Speakers

Pilar Alessandra is the director of the Los Angeles writers’ studio On the Page, Inc ® and the host of the “On the Page” podcast.  Pilar has read and analyzed thousands of scripts for studios and production companies such as DreamWorks, ImageMovers, Radar Pictures and the Robert Evans Company.  Her students and clients have written forLost,Prison Break, Nip Tuck and Family Guy.  They’ve sold features and pitches to Warner Bros, DreamWorks, Disney and Sonyand have won the Nicholl Fellowship and Austin Screenwriting Competition.  Pilar was named "Cream of the Crop" in Creative Screenwriting Magazine's script consultant guide and was one of LA Weekly's top 100 people. Her book, "The Coffee Break Screenwriter" can be found on Amazon and major bookstores. For more on Pilar, go to onthepage.tv.

Erik Bork is best known for his work as a writer-producer on the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon, for which he won two Emmy and two Golden Globe Awards. He has also worked on the writing staff of two primetime series, sold original pitches, and written pilots and screenplays for most of the major studios and networks. He teaches in National University’s MFA Screenwriting Program, and was rated “Cream of the Crop” in Creative Screenwriting’s “The Best Script Analysts and Consultants.” You can read his “Ten Key Principles Successful Writers Understand,” and contact him through his website/blog at flyingwrestler.com.

Jim is currently a Co-Producer for the USA network series WHITE COLLAR. He is also serving as a Consulting Producer for the network’s latest show, GRACELAND. Before entering television, Jim was one of the head writers for the popular web-series “LonelyGirl15,” and in 2008 he was admitted to the highly competitive Warner Bros. Writers Workshop for television. Jim has also been the recipient of awards in filmmaking from the NJ State Governor’s Office, as well as the National Foundation for the Advancement of The Arts.

Screenwriter/producer/director Paul Chitlik has written for all the major networks and studios. He was story editor for The New Twilight Zone, and staff writer for Showtime's Brothers. He has written features for Rysher Entertainment, NuImage, Promark and others. He received a WGA award nomination for his work on The Twilight Zone, a GLAAD Media Award nomination, and won a Genesis Award for a Showtime movie. He has taught screenwriting at UCLA; ESCAC, the film school of the University of Barcelona; UNIACC in Santiago, Chile; and EICTV, the film school of Cuba. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He consults for the government of Chile’s film development process. He has presented workshops and consulted for ScreenWest, Australia; ScreenAustralia; and the Australian Writers Guild. His book, Rewrite, A Step-by-Step Guide to Strengthen Structure, Characters, and Drama in Your Screenplay is now in its second printing. His ebooks and The New Twilight Zone scripts are available at Digitalfabulists.com.

Former VP of Marketing for two international indie distribution companies, Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein is an award-winning writer/director/producer turned writer’s coach and CEO of The Script Broker®. She is an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She currently specializes in helping writers (of all genres) find their niche in the global marketplace using her contacts, marketing tools and social networking as a launch pad for getting discovered by agents, publishers and readers. She recently taught pitching tools and social media strategies for WIF, NATPE and INKTIP’s Summit conferences. Hollywood & Vine magazine recently dubbed her “Hollywood’s Premier Pitching Coach.”

[Photo Courtesy of Blake Gardner Photography]
Where Bob DeRosa comes from, nice guys finish first. The Florida-born screenwriter recently finished his first season as a writer on the hit USA show “White Collar”. He previously wrote Lionsgate’s action-comedy “Killers”, starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl, and co-wrote director Jieho Lee’s crime-drama “The Air I Breathe”.
After graduating from the University of Florida, Bob returned home to Orlando and became a leading figure in the city’s thriving theatre and film community. In addition to co-founding the award-winning comedy troupe THEM, Bob spent three years programming for the Florida Film Festival. After relocating to Los Angeles, Bob wrote two evenings of one-act plays and is a regular contributor to the ongoing late-night series “Serial Killers” at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.
When he’s not writing, Bob studies Kenpo karate and spends time with his lady Jen and their three kids, who look suspiciously like cats.

Eric Edson is author of the best-selling book The Story Solution: 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take published by Michael Wiese Productions. Eric has written seventeen feature screenplays on assignment for such companies as Sony, Warner Brothers, Disney, Fox, ABC, Showtime, NBC and TNT. He has also written for episodic TV. Eric is Professor of Screenwriting and Director of the Graduate Program in Screenwriting at California State University, Northridge. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting degree from the American Film Institute, and a M.F.A. in Playwriting from UCLA.

