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BrownHouse's Debra Martin Chase Interviewed
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: CNNfn Transcript, Hollywood Reporter
Date: June 22, 2001
"The Princess Diaries" Producer, CNNfn
GUESTS: Debra Martin Chase
BYLINE: Susan Lisovicz
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNNfn ANCHOR, THE BIZ: Hollywood is not the friendliest of places for women, and minorities, for that matter. So, it's especially impressive when a big studio movie has an African-American woman as its top-line producer. For years, Debra Martin Chase has been breaking down barriers in Hollywood. As a partner with Whitney Houston and her production company, Chase's credits include "The Preacher's Wife" and the hugely popular TV version of "Cinderella." Coming up for Chase in August is Disney's "The Princess Diaries." And Debra Martin Chase joins me now from Los Angeles.
Welcome and congratulations.
DEBRA MARTIN CHASE, PRODUCER, "THE PRINCESS DIARIES": Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
LISOVICZ: You've come a long way from Harvard Law School. Did you ever think you'd be getting star billing in Hollywood?
CHASE: It was a dream and thankfully, it has come true. Yes, it's been a long road, though.
LISOVICZ: It's still tough in Hollywood. It's still very much a buddy system and the buddies are usually men, is that correct?
CHASE: It is, but you know, the system is designed to keep everybody out. It's not just minorities, it's not just women. You know, it's a small pie, it's a very rich pie and people don't want to share. So it's tough for everybody.
LISOVICZ: And one of the ways that you've succeeded, though, is working with Whitney Houston, who has access, who gets her phone calls returned promptly. You've been working with her and you've had very consistent success.
CHASE: Well, yes, and prior to that I was fortunate enough to run Denzel Washington's company. And I've been in the business a long time. So I've grown up with a lot of the executives today, some of the people running studios. So it's a combination of just trying to take advantage of every opportunity out there, but Whitney has been a tremendous help.
LISOVICZ: And a mentor, I would imagine, in some ways, because she gives you access and that's what you need as you were implying.
CHASE: Absolutely. That is totally true. When you make a phone call and you say, I'm Whitney Houston's producing partner, people call you back, you know?
LISOVICZ: Hey, we like that. Now talk to us about "The Princess Diaries," you've got - it seems like you're spreading across all demographics here. You've got Julie Andrews starring and you've got the teen sensation Mandy Moore. So you've got your bases covered here, what's the story about?
CHASE: And the newcomer Anne Hathaway who you will hear a lot about. She is fantastic. We searched the country looking for Audrey Hepburn 2000. Saw over 5,000 girls collectively. And Anne Hathaway was the one. The movie is, I think, is utterly charming. I found this book when it was still in galleys and sold it to Disney. They brought it very quickly. It's about a 15-year-old girl who has a very normal life, who finds out that she is the sole heir to the throne of Genovia, that she is a princess. And the grandmother she has never known, played by Julie Andrews, queen of Genovia, flies over to tell her. And she doesn't want to do it. She says, I'm not prepared. I cannot be a Princess Diana. And the movie's about her journey of self-discovery and self-realization and realizing you can do anything you really want to.
LISOVICZ: And that's really been a theme in your work. Has it not, Debra?
CHASE: Absolutely.
LISOVICZ: It's sort of a wish fulfillment and empowerment movies.
CHASE: I don't think there's enough of that on screen for women in particular, but I think for kids in general and for everyone in general. Movies are a combination of entertainment and business and magic. And I really believe that the magic should be an integral part of it.
LISOVICZ: Go ahead, go ahead.
CHASE: And I just think that for young women in particular, even though they - I think they do - they can do just about anything, on a personal level, they need to understand that they are only limited by their own vision. And I think with "Cinderella" and certainly with "The Princess Diaries," and even "The Preacher's Wife," to a certain extent, it's been a message that's been brought forth.
LISOVICZ: And "Cinderella" was a huge success. We're looking at a clip of it now w Brandy. Upcoming for you is a remake of "Sparkle" with the rap star Aaliyah, does that continue that message? Because that's sort of like a rise and fall of a group of singing sisters ala - sort of like the Supremes in a way.
CHASE: Yes, very much like it. And it absolutely does, because Aaliyah, at the end of the day, realizes that she can do it on her own. That she is a star in her own right.
LISOVICZ: Deborah Martin Chase, the producer of "The Princess Diaries." It's a pleasure to meet you. Congratulations on your fine work.
CHASE: Thank you very much, Susan, thank you.
Producer's chair proves elusive for black women
By Josh Spector
On the surface, Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming "The Princess Diaries" looks like a typical studio film. It stars Julie Andrews and teen singer Mandy Moore, is directed by veteran Garry Marshall and is a family movie that doesn't break much ideological ground.
