Screenwriting Symposium Faculty
The Hollywood Connection Faculty
Faculty Bios & Sessions
Click on a faculty member's name or event to view more information.
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= Screenwriting Symposium
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HC
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= The Hollywood Connection
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Pilar Alessandra
ON THE PAGE WRITER'S STUDIO
, Writing Instructor/Script Consultant
PILAR ALESSANDRA is the director of the Los Angeles writing program "On the Page, Inc." She's worked as Senior Story Analyst for DreamWorks and Radar Pictures and covered additional projects at ImageMovers, Saturday Night Live Studios and The Robert Evans Company.
She's trained writers at ABC/Disney, MTV/Nickelodeon, the National Screen Institute, the Los Angeles Film School, The UCLA Writers Program and at writing organizations around the country. Pilar's students and clients have sold to Disney, DreamWorks, Warner Brothers and Sony and have won prestigious competitions such as the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition and the Nicholl Fellowship.
Her book, "The Coffee Break Screenwriter" was released in September, 2010 and her On the Page Podcast was just listed in MovieMaker Magazine's list of "Ten Podcasts Worth a Listen."
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Terry Borst
Terry studied with screenwriting gurus Lew Hunter, Richard Walter and William Froug. His credits include many episodes of the BBC action-adventure series Bugs (syndicated in 30+ countries), the TV movie sequel Midnight Run Around and the independent feature Private War. He has written other screenplays for Paramount Pictures, USA Network, the BBC, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and various independent producers.
For more than a decade, he co-wrote a trade publication and website column, *alt.screenwriters*, focusing on the collision of screenwriting and new media technologies. He's taught screenwriting at the College of Santa Fe, UCLA, USC, Moorpark College, Santa Fe Community College, and Canada's Banff Centre for the Arts, and his students have won film festival competitions and been accepted at top film schools around the country.
You can find more about Terry at www.terryborst.com.
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Steve Carter
SCSFE
, Webmaster
Having spent the past several years as a conference attendee and member of the SCSFe staff, Steve is finally moving to the front of the room to lead a seminar at this year's conference. As a writer, his focus on screenwriting has evolved over the years from the new-writer dream of selling the next $100-million box office smash to focusing on doing whatever it takes to just get his movies made. A techno-geek since birth, the explosion of widely available, inexpensive, and easy-to-use digital video cameras and editing tools means this goal is closer than ever... for every screenwriter.
Recently uprooted from his Texas roots, Steve is busy establishing a new network of like-minded screenwriters and filmmakers in Sin City. He can be reached at steve.carter@yahoo.com.
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Victor Constantino
MAYHEM PICTURES
, Sr. Vice-President, Development & Production
Victor Constantino joined Mayhem Pictures in October 2005, after serving as Executive Producer on Walt Disney Pictures's Invincible, starring Mark Wahlberg. The film, which he developed as an independent producer, earned him his inaugural producing credit.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Constantino experienced his first East Coast winter while attending Harvard College. After graduation, he returned to Southern California and year-round sunshine and embarked on a long-desired career in film.
Constantino first served as an assistant to producer Hunt Lowry before joining Junction Entertainment, where he worked as Creative Executive, developing Disney's The Kid and National Treasure for director Jon Turteltaub. He then became an independent producer, co-heading his own production shingle, Spilled Milk Productions.
Constantino was then invited to join Mayhem Pictures, where he now serves as its Senior Vice President, Development and Production. The company currently possesses a first-look deal with Walt Disney Studios and has earned an indelible brand in the inspirational sports drama genre, having produced the critically acclaimed and commercially successful feature films, The Rookie (2002), Miracle (2004), Invincible (2006), and Secretariat (2010).
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Steve Davis
Screenwriter/Screenwriting Consultant
Steve Davis served three terms as the Dallas Screenwriters Association President, during which time he also wrote the popular monthly column "Like I Always Say, Sometimes" in the DSA Features newsletter. In addition to writing, Steve is a screenwriting teacher, and top-rated script consultant as reported in a 2010 Creative Screenwriting client survey. He has written several screenplays, including "Skydiving Isn't for Cowyards," "Daze Away," "Criminal Defense," "The Color of Clouds," "Last Chance for Romance," and "Fill er Up." He also co-wrote "Double or Nothing" and "Bloodstone."
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Kirk Ellis
Writer, Producer
Santa Fe-based writer/producer Kirk Ellis won two Emmys and the Humanitas Prize for his work on John Adams starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. Ellis wrote and co-executive produced the seven-part HBO miniseries, which is based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. The miniseries scored a record 23 nominations, second only to Roots in Emmy history, and won a record breaking 13 Emmys in total, as well as four Golden Globe awards. Ellis has also received a Writers Guild of America nomination for his script.
