Your entrance into the industry just got a bit more realistic thanks to In The Cut (ITC), an education and networking company prepping Black creatives and other people of color for careers in entertainment. At the helm of this mission is Rae Benjamin, an LA-native who set out to launch a career in screenwriting with no screenwriting experience or formal screenwriting education. The decision to make the switch from a career in graphic design to screenwriting left the Los Angeles native with frustrations about the lack of transparency and authenticity about what it takes to land a role in the industry.

From unlisted jobs to training that simply does not exist, Benjamin knew that something needed to be done to help budding creatives who looked like her with the extra push needed to jumpstart careers in entertainment.  This led her to create ITC, a hub that provides users with a direct, hands-on experience in screenwriting as well as access to a network that has traditionally been closed to outsiders. With ITC, Rae aims to help writers improve their value proposition, increase their earning potential, and demonstrate the value of community as one is building a screenwriting career. 

Benjamin is currently a Staff Writer on Season 3 of Netflix’s “The Witcher,” working on an animated feature for the streaming giant, and is also the co-creator of the animated web series, “Julisa Who,” which is now in development with Topic Studios and available to watch on Instagram and YouTube. 

Despite her extremely busy writing career, she firmly believes in lifting as she climbs, which is why ITC is so near and dear to her heart. After ITC’s first live event sold out within hours at the top of 2020, there was no looking back. Today, the company is home to over 8,000 artists and filmmakers across the globe. 

Benjamin talks us through her journey, the day in her life as a writer in the film and television space, and more.

Tech It Anywhere: Tell us how you got into screenwriting 

Rae: I’m someone who did not go to film school, even though I’ve written my whole life, I even went to an arts high school for creative writing but I didn’t really think about screenwriting as a career until pretty recently, I was actually a graphic designer for a long time. 

In 2018 I decided to quit working as a designer and to really focus on screenwriting. Before, I was sort of writing scripts as a hobby, but I wasn’t taking it very seriously and honestly didn’t really know much information on how to get started. But after I quit my job that summer, a few months later I was able to get a job, my first job as a writer’s assistant on season one of Bridgerton on Netflix. Since then, I’ve been able to have consistent jobs in the industry.

TIA: Wow, talk about impressive! It usually takes people long to even get their foot in the door. Can you tell me how that came about? Did you already know people or did you just start grinding on social media?

Rae: I think it’s essential for anyone that wants a job in the industry to network. In general, in the entertainment industry, there’s a lot of jobs that are shared publicly, but for writers’ jobs, specifically, even assistant jobs in the writers’ room, 99.9% of the time, they are never shared publicly.

TIA: All that working and word of mouth is how you find out about these jobs. 

Rae: So, actually let me give you a clear timeline. In January 2018, I decided that I wanted to have a job in the industry by the end of the year. I didn’t know anyone who was in the industry and I didn’t have any connections, but I put the intention out there and tried to make things happen and so it actually happened. 

I follow Lena Waithe on Instagram and I saw someone had commented on her Instagram, like, ‘hey, I saw you say you like to mentor people, how can I be mentored by you?’ She responded to that person telling her to message my assistant and so I followed suit too and messaged her assistant. She told me about the mentorship program that Lena had and the rest is history.

TIA: Can you tell us what that work was like as a writer’s assistant?

Rae: Absolutely! Your job is to take notes for the writers, or writers room which is functioning like some sort of long meeting each day for brainstorming. All the writers on the show are pitching ideas for what could happen in the show. 

They’re sort of refining the structure of the episode, making sure each character has an arc shirt that fits the season arc or whatever they’re talking about.  It’s just your job as a writer’s assistant to capture that in the note, and for me, it was really important to make very organized notes so that they can. It’s helpful because a lot of times we are in the room for anywhere from like five, sometimes ten or twelve hours a day, depending on the day. So that’s a lot of talking. 

You’re summarizing things in a helpful way so that someone when it’s time to write their episode, it might be, you know weeks later when it’s time to write their episode, it might be, you know, weeks later, and they can refer back to your notes and remember what they need to include.

TIA: And let’s get into the money part of it, what’s that like?

Rae: Well, I am a writer and I make a lot of money, to be honest. You can go on the WTA websites and see how much writers make. When you’re a professional writer, working on a TV show, there’s no way you’re going to struggle unless you’re just really bad at money. 

But I will say the job of being a writer is like being a freelancer, so it’s like they make a lot of money, and then you may not get a job for a while so you have to be cognizant of that. 

I save a lot, so I can take breaks in between jobs. I will say that being a writer’s assistant and being a writer are not the same at all. So as a writer’s assistant, I was not making much money at all, but for me, I still will encourage people to get started as an assistant. 

TIA: Lastly, tell us your plans for 2022

Rae: I hope to focus more on comedy writing because that’s my passion. I’m very appreciative to be working on The Witcher and I love my boss and every writer on season three of the show, but I also would like to focus on writing on more comedic things and getting experience with that.

For In The Cut, we’ve grown immensely since it was first started and I really didn’t expect it to grow this fast. To have started in 2020 and the first event was just a 50 person event, now we have thousands of followers across the whole world like Australia, the UK, South Africa, and all of these places so I just hope to keep offering new classes. 

I’m doing our first writer’s retreat this summer and that has already sold out in not even two days so I’m really excited.

Also, I’m launching an initiative called the Show Support Initiative to help get Black writers and other people of color into assistant jobs in the writers’ room because being an assistant, like I said, was so pivotal for me to learn as a writer and just networking. 

The vast majority of people I know that have gotten staffed as writers all started out as assistants so I think funneling people into these jobs and creating video training courses that people can watch to learn about these jobs and once they finish, they can create a profile in our jobs database which is then shared with employers, like showrunners, network executives, producers, other assistants, other writers, to help get people jobs.