Although "Diaries" may not be revolutionary on screen, behind the scenes, it is a rarity: a high-profile studio film produced by a black woman.
Debra Martin Chase, who produced the film as the executive vp of Whitney Houston's BrownHouse Prods., is one of only a handful of black women who are players in the feature production game.
"The entertainment industry is not an easy game to play," Chase said. "It's a system designed to keep everyone out and to keep people from moving forward regardless of race or gender. Being a minority can be used to make it that much harder."
A quick glance at the production ranks reveals just how much of an anomaly Chase is. Even as women and black men have steadily become more ingrained in Hollywood's studio system, black women have remained largely on the outside looking in.
Quantifying the presence of black women film producers is a difficult task, since no organization specifically tracks their progress. Unlike the Directors Guild of America or the Screen Actors Guild - both of which have released extensive reports documenting their minority membership in the past year - the Producers Guild of America doesn't track such demographic information.
Vance Van Petten, the executive director of the PGA, explained that since his guild is a "professional nonprofit organization" and not actually a union, it has never polled its 1,400 members to determine their gender or race. Van Petten estimated that half the guild's members are women and said minority members are a small but growing segment of the guild's population.
"We have been very active in reaching out to minority communities because there is such a lack of representation in the industry right now," Van Petten said. "It's important that the entertainment production community really mirror the diversity of the entertainment audience."
While the numbers of black women producers may be growing slowly, those currently producing big-budget studio features can almost be counted on one hand. In addition to Chase, some of the few to succeed include Tracey Edmonds, whose credits include "Josie and the Pussycats" and "Soul Food"; Loretha Jones, who has produced "Price of Glory" among others; and Suzanne de Passe, a successful television producer who counts the feature comedy "Class Act" among her credits. A handful of celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Houston have also managed to parlay their fame into some production success.
For this small group, the climb to the top has not always been an easy one. In addition to the usual challenges facing producers of studio films, these women cite difficulties getting material, problems packaging films and the struggle to sell minority-themed projects to studio executives as obstacles they face on a daily basis.
One of the common misconceptions projected on these women is that they are only interested in black-themed material.
"I think that access to material has been more difficult as a general rule because people assume that I am only interested in black stories because I am an black woman," Chase said. "As a result, I have to fight to get material in other genres because people don't think it's something I would be interested in."
For Chase, the opportunity to produce mainstream films such as "Courage Under Fire" and now "The Princess Diaries" has been a crucial career step. "Both professionally and personally, it was important for me to break out of that box that people try to put you in," she said.
Producer Jones also championed Chase's work on "Diaries" as a big step forward in the battle to get access to mainstream material. "The only way anything in this business ever changes is through aggressiveness," Jones said. "It's a matter of producers beginning to call people on their misconceptions and push the envelope as opposed to allowing ourselves to be pigeonholed."
When producers do attempt to get black-themed projects off the ground, they encounter another set of difficulties. For starters, they must convince an overwhelmingly white male studio system to support their project.
"Hollywood is a real buddy system, and the executive suite tells the whole story," said Sandra Evers-Manly, president of the Black Hollywood Education and Resources Center, a nonprofit advocacy group for blacks in film and television. "It's a system based on nepotism and cronyism, and when you don't have a lot of people of color in the executive suite, it makes it harder for producers to pitch those kind of stories. Oftentimes the people they are pitching to can't necessarily relate."
One thing studio executives can relate to is the bottom line. The increased emphasis on profit margins combined with the consolidation of the industry in recent years has only made it harder to get black-themed films made.
"As a producer, the best way to move a project forward is by attaching as many elements as possible," Chase said. "But there are fewer black writers with juice, so few black actresses that mean anything to a studio and only a handful of black actors that do."
As a result, producers find themselves having a hard time convincing studios that the market is out there.
"Studios recognize that there is a black audience out there, but the belief is that there is no international audience for black-themed films," Chase said. "There is a perception that black actors have no international boxoffice appeal."
That perceived limited appeal often forces producers to work with limited resources.
"Stories dealing with people of color are consistently held to a different standard in terms of budgets and advertising," Evers-Manly said. "That's why it's so important for our community to go out and support its films, producers, actors and directors."
Although there are not many black women producing feature films right now, some see a change on the horizon.
Yvonne Welbon, an independent filmmaker who is working on a documentary and Web site chronicling black women in film called "Sisters in Cinema," suggests that as more black women enter the film industry in general, there may be a rise in producers as well.
"It's extremely hard for women everywhere; the numbers are not lying," Welbon said. "But there are the largest number of women ever coming out of film school, the black population is more affluent than ever before, and the cost of production is coming down. Hopefully, we've turned the corner."
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