BWW Blog: Cheyenne Dalton - A Woman in Sound

This semester, I am taking a Writing for TV and Film class - which means that I'm writing a script for a movie. I tossed around different ideas, as did every student in the class, and we tried to find the simplest idea and most interesting idea in which to write our very first script. Anna, our professor, told us to think about things we know, because those are going to be easiest to write about. I couldn't write about the life of a congressman, because I don't know anything about that. I don't know any congressmen. I don't know what they do, and even if I did a lot of research, I probably still couldn't get the dialogue just right, or the lingo. So I bet you can guess what I chose to write about.

Being a sound engineer is the most rewarding thing I think I've ever been a part of. I work long hours, and hard hours, and sleep sometimes seems far away. I get stressed, and angry, and sometimes I wonder how I got through some weeks. But the whole truth is that I love it. I love my job, and like you've probably heard before, "Love what you do, and you'll never work a day in your life."

Something that I know a good deal about is being a woman in not only sound, but also in technical theatre. I know what it's like for someone to tell me I can't do something, because I'm a woman. I know what it's like to be offered help because they assume I can't lift something, because I'm a woman. I know what it's like to be hit on by older men, younger men, any men, who think that I'm interested because I'm polite and I am somewhat knowledgeable about my craft, because I'm a woman.

In this screenplay, I'm mostly playing with the ideas of a woman in a man's world. The only female in the movie is the protagonist, and that's deliberate. I am in a male-dominated field, so the pressure to be "as good as them" is apparent every day - even though I shouldn't feel that way. It's inevitable. My protagonist struggles with the same things that I struggle with, even though I don't like in Philadelphia, and I don't exactly work professionally.

My life right now is trying to assert myself professionally as a woman. Back in August, Auburn hosted our regional USITT conference. A stage-management panel was offered as a masterclass, and since there were only two sound classes offered, I took it, too. A woman on the panel told us that it pays to have a man's name, or your initials, when applying for a job because oftentimes women's names get skimmed over. I really didn't like this tactic - because I want to be hired for my professional skills and abilities, and get an interview not because they think I'm going to be a man, but because I am going to be an asset to the team. I can't imagine working for somebody who thought I was going to be a man when they saw my application. Even as a college student, I can see that being a woman in sound is going to be challenging. But I'm along for the ride and I'll love it.

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