Ellis will continue his association with McCullough and the American Revolution on his next project for HBO, 1776. Like Adams, the miniseries will be produced with Tom Hanks' Playtone Co. In addition Ellis is adapting the James Ellroy novel "American Tabloid" as a series for Playtone and HBO.
For the big screen, Ellis is working on the feature project Blood and Thunder, an epic drama of Kit Carson and the Navajo Wars, and Escape, the true story of Carolyn Jessop, who escaped from a plural marriage in a fundamentalist Mormon compound under the leadership of Warren Jeffs. Katherine Heigl will star and produce under her Abishag banner along with Michael Menchel of Relevant Entertainment.
Ellis' collaboration with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks brought him the Western Writers of America's Golden Spur Award for Best Drama Script for Hell on Wheels, an episode of the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated TNT/DreamWorks miniseries Into the West on which Ellis served as supervising producer and writer. He also received the Wrangler Award for Best Television Feature from the National Western Heritage Museum for his work on the miniseries.
Previously Ellis received an Emmy nomination and won the Writers Guild of America and the Humanitas Prize for the ABC miniseries Anne Frank which he wrote and co-produced. Additional credits include writing the award-winning ABC miniseries The Beach Boys: An American Family, co-executive producing Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (which earned him a Critics' Choice Award) and writing The Three Stooges telefilm.
Ellis made his feature film debut writing and co-producing The Grass Harp based on the coming-of-age novel by Truman Capote. He has also collaborated on projects with such esteemed directors as Francis Ford Coppola, Roland Joffe and William Friedkin.
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Mike Farris
Mike Farris is a literary agent with Farris Literary Agency and an entertainment attorney with Vincent Lopez Serafino Jenevein, P.C., in Dallas. Mike represents independent producers and has negotiated sales of movie and television rights to major Hollywood studios.
His feature screenplay "Live From the Boneyard" is in development with Sweet Revenge Entertainment, and his inspirational family screenplay "Reaching Jordan" is in development with Advocate Pictures. He is the author of the non-fiction Call Me Lucky: A Texan in Hollywood, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, and the novels Kanaka Blues and Manifest Intent, both published by Savant Books.
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Darren Foster
SCSFE
, Conference Advisor
Darren Foster teaches screenwriting at the University of Colorado, Denver and the Colorado Film School. He is the Founder and President of Film Scribe (www.filmscribe.com), a website dedicated to supporting screenwriters worldwide, and the Co-Director of the Screenwriting Contest at the Vail Film Festival (www.vailfilmfestival.org) where he is also a member of the Festival's Advisory Board. Darren has taught at various festivals, conferences and educational institutions nationwide and has been on the faculty of The Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe since 2005.
An active screenwriter, Darren has written more than a hundred screenplays with several under option and/or contract. He is the Owner and President of Film Scribe Productions and the Co-Founder of Serotonin Rising Pictures, LLC. His latest projects include co-writer on Nephilim (www.nephilimthemovie.com) slated for production in Wisconsin in 2009 and writer and co-producer on the film Serotonin Rising (www.serotoninrising.com) currently in hiatus but scheduled to resume production in late 2009. Darren also co-developed the TV pilot Happiness 101 with Tony Perri and Warren Miller Entertainment that is currently being pitched to a variety of networks.
Darren resides in Estes Park, Colorado with his wife, Shana.
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Jeff Graup
GRAUP ENTERTAINMENT
, CEO
Jeff has been in the entertainment industry for over eighteen years and has participated in every aspect of film, including: financing, production, distribution, and marketing & business affairs. Jeff has represented Academy Award winning writers and directors of major studio releases, and has had as many as fifteen studio films released in a single calendar year.
He has focused his career on nurturing talent in all stages of their development. His experience working with writers and writer/directors makes him an invaluable asset to the industry. Today, Jeff's ability to spot "young" and talented writers and directors has allowed him to break into the business some of the most distinctive voices in the movies. Jeff firmly believes that a writer is only one unique script away from success.
Jeff recently executive produced the Sony Pictures Studio release Obsessed, which was #1 at the box-office and has currently grossed over $90 million globally.
Currently Jeff is readying his next studio film "The Hive" to be directed by Joel Schumacher for Sony in early 2011. In addition, he is also readying another production, "Bloodline" with director Brian DePalma.