A working film producer who’s sold pitches and specs to all the majors, Barri Evins created BIG IDEAS to give aspiring screenwriters what it takes to break into the business by teaching them techniques she uses with highly paid professionals on big league projects and giving them the tools to achieve their dreams. Students discover how to create and shape stories that Hollywood wants and audiences will love, powered by their own strengths and passions.

Barri has taught at Pixar and DreamWorks Animation as well at the UCLA Producers Program, AFI, Great American PitchFest and Screenwriters Expo and is a CineStory mentor. She is also a sought after Consultant and Pitch Doctor. She contributed a chapter to the book NOW WRITE: SCREENWRITING, amongst a host of renowned screenwriters and teachers and has written columns for MovieBytes. A Big Ideas book is in the works.

Steve Faber was born to a family of magicians who emigrated from Eastern Europe a long, long time ago. Grandson of Harry Faber, renowned sleight-of-hand artist, Faber attended UCLA where he earned degrees in both literature and history.Faber went on to graduate from law school. It was a tremendous mistake. He did, however and once and for all, learned the great life lesson that there is no money in poetry and no poetry in money. This lesson was learned at devastating psychological cost. After a brief flirtation with magic (which failed when the bottom simultaneously fell out of both the rabbit and the hat market), and a novel, Faber secured a literary agent and began writing for television in the situation comedy genre. A half-dozen sitcoms later, Faber realized that situation comedy was not making him happy. In short, the situations were not comedic. This lesson was learned at devastating psychological cost. Shortly thereafter, films were written, pitched and sold. Some are being made. Some will never see the light of day. Some haunt Faber's dream life. Faber's hobbies include insomnia, taking meaningless drives through the canyons of Los Angeles, and listening to people argue.

Syd Field is acclaimed as the “guru of all screenwriters” by CNN and “the most sought after screenwriting teacher in the world” by the Hollywood Reporter. The internationally celebrated author of eight books on screenwriting, his book Screenplay and The Screenwriter’s Workbook are considered “the Bibles” of the film industry and are published in some 29 languages and used in more than 450 major colleges and universities around the country. He has conducted screenwriting workshops all over the world, and has been a special script consultant to the governments of: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Germany, Israel, Mexico, and more. He has been commissioned to conduct special film executive workshops by the Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, the Nike Corporation and the Canadian Film Industry among others. He conducts The Visual Art of Storytelling Courses for scientists and engineers of JPL and NASA through the famed Catalyst Workshops. Field was inducted into the prominent Final Draft Hall of Fame in 2006 and is currently on faculty in the Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC.

Julian Friedmann is co-owner of the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency (www.blakefriedmann.co.uk) and was the publisher of ScriptWriter magazine, which became the online resource for writers at www.twelvePoint.com. He represents both book and scriptwriters and also acts as Executive producer for and with clients. He has taught at universities and film schools all over the world, is the co-author of The Insider's Guide to Writing for Television, author of How to Make Money Scriptwriting and editor of two volumes on Writing Long-Running Television series. He designed the MA in Television Scriptwriting at De Montfort University and PILOTS, for developing long-running television series for the EU MEDIA Programme. He has been on both Emmy and Grierson Juries and is Senior Advisor to the London Screenwriting Festival. (www.julianfriedmann.com )

Chad Gervich is a television writer, award-winning playwright, and bestselling author. He spent four years as development executive at the Littlefield Company before going on to write and produce for shows such as Cupcake Wars on Food Network, Foody Call on Style, and After Lately, starring Chelsea Handler. He is also the author of “Small Screen, Big Picture: A Writers Guide to the Television Business.” Chad currently writes for Disney’s upcoming sitcom, "Dog With a Blog," and his new book “How To Manage Your Agent: A Writers Guide to Understanding Hollywood Representation,” comes out from Focal Press in 2013.

Aaron Ginsburg is a writer/producer currently working on NBC’s upcoming take on Jekyll & Hyde, Do No Harm (launching post-NFL 2013). Before that, he wrote for Fox’s The Finder and The Good Guys, and he produced USA’s Burn Notice prequel, The Fall of Sam Axe. In addition, he wrote the next installment in the Home Alone franchise (due out December 2012), the Activision videogame Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (which won an award for Outstanding Achievement in Story and Character Development from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences), and for the past six years, he has directed LA’s live hit stage show The Thrilling Adventure Hour at Largo. Follow him on Twitter: @DrLawyercop.

Jeff Graup, CEO of Graup Entertainment: Jeff has been in the entertainment industry for over eighteen years and has participated in every aspect of film development, including: financing, production, distribution, and marketing & business affairs. Throughout his distinguished career, Jeff has been involved in many successful studio movies and network television shows as both a producer and manager and has maintained excellent working relationships at both the studios and mini-major agencies. Graup has represented Academy-Award(r) winning writers and directors of major studio releases, and has had as many as 13 studio films released in a single calendar year.

