a film produced from the latter may just be life-altering. The path of a heroine is not toward success, but toward herself.” I wrote that paragraph over ten years ago, and until now, I had not seen a film that lived up to it as fully as Frozen II.
In her groundbreaking book “The Heroine’s Journey,” Maureen Murdock spoke to the significant difference between a hero’s and a heroine’s journey: “Women emulated the male heroic journey because there were no other images to emulate, a woman was either “successful” in the male-oriented culture or dominated and dependent as a female. To change the economic, social, and political structures of society, we must now find new myths and heroines.” As depth psychologist Anne Davin, Ph.D further distinguished: "The hero is self-sacrificing; the heroine receives from others. The hero dominates; the heroine surrenders. The hero competes; the heroine collaborates. The hero asks, “What can I get for myself?” The heroine asks, “How can I serve the dream?”
Thanks to Frozen II, that profound difference has now been declared and a standard-bearer established. As a writer, I can only imagine (and saw glimpses of it in the “Into the Unknown” docuseries) how grueling it must have been for you to uphold that standard under a constant thunderhead of pressure. In writing this sacred story, you travelled into the unknown on a heroine’s journey yourself and brought back the elixir for all of us.
Watching Frozen II through the avalanche of tears now permanently etched upon my heart, when Elsa happily found her way back to the woods, I recognized what you accomplished with your astonishing story. “There is a profound difference between writing a story of a successful woman and writing a heroine’s journey. For the audience, a film produced from the first may be interesting, while a film produced from the latter may just be life-altering. The path of a heroine is not toward success, but toward herself.” I wrote that paragraph over ten years ago, and until now, I had not seen a film that lived up to it as fully as Frozen II.
In her groundbreaking book “The Heroine’s Journey,” Maureen Murdock spoke to the significant difference between a hero’s and a heroine’s journey: “Women emulated the male heroic journey because there were no other images to emulate, a woman was either “successful” in the male-oriented culture or dominated and dependent as a female. To change the economic, social, and political structures of society, we must now find new myths and heroines.” As depth psychologist Anne Davin, Ph.D further distinguished: "The hero is self-sacrificing; the heroine receives from others. The hero dominates; the heroine surrenders. The hero competes; the heroine collaborates. The hero asks, “What can I get for myself?” The heroine asks, “How can I serve the dream?”
Thanks to Frozen II, that profound difference has now been declared and a standard-bearer established. As a writer, I can only imagine (and saw glimpses of it in the “Into the Unknown” docuseries) how grueling it must have been for you to uphold that standard under a constant thunderhead of pressure. In writing this sacred story, you travelled into the unknown on a heroine’s journey yourself and brought back the elixir for all of us.
Now I present you with another type of heroine’s journey challenge. My television series pilot “Splash in the City” is deeply grounded in five life fables I wrote over the last ten years, each in the voice of a different character who does not belong to the status quo but came to the city to change it. We call them "Cartoon Mentors."
What makes this project so unique is that within its characters, Splash in the City teaches the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset. As psychologist Robert Puff wrote in a 2017 Psychology Today article “If we have a growth mindset, the whole universe can change.” Each “Cartoon Mentor” is paired with certain attributes necessary for “playing in 3D,” a growth mindset (3D) as opposed to a fixed mindset (2D).
In a fixed mindset, abilities and understanding is fixed, where in a growth mindset, abilities and understanding can be developed. Fixed mindsets tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as fruitless, ignore useful negative feedback, and feel threatened by the success of others. In contrast, growth mindsets embrace challenges, see effort as the path to mastery, learn from criticism, and find lessons and inspiration from the success of others.
So, within Splash in the City, characters with fixed mindsets are limited in motion, drawn in shades of gray, and they are sometimes completely stuck within a comic strip. Due to their growth mindsets, the Cartoon Mentors are animated and colorful, each with special, unique gifts for "playing in 3D." The mission of the Cartoon Mentors within Splash in the City is to help the 2D characters stuck in a comic strip become colorful and animated and begin “playing in 3D.”
|
|
I am writing this letter days away from the moment a woman of color will be sworn in as the first woman Vice-President. Considering the state of our country, the voices of the Splash in the City women couldn’t be timelier, but until recently, I hadn’t known which direction to turn next. Heeding Anna’s advice, I am doing the "next right thing" -- writing to you.
On New Year’s Eve, Saul told me that he made a connection to a possible producer for Cocoanut Grove via an elegant, elderly lady that he deeply admires and recently wrote a tribute to. I was touched by this, as it’s similar to the way I was introduced to screenwriting; through a loving relationship between a mother and her son. I told Mary Patten’s story to a lovely woman who suggested I contact her son, a Hollywood screenwriter, who then introduced me to Christopher Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey” and set me on the path of screenwriting. Hearing Saul’s story, it all comes full circle for me, and I have not been able to ignore the small voice calling to me ever since. In the task of learning more about this producer before we approach him, I discovered that this lovely woman’s son Bart is your manager’s business partner. But if you are reading this, you know that already. And unlike The Widow’s Walk, “Splash in the City” cannot wait.
