Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kristine Skeie. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Kristine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Early on in our marriage, my husband and I sold our home, quit our jobs and moved from Long Island, NY to Maui to help my in-laws start up a restaurant. This was a big change from my previous job, handling public relations for a college. While I learned the inner workings of running a restaurant, I never gave up on my dream of becoming a screenwriter. I contacted TV shows trying to get a foot in the door and finally was offered a job as a PA for a tv show called Step by Step. Soon I was packing up and moving to Manhattan Beach.
My husband stayed in Maui because I didn’t know if I’d get rehired after the hiatus which started in March. I loved everything about working on a TV show and being on the lot at Warner Bros. Well, everything except the commute from Manhattan Beach but spending weekends riding a bike and walking on the beach path was great.
Before the hiatus I got rehired and promoted from PA to writer’s assistant and my husband got a job with his former company in CA. After my second season at Step by Step, I went to work as a script coordinator on pilots and shows with other writers from Step by Step and branched out from there and worked for seven years every pilot season and every regular season until I gave birth to my first daughter.
During my last production job, I met Tara Miele, a very talented writer/director and we became writing partners for about seven years and sold two female-driven comedy screenplays to major studios, but they wound up on the development shelf forever. I won several screenplay contests with various scripts but really wanted to see something on screen so I wrote a short comedy film. I produced it along with Dunya Djordjevic who directed it. It got into several film festivals. We currently have a feature screenplay that we wrote together in the early stages of pre-production. I also teamed up with Connor Buss of Foreword films for a shorts competition for New Filmmakers LA back in 2018 and we won first place.
In 2019, I was among other creative women who helped Dunya start GirlsINFocus, a nonprofit film organization for girls and nonbinary youth ages 12-18. I have several feature scripts and a TV pilot I am pitching. I am also currently writing two projects. Moving from NY to Maui to CA was a risk worth taking and definitely changed my life for the better.
Kristine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up on Long Island in New York. I started in the entertainment business a little later in my life than I would have liked. In high school I was good at math and English and was encouraged to major in something with a lucrative career, so I chose accounting. I really wanted to be a writer, but I was afraid to have people read anything that I had written. I was a shy kid always looking in from the outside. However, after my freshman year at St. John’s University, I decided to be true to myself and became an English major. An error by the university altered my academic path and the quickest fix with the least financial impact was to get a teaching degree in secondary education. It wasn’t what I wanted to do and teaching jobs back that were scarce. While doing odds and ends jobs to pay the rent, I decided to apply to graduate school so that I could pursue a degree in screenwriting. New York Institute of Technology had a job opening in the Public Relations office and they offered a degree in Communication Arts with an emphasis in screenwriting, so I went to work for them and got my master’s degree for free.
About four years later, I moved from NY to Maui to CA and worked on the television series Step by Step as a production assistant. I had no idea what a production assistant was, but I quickly learned that it was pretty much the lowest job you can have on any production. However, it was also one of the most exciting jobs. Being on a set felt like home to me and the people at Step by Step were super nice and I made a lot of friends there and also gained several mentors. After spending a half of a season as a P.A., I became a writers’ assistant and got to work in the room for the writers. The room is where the stories are born and developed, and also where all of the rewriting takes place. It was a great place to learn.
Once that season ended, I worked on a pilot as a script coordinator for one of Step by Step’s executive producers, but her show didn’t get picked up. The executive producer landed an overall deal with Castle Rock Entertainment, so I worked as her assistant in development while she worked on developing and writing two new TV pilots. I bounced back and forth working as a script coordinator on several different pilots and shows for the next six years before having my first daughter.
While I was working on the show The Mind of A Married Man, I started writing with a very talented up and coming director/writer Tara Miele and we sold a screenplay to Gold Circle Films. Unfortunately, the lead actress pulled out and the script went into the development black hole. We sold a second female-driven comedy to New Line Cinema which was acquired by Lion’s Gate and once again that script went into a development hold. We wrote several scripts together and then moved on in separate directions. I wrote and co-produced a short comedy that was directed by Dunya Djordjevic, Executive Director and Founder of GirlsINFocus. The short film made it into several festivals and was definitely an education in low-budget producing. The most difficult aspect was securing insurance for the location shoot, but the overall shoot was really made possible by utilizing the volunteer services of a lot of family and friends to whom I am forever grateful. We had an incredible premiere screening at the Warner Grand in San Pedro. I also wrote, co-directed and co-produced an under two-minute short with Connor Buss of Foreword Films that won the 2018 New Filmmakers LA On Location Competition.
When my daughters were in elementary school, I headed Yellow Ribbon Week, writing a short film for students to participate in support of the theme of Kindness Matters. My friend and owner of Mondo Productions John Martinez agreed to film a three-and-a-half minute movie titled Fowl Play where kindness defeats bullying. Many parents participated and it was broadcasted to every classroom during the designated week.
