Mayra Ocampo has been promoted and will join the executive staff of the Directors Guild of America as assistant executive director in the Guild’s Los Angeles headquarters.
“Since joining the DGA, Mayra has helped to grow our organizing and expand our services to address the unique needs of our members working in non-dramatic categories including reality television,” said Jay D. Roth, DGA national executive director. “As assistant executive director, she will now build upon those efforts and take on additional duties as part of the DGA’s senior management team. We look forward to putting her deep experience and specialized skills to use in the service of our members who work across an array of categories.”
Ocampo joined the DGA in 2014 as a field representative, and was promoted to special assignments executive in 2015 where she expanded her work in non-dramatic categories including reality, and assisted in the administration and enforcement of the Guild’s Freelance Live and Tape Television Agreement–in addition to serving as the liaison to the Guild’s Women’s Steering and Asian American committees. She will continue to report to Lisa Layer, associate Western executive director.
Ocampo has more than two decades of labor union and membership organization experience. Prior to joining the DGA, Ocampo was the director of government affairs at the Nevada Local of the Service Employees International Union. She has also worked in various national and regional organizing roles for the AFL-CIO, United American Nurses, and the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International Union.
Writers of “Conclave,” “Say Nothing” Win Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film โConclaveโ and the series โSay Nothingโ won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards during a black-tie ceremony at USCโs Town and Gown ballroom on Saturday evening (2/22).
The Scripter Awards recognize the yearโs most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.
Novelist Robert Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan took home the award for โConclave.โ
In accepting the award, Straughan said, โAdaptation is a really strange process, youโre very much the servant of two masters. In a way itโs an act of betrayal of one master for the other.โ He joked that โYou start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,โ crediting author Robert Harris for being โso kind, so generous, so open throughout.โ
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode โThe People in the Dirtโ from the limited series โSay Nothing,โ which Zetumer adapted from Keefeโs nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this yearโs extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying โprojects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USCโs Leavey Library dreaming of becoming a screenwriter. If you fell in love with movies, or fell in love with TV, chances are you fell in love with something dangerous.โ
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. โIf ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,โ she said, โyou have only to go to a... Read More