How To… Win a Pitch as a Female Director

As a female director, you need to consider things the same way as a male director would during the pitching process.

You have to be attentive, respect the brief and believe in your creative instinct.

Challenging the status quo

Firstly, we need to get women directing. Then we need to make agencies and clients more aware of these women and their work.

It’s clear looking back at the history of advertising that it is has been told from a predominantly male perspective. Although things have changed since the industry began, the role of the director has not enjoyed that much change.

When I started directing 10 years ago, there weren't even a handful of female commercial directors available here in Sweden. But now, thankfully, we're seeing a new generation of women directors emerge. I think this is direct evidence of movements like Free the Bid.

Bringing in diverse directors adds versatility to the ad industry and to the tone of advertising films in particular. We need movements like Free the Bid. But we also need to be conscious and extra attentive about creating possibilities that equate fast change.

I hope our daughters can be referred to as directors, plain and simple, without the female definition in front and that they will not need movements or quotas to get to pitch stage anymore.

Gender, what's the fuss about?

That's the point of the current conversation. Gender plays no role, or at least it shouldn't, when pitching a treatment. Nor does it play a role when actually directing, editing or finishing a film.

I believe different people have different point of views. And that it is important to have perspectives from all social structures; men, women, minorities, majorities and from all backgrounds. Our industry should strive not to be dominated by any one category and gender amongst other things should make no difference.