Jeff 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. As a supporter of young people in the industry, Jeff is a regular on the speaking circuit for film schools and young writers groups about working in film.

Graup just wrapped The Hive for Sony with Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin starring for director Brad Anderson. Earlier this year Graup executive produced The Package with Steve Austin and Dolphe Lungren starring. Graup executive produced the Sony Pictures Studio release Obsessed, written by David Loughery (Three Musketeers, Money Train, Passenger 57) starring Beyoncé, which was #1 at the box-office and has currently grossed over $91 million globally.

He also executive produced Lakeview Terrace, which was released by Sony and was #1 at the box-office, and to date has grossed over $66 million globally starring Samuel Jackson with Neil Labute directing.

Graup has produced movies with proven worldwide audience appeal. Twice he was named by Fade-In Magazine as one of the top 100 people to know.

Jeff first worked at William Morris and left to go work in business affairs at Walt Disney, where he worked on co-productions such as Air Force One, Face Off, Starship Troopers, Kolya and Shine.

Graup holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston University and a Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City.

Anthony Grieco attended the University of Toronto where he majored in English and minored in Film. Upon graduating, he attended Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York City and went on to star in over 50 television commercials and episodic programs. He moved to Los Angeles when one of his first spec screenplays was solicited by various agents and managers. Within months he had optioned his first feature, a comedy called I’m With Stupid, to Peachtree Films.

Anthony has completed nine feature film scripts, with two optioned, one recently rewritten for Clint Eastwood, and one recently put into pre-production for a late 2012 or early 2013 start with Buffalo Gal Pictures in Canada. Anthony is currently also a script consultant, working as a Story Specialist at The Writers Store and a mentor for the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest. He is also the co-writer of the best-selling Pocket Screenwriting Guide.

Jen Grisanti is a Story/Career Consultant at Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., Writing Instructor for Writers on the Verge at NBC, former 12-year studio executive with her last job being VP of Current Programming at CBS/Paramount, Blogger for The Huffington Post and author of the books, Story Line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story, TV Writing Tool Kit: How To Write a Script That Sells and the upcoming book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life. Grisanti started her career as an assistant to Aaron Spelling 20 years ago. Aaron was her mentor for the next 12 years as she climbed the ranks and eventually ran Current Programs at Spelling Television Inc., covering all of Spelling’s shows including Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and Charmed. In 2004, Jen was promoted to Vice President of Current Programs at CBS/Paramount where she covered shows including Medium, Numbers, NCIS, 4400 and Girlfriends. In January 2008, Jen launched Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., a consulting firm dedicated to helping talented writers break into the industry. By drawing on her 12-year experience as a studio executive where she gave daily notes to executive producers/showrunners, Jen personally guides writers to shape their material, hone their pitches, and focus their careers. Since launching, Jen has worked with over 500 writers working in television, features and novels. Thirty-one of her clients have staffed as writers on television shows and twelve have sold pilots, two that went to series. Over seventy of her clients have placed in or won writing competitions. Her brand is Developing From Within. Her company hosts Storywise Seminars and Teleseminars as a way to get this message out. She also has a Storywise Podcast Series available on iTunes and her website, www.jengrisanticonsultancy.com. The podcast digs deep into the story behind some of our top storytellers as a way to inform, motivate and inspire listeners to go after their dreams. Jen has taught classes for the TV Writers Summit, The Big Island Film Festival, Chicago Screenwriters Network, Scriptwriters Network , Screenwriting Expo, the Great American Pitchfest, the Northwestern Screenwriter’s Guild in Seattle, Alameda’s Writer’s Group. She will be speaking in Australia in September of 2012 at The Television Writers Studio. She has served on panels for the WGA, iTVFest, UFVA, PGA and The Writer’s Bootcamp.

Bob Gustafson is a television producer and development executive based in Los Angeles. His producing experience ranges from American Idol on Fox to several series on HGTV, DIY, Fox Reality, Style Network and MTV. Gustafson has been actively developing and creating shows throughout his career, most recently as West Coast Director of Development for Rivr Media. He is represented by APA.

MICHAEL HAUGE is a story consultant, author and lecturer who works with screenwriters, novelists, filmmakers, executives and film agencies both in Hollywood and around the world. He has coached writers, producers, stars and directors on projects for Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper and Morgan Freeman, as well as for every major studio and network. He is also on retainer with Will Smith’s company, Overbrook Entertainment.