He also executive produced Lakeview Terrace, which was released by Sony and was #1 at the box-office, and to date has grossed over $70 million globally.
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Carolyn Handler Miller
Carolyn Handler Miller (www.carolynmiller.com) is one of the pioneering writers in the field of interactive media, having entered the field in the early 1990s. Since then, she has contributed to over four-dozen New Media titles as a writer and content designer - a new profession she calls "digital storytelling."
Carolyn's projects as a digital storyteller include video games, virtual worlds, webisodes, interactive TV, intelligent toy systems, electronic kiosks, and transmedia entertainment. She's the author of the groundbreaking book on the field, "Digital Storytelling, Second Edition: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment" (Focal Press).
Prior to becoming a digital storyteller, Carolyn's work spanned print journalism, writing for TV (where she was nominated for an Emmy), feature films and books. She teaches courses in interactive narrative and video game development for the University of New Mexico. In addition, before the 2011 change of administration in the State of New Mexico, she served on the New Mexico Governor's Council on Film and Media Industries, a position Governor Bill Richardson appointed her to in 2007. She continues to be a working writer and content developer for Emergent Media and consults for a variety of clients.
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Andy Horwitz
ATLAS ENTERTAINMENT
, Creative Executive
Andy Horwitz is a Creative Executive at Atlas Entertainment, one of Hollywood's premier production companies, best known for such films as 12 Monkeys, Three Kings, Scooby Doo 1 & 2, The Bank Job, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Get Smart.
Previously, Andy was 2nd Assistant to producer and co-founder of Atlas Entertainment, Charles Roven, and then shortly thereafter, promoted to 1st Assistant after just 2 months in June of 2007. While at Atlas, Andy has had the honor of working on such films as The Bank Job, Get Smart, The Dark Knight, The International, and most recently Season of the Witch.
In August of 2009, Andy was promoted to Creative Executive of Atlas Entertainment where he helps manage a very heavy and active development slate of films. Atlas is currently in pre-production on "The Dark Knight Rises" and the new "Superman reboot" for Warner Bros Pictures. Born and raised in Agoura Hills California, Andy received his Bachelor of Arts degree in film and video production from The Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California.
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Corey Mandell
Corey Mandell is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ridley Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Meg Ryan, Warner Brothers, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Family, Working Title, Paramount, Live Planet, Beacon Films, Touchstone, Trilogy, Radiant and Walt Disney Pictures.
Corey is also a distinguished instructor at UCLA, where he earned his MFA. His students have gone on to sell or option scripts to Warner Brothers, Paramount , Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Fox 2000, MGM, Universal , Showtime, USA Network and Lifetime. Others have gained admission to the USC Graduate Screenwriting Program, the AFI Conservatory Screenwriting Program and Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.
You can find out more about Corey at www.coreymandell.net
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Daniel Manus
INDEPENDENT PRODUCER
Daniel Manus is an in-demand script consultant and founder of No BullScript Consulting, but he is also an independent producer with a first look deal with Clifford Werber Productions (Cinderella Story, Sydney White), for whom he was previously the Director of Development. Daniel is currently attached to produce the teen comedy "Landslide" and the horror/thriller "Wake Up" with Clifford Werber and is attached to produce several projects independently.
Daniel was previously a Development Consultant for Eclectic Pictures and the Director of Development at Sandstorm Films, which was run by writer/director J.S. Cardone (The Covenant, Prom Night). They had a first look deal at Screen Gems and a development deal with Top Cow Comics.
Daniel is also a columnist for The Business of Show Institute and teaches seminars to writers all across the country.
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Danny Manus
NO BULLSCRIPT CONSULTING
Daniel Manus is an in-demand script consultant and founder of No BullScript Consulting, which can be found at www.nobullscript.net, and was recently ranked in the Top 15 "Cream of the Crop" Script Consultants in 2010. He is the author of the E-Book "No B.S. for Screenwriters: Advice from the Executive Perspective."
He was the Director of Development for Clifford Werber Productions (Cinderella Story, Sydney White), a Development Consultant for Eclectic Pictures and the DOD at Sandstorm Films, which had a first look deal at Screen Gems and a development deal with Top Cow Comics. Daniel is still attached to produce several projects independently. He is also a columnist for The Business of Show Institute, ScriptMag, and teaches seminars to writers all across the country.
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Marc Manus
MANUS ENTERTAINMENT
, Literary Manager - Executive
Marc Manus, a former award-winning photojournalist, attended USC film school before entering the field of artist representation. His first job was with manager Cathryn Jaymes who represented Quentin Tarantino, among others. He held positions at various management companies before partnering with talent manager Jamie Gold. A few years ago, he ventured out on his own to form Manus Entertainment and has a short roster of up-and-coming writers and directors.
