USC alumna wins prestigious fellowship

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently awarded USC alumnus Barbara Stepansky with one of its highest honors in screenwriting. The Academy selects five screenplays and gives a cash prize of $35,000 to the writers. This year, 7,251 screenplays were submitted to the competition. Stepansky earned this high honor for her screenplay Sugar in My Veins.

Sugar in My Veins follows a 14-year-old violin prodigy as she falls in love with her sister’s boyfriend, a man twice her age.

“It follows the troubling affair and how it changes her and the people around her,” Stepansky said.

The Academy is celebrating the achievements of the six selected screenwriters with a public reading from a portion of their scripts at the Academy headquarters in Beverly Hills Thursday night. Stepansky will receive her award and is expected to give a speech.

Stepansky was born in Poland and later moved to Germany.

“I lived in a sleepy town where nothing happens,” Stepansky said.

At a young age, Stepansky was extremely motivated or what she describes as an “overachieving teenager.” Between playing two instruments, dancing ballet, heading both the drama and photography societies at her school and writing novels, she found filmmaking to be the perfect combination of all her talents and interests.

Stepansky was 16 years old when she realized that filmmaking was an actual option for a profession. After playing around with cameras with her friends, she developed a fascination with the behind-the-scenes work of film.

“I always loved movies, but I wanted to know how they worked,” Stepansky said.

After graduating from high school in Germany, she began her studies at University College London where she sought to “explore the world.”

Though her passion lied in filmmaking, Stepansky majored in philosophy of science. Coming from a sheltered existence in a quiet German town, she felt she needed to live a little before going into film.

“I feel like film is about people sharing something about life and society,” Stepansky said. “I didn’t have anything to say.”

During her studies at UCL, she learned to be analytical and confident and accumulated real-life experiences.

“I wanted to, get drunk, have freedom and make mistakes,” Stepansky said.

At UCL, Stepansky worked with director Christopher Nolan on his first film, Following. The future director of The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception rented equipment from the UCL Film Society, which Stepansky was the president of at the time. She remembers being blown away by his talent.

“That man is a flawless filmmaker,” she said.

By obtaining an MFA in film and TV production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ graduate program, Stepansky was able to get a solid foundation of all aspects of filmmaking.

“As a director, you need to be a jack of all trades. You need to be able to talk to your photography director without sounding like an idiot,” she said.

If the three-year graduate program gave her a breadth of film knowledge, it was at the American Film Institute where she could focus on the style that suited her best. The two-year film conservatory requires students to specialize in one area of filmmaking.

During her time studying the craft of directing, Stepansky developed her style which she describes as “heavily story-driven, dramatic and not flashy.” Her skills suited her work for the thriller and romance genres.

During this time, Stepansky worked as a script reader for various production companies, sifting through screenplays to find the best among them. Seeing the screenwriting process from the other side gave her a better understanding of how screenplays become successful.

“The first 10 pages are so important,” Stepansky said. “You have to grab people’s attention early if you want to be successful.”

Stepansky was able to apply her skills from USC and AFI to fulfill her dream of being a director. Doing primarily “work for hire” jobs, she directed small films written by other screenwriters, making films such as Hurt and Final Recourse. Ultimately, however, Stepansky hopes to be able to direct her own screenplay.

This may be a greater possibility as a result of the Nicholl Fellowship. Stepanksy describes this high honor as the “pinnacle for every up-and-coming writer.” This award comes just two years after she wrote the script as a part of a UCLA master class in screenwriting. It was the third time she had submitted a screenplay to the fellowship.

With the economic support from the fellowship, Stepansky is planning to focus on writing. In the course of the next year, she will work to produce another screenplay. She will continue to work on a few small films she is involved with now, she said that writing will remain her priority throughout the year.

With the her heightened status and new connections as a result of the fellowship, Stepansky is still set on directing, hopefully at a higher level.

“I want to move up a notch,” she said.

 

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