Michael is the best selling author of Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds: The Guaranteed Way to Get Your Screenplay or Novel Read, as well as the new 20th Anniversary Edition of his classic book Writing Screenplays That Sell. He has presented seminars and lectures to more than 60,000 participants around the world. For information on his consultation services, products and lecture schedule, or to contact Michael directly, go to www.StoryMastery.com.

Art Holcomb began his writing career in the sixth grade (at age 13) when one of his plays was professionally performed by the American Conservatory Theater.

He has published poetry, essays and short stories and has written more than 50 comic book stories for franchises such as The X-Men, as well as original and licensed properties for Defiant, Valiant, Acclaim, Big Entertainment, FUNimation, Marvel Comics and DC Comics. His screen work has appeared on UPN, the Sci-Fi Channel and the SHOWTIME Channel.

He is the co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of the creative development firm Andromeda Entertainment, which adapts screenplays into graphic novels, creating one of the earliest sources of “illustrated screenplays.”

He has sold to the Star Trek television franchise at Paramount Studios and worked on projects with the Gene Roddenberry Estate. He has also written for the critically acclaimed animation series Shadow Raiders, as well as consulted for several video game companies, film production companies and publishing houses.

He is a regular contributor on fiction and screenwriting to storyfix.com, ranked one of the top fiction writing sites on the internet, and is a lecturer on scriptwriting and comic book/graphic novel writing at the University of California.

His most recent screenplay is Final Down (an NFL team disaster film) and is completing a workbook for writers entitled The Pass: A Proven System for Getting Quickly from Notion to Finished Manuscript.

His children’s story, Oliver and the Four-Piece Regency-Style Bedroom Set of Death is being adapted for the screen.

His writer’s companion book, Hollywood & Tao: A Screenwriter Reflects on the Tao Te Ching will be released in the fall of 2012.

Karl Iglesias is an MFA screenwriter and sought after script doctor and consultant, specializing in the reader’s emotional response to the written page. He is the author of Writing For Emotional Impact: Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader From Beginning to End, The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters, and a contributor to Now Write! Screenwriting. He teaches at UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program, where he was named Outstanding Instructor in Screenwriting in 2010, He has led workshops globally at conferences, as well as Fortune 500 companies. He can be reached through his website at karliglesias.com.

Melody Jackson, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Smart Girls Productions, celebrates 20 years in business in 2012. Her knack for understanding stories includes her trusted advisorship to more than 3000 screenwriters and a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies (a doctorate program focusing on human nature and the stories we’ve told throughout history).
Melody has critiqued well over 2500 screenplays in depth and was three times named among the industry’s Top Script Consultants by a national screenwriting magazine. She is uniquely skilled with both a creative viewpoint and an eye toward Hollywood’s commercial business interest.
Starting with consulting screenwriters on developing their scripts into strong stories with a unique hook, Jackson coaches writers on how to make their scripts most marketable, pitching, taking meetings, finding the hook, developing loglines, writing effective query letters and identifying their target markets.
Through the full-service hard copy query letters and email query blast services provided by Smart Girls, their clients have gotten into nearly every agency, production company and studio in town, including Paramount Studios, HBO, Warner Bros., Disney, Oliver Stone, Twentieth Century Fox, Searchlight Films, ICM and WME, as well as countless smaller production companies that can champion a script up the food chain.
With a proven approach that emphasizes the long-term commitment of screenwriting, Jackson focuses on helping writers shorten their all-important timelines through business education, marketing guidance and creating a team that helps make things happen and guides screenwriters throught the Hollywood maze.

Lee Jessup, a 20 year industry veteran, is a career coach for screenwriters, with an exclusive focus on the business end of screenwriting. Lee's experience includes years in film development and production, 6 years as director of ScriptShark.com, and spearheading a national Business of Screenwriting seminar series sponsored by The New York Times company. She has had articles published in Script Magazines and was the interview subject for a number film-centric television and web programs. Her clients have become best-selling authors, optioned and sold screenplays, secured representation and include established and emerging screenwriters. Lee resides in Los Angeles with her husband, her two children, a dog and a cat. To learn more about Lee and her services, visit www.leejessup.com

For almost 20 years, Steve Kaplan has been the industry's most sought-after expert on comedy writing and production. In addition to having taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale and other top universities, Kaplan created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan's Punch Line Theatre. Kaplan has served as a consultant to such companies as DreamWorks, Disney, Aardman Animation and HBO, and has worked with producers and production companies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, London, Ireland and Sweden. He is currently working on a book, The Hidden Tools of Comedy: The Serious Business of Being Funny, to be published by Michael Wiese Productions in 2013.

Carole Kirschner has worked as a senior-level television development executive for sixteen years. Her posts at CBS and as head of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment Television have given her an insider’s angle on how to get in