Marc's clients are currently involved in film and television projects at companies such as 20th Century Fox, HBO, Lionsgate and Summit. Some of his recent spec sales include "The Highest Bid," which went pre-emptively to Intrepid Pictures, and "Foreign Exchange," in development at Mandate Pictures.
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Dara Marks
Dara Marks, Ph.D. is a leading international script consultant, seminar leader, and author of one of the top selling books on screenwriting, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc. Dara has specialized in the analysis of the modern screenplay for the past two decades, and Creative Screenwriting Magazine has consistently rated her the number one script consultant in the business: "Dara Marks is in a class by herself." She has worked for most major Hollywood studios and her advice has been sought on a variety of films and television programs. Dara has a doctorate degree in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, focusing her thesis on The Transformative Function of Story. Her groundbreaking work in this field continues to help writers engage more deeply and effectively in the creative process.
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William Martell
IN HIS OWN WORDS: I just handed in the first draft for the studio 3D remake of a 1980s horror film, and I've written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: 3 for HBO, 2 for Showtime, 2 for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). I've been on some film festival juries, including twice for Raindance in London (once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright - back to "jury duty" in October of 2009).
Roger Ebert discussed my work with Gene Siskel on his 1997 "If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show. I'm quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book "The Way Hollywood Tells It". My USA Net flick HARD EVIDENCE was released on video the same day as the Julia Roberts' film Something To Talk About and out-rented it in the USA. In 2007 I had two films released on DVD on the same day and both made the top 10 rentals.
You can find more about William at www.scriptsecrets.net.
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Sammy Montana
ANARCHY MANAGEMENT
, Literary Manager
Sammy has worked in several capacities in film including as the VP Production and Development for the Producer of the Halloween remakes. After 3-1/2 years, he transitioned into management, starting his own management company Anarchy Management. He now has an active list of clientele that includes writers, writer-directors, and independent comic book publishers.
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Anne Randolph
After work as director of Opera Colorado, Central City Opera, Opera Memphis and the Colorado Symphony, Anne Randolph, M.A., M.F.A, writes full time and leads www.KitchenTableWriting.com and www.WriteYourLifeStory.org workshops in Denver and at conferences including Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Poetry West, and the Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Opera Institute and has been a Stage Director in London, Amsterdam, Italy, and New York. She has an M.A. and M.F.A. in Theatre and Literature. Her workbook, Write Hot: Recipes for Kitchen Table Writing is available at www.AnneRandolph.com.
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Wendall Thomas
For the last twenty-two years, Wendall Thomas has worked in Los Angeles as a casting director, director's assistant, script reader, story editor, development executive, entertainment reporter, script consultant and screenwriter, writing and developing projects for companies including Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, Showtime, PBS, RKO, A&E, NBC, T&C Film, ACC Entertainment, Gabriel Films and Scottish Screen.
In addition to writing and consulting, she has lectured throughout Europe for the Arista Screenwriting Workshops and in the U.K. for the Welsh and Northern Irish Film Commissions, Northern Film and Media, the Folkstone Literary Festival and Screen South. She recently returned from a lecture tour for the New Zealand Film Commission.
She has consulted for the Atelier du Cinema European Producing Program in Paris, served as Writer's Mentor for Screen South's Good Foundations Plus program 2005-2007 and is directing the LA FEATURES program for the UK Film Council's Northern Film and Media for 2007-2009.
She is also a Star Speaker for the annual Los Angeles Screenwriting Expo and runs the Living Room Lecture series in Los Angeles. She is in her thirteenth year as Adjunct Professor of Screenwriting in the Graduate School of Film and Television at UCLA.
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David Kohner Zuckerman
DKZ Films is run by Hollywood Producer, David Kohner Zuckerman and is currently in pre-production on the feature film "The Fourth Noble Truth." Their latest feature Strictly Sexual has become an indie smash as the most watched film of all-time on www.hulu.com. David's latest MOW, All I Want for Christmas, was very successful for the Hallmark Channel, and he has served as a producer on the films Catalina Trust, Chump Change (Miramax) and Caught in the Act (Lifetime).
For many years, David was Head of Development for Silver Lion Films, where he worked on such movies as Man on Fire and Crocodile Dundee in L.A. David is a member of the Producer's Guild of American, and a frequent contributor to magazines such as Writer and Soma.
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This faculty list is based on the availability of instructors
and is subject to change without notification.
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