On New Year’s Eve, Saul told me that he made a connection to a possible producer for Cocoanut Grove via an elegant, elderly lady that he deeply admires and recently wrote a tribute to. I was touched by this, as it’s similar to the way I was introduced to screenwriting; through a loving relationship between a mother and her son. I told Mary Patten’s story to a lovely woman who suggested I contact her son, a Hollywood screenwriter, who then introduced me to Christopher Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey” and set me on the path of screenwriting. Hearing Saul’s story, it all comes full circle for me, and I have not been able to ignore the small voice calling to me ever since. In the task of learning more about this producer before we approach him, I discovered that this lovely woman’s son Bart is your manager’s business partner. But if you are reading this, you know that already. And unlike The Widow’s Walk, “Splash in the City” cannot wait.
My partner (Craig Cloutier) and I began conceiving the Splash City world ten years ago, motivated in part by the oppression and cynicism we witnessed all around us, and experienced ourselves. During those ten years, we wrote five fables (of a planned eleven) that take place in our world Splash City, and recently penned this television series pilot as our biggest and brightest hope to effectively respond to the impact of escalating oppression.
Clearly, as a country we need healing from this persistent trauma but like the proverbial frogs in boiling water, we have gradually become accustomed to it and desensitized to the danger all around us. Where do we even begin?
Growth mindsets are typically taught to children, yet adults also need help getting off "The Wall" of their limitations and learn the liberating ways of a growth mindset. The first step in getting off "The Wall" is by acquiring a playful state of mind. Like Walt Disney realized sitting next to his daughters while waiting for them at the amusement park, adults need a place to play, too.
Combining the projective nature of cartoons ( “The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled… an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm. We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it.” - Scott McCloud, "Understanding Comics, The Invisible Art") with the naturally transformational power of story gives certain cartoons a superpower. Created to reflect specific attributes of a growth mindset, cartoon characters can be the mentors we need and crave. This is the guiding principle behind Splash in the City. By regularly inviting these characters into our homes season after season, Cartoon Mentors like Mzzz Pink and Miss Guided Light encourage us to put aside our cynicism and fixed points of view long enough to see through the eyes of wonder AND be taken seriously at the same time.
Clearly, as a country we need healing from this persistent trauma but like the proverbial frogs in boiling water, we have gradually become accustomed to it and desensitized to the danger all around us. Where do we even begin?
Growth mindsets are typically taught to children, yet adults also need help getting off "The Wall" of their limitations and learn the liberating ways of a growth mindset. The first step in getting off "The Wall" is by acquiring a playful state of mind. Like Walt Disney realized sitting next to his daughters while waiting for them at the amusement park, adults need a place to play, too.
Combining the projective nature of cartoons ( “The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled… an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm. We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it.” - Scott McCloud, "Understanding Comics, The Invisible Art") with the naturally transformational power of story gives certain cartoons a superpower. Created to reflect specific attributes of a growth mindset, cartoon characters can be the mentors we need and crave. This is the guiding principle behind Splash in the City. By regularly inviting these characters into our homes season after season, Cartoon Mentors like Mzzz Pink and Miss Guided Light encourage us to put aside our cynicism and fixed points of view long enough to see through the eyes of wonder AND be taken seriously at the same time.
Writing this letter to you directly saves the kind gentlemen between you and I from having to find the way to present this project to you. Not only is that a lot of potential miscommunication avoided, how can anyone possibly speak to this project but me? It’s not theirs to do, it’s mine. It would be abdicating my responsibility, and like my characters within Splash in the City, the biggest wall I must traverse is the one within myself.
Writing this letter brings up all kinds of self-doubt within me. Voices from the past scream that once again, I won’t be heard. I don’t belong. I don’t have an agent or a manager. I have been banished, and should keep it that way. I don’t fit the image of what a screenwriter should be. I’m 65 years old, live in a rural town in NH, write letters that are too long, and have no platform.
But having no platform is not from a lack of effort or determination, it is from a lack of motivation. My inner voice did not scream at me “Go ye and build a social media following!” Instead, it encouraged me to swim into deep waters, like the writing of Ms. Bee Haven’s fable “See the Music.” The story appeared to me full blown after watching my daughter stand in the front of the lectern defending her doctoral thesis on anti-aging. I wept in pride for days, flipping over the pages of her photo albums from the time she was a baby, cherishing every step along her journey.
Three years later, the fable “Listen to Yourself” by Lisa Hearditall was birthed much in the same manner. Rachel lost a former UNH roommate to suicide two years earlier. Emily starved herself until there was nothing left of her. Just before the fable was written, Emily’s soul showed up in the form of a songbird perched at my backdoor. “Songbird” was the name of a poem Emily wrote that I included in Lisa’s story to always remember her by.
And now that inner voice has led me to you, a woman at the helm of the future of animation, working for a company that has been promoting wonder for almost a century, and whose tenet is the same as the underlying theme of Splash in the City: “to laugh at yourself is to love yourself." - Mickey Mouse.
Our hope for Splash in the City is to break the spell of the fixed mindset. As Martin Shaw wrote in "Courting the Wild Twin," "Bad storytellers make spells. Great storytellers break them. This now, is mostly an era of spell-making. Of tacit enchantment, of stultified imaginations and loins inflamed by so much factory-fodder lust, our relationships malfunction in their millions.... how do we wake up? The secret is relatedness. Relatedness breeds love, and love can excavate conscience. Conscience changes the way we behave. Relatedness is how we wake up. "
You are clearly a spell-breaker. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Deb Whitaker
You are clearly a spell-breaker. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Deb Whitaker