I was involved with another endeavor at the school along with Janie Cavert and Nancy Schaeffer. We spearheaded a day dedicated to the arts called Arts Alive and I eventually took it over for about 8 years and the school still hosts it. For one day a year musicians, singers, dancers, visual artists, writers, martial artists, magicians, performers, etc., line the hallways for an Art Walk as the students visit each person. Once that ends, the students get to do 2-3 workshops with over 25 creatives who all volunteer their time for the day. After two years, I added an Open Mic element so the students could get up on stage and perform as well. It has been a huge success and is definitely a passion project of mine. I still go back and volunteer and do screenwriting workshops for the day.
My other passion project is GirlsINFocus, a non-profit film organization for girls and non-binary youth ages 12-18 where I am a founding member, board member and program director. During the summer we hold a film intensive where the participants make short films from idea to festival-ready films under the mentorship of industrty professionals who volunteer their time. Due to the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021 we held the 3-week intensive over Zoom and had international participation. We also held global virtual film festivals at the end of the program. In 2023, we were fortunate enough to be able to hold our first in-person 3-week intensive at Radford Studio Center in Studio City. We had nine participants, and they made two narrative shorts and one documentary short. We maxed out the theatre at Radford with over 75 guests for the screening and filmmaker Q&A. This past summer, we shortened our program and hosted a 2-week intensive closer to our own community in San Pedro at Pixels Gallery and Creative Space. We received equipment loans and support from a local school, the Port of Los Angeles High School (POLAHS). Our eleven students wrote, filmed, directed, acted in, and produced 2 short narratives and 2 short documentaries, all of which were well-received in a premiere festival with over 150 people in the audience. Their work and collaboration are extremely inspiring, and it is the most satisfying aspect of being part of GirlsINFocus.
I continue to write just about every day and the projects I work on (TV pilots, screenplays, novel) are female-driven with most falling into the dramedy category, although I do have a family adventure script, a family-oriented animated screenplay and a comedy. I have done several small writing jobs for videos for colleges and recently also wrote for an Awards show which to my surprise was very gratifying when my jokes actually got laughs and the words I chose seemed to resonate with the audience. I love being able to pour myself into a story. As torturous as it is sometimes, especially when I’m looking at a blank page, the reward of filling those pages is indescribable. Ultimately, I would like to see all of my work on a screen, but very few things compare to that feeling I get when I can type the words, “The End.” Of course, that’s after I’ve rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. The Golden Rule is nothing is written until it is rewritten. The fun part for me is rewriting because there is no longer a blank page staring at me in anticipation of being filled. I love collaborating with other creative people and hope to find investors so that I can produce some of work and maybe even direct.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
When I first had the desire to write it was because I wanted to show a world that not everyone experiences. One of my older brother’s was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle-bone condition and he has needed a wheelchair since birth. Back when he was in school there was no mainstreaming, so he went to a special school with kids who had various disabilities, most of them physical. When I was young, my family spent a lot of time there and we got to ride around in wheelchairs and play games with the other kids and helped whenever we could, especially during their summer camps. It was an amazing school that embraced all ability levels and prided itself on being a very inclusive environment. It was free from judgement and the constant ridicule and stares that many of the students were subjected to in their everyday lives. Things have changed a lot since then, but there were no ADA requirements in the 70s and no one was PC. Unfortunately, we are going a bit backward on all of that and hopefully that is just a temporary setback. At that time when I was entrenched in that world, I hated that people with disabilities were not represented in the media and if they were, often times their portrayal on screen was not true to real life. That is something I have always wanted to change and include authentic characters with disabilities in most of my work. When the New Filmmakers LA On Location short films competition was announced with the requirement of showing a filmmaker’s version of LA, I decided to show it from the aspect of people in wheelchairs focusing on the fun things that people in wheelchairs can do around LA. Finally, I had made a film, as short as it was, that highlights people with disabilities in a strong, positive manner and it has only fueled my desire to continue to do that in every script I write. There are many groups of people who are underrepresented in the media, including women, which is why I choose to focus on female-driven projects.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Helping others tap into their passion and helping them discover their own voices. At the end of our summer film intensive this year we asked the participants what they liked best about the program. Every single one of them talked about being uplifted and inspired by their peers and by us, and also uplifting and inspiring their peers. They didn’t realize that they had also inspired us. They shared how they had gained confidence in themselves and developed a passion for filmmaking that they didn’t know existed. When I was young, I was afraid to express myself, afraid to have anyone read anything that I wrote and afraid to have a voice. I wish I had a program where I could have felt safe to grow as a writer and a person without the fear of being ridiculed. Hearing that GirlsINFocus helps girls and non-binary youth gain confidence and improves their self-esteem brings tears to my eyes.
I cried the same tears years ago when my younger daughter decided to participate in the first Open Mic during Arts Alive at the elementary school. When it was time for her and her friend to go on stage and sing along with a song, she froze and started to cry. The boys from her Little League team saw what was happening and got on stage behind them and started singing. As the song played on, she got braver and braver with her performance. It was everything that I wanted Open Mic to be — a safe environment for anyone of any talent level to just get up and be free to perform without judgment. The encouragement and support from the boys were a bonus. That’s what art should be all about. It’s really what life should be all about. I don’t want anyone to feel like I did, especially those who are greatly underrepresented. It is the reason that I dedicate so much time to GirlsINFocus and the reason that we need to continue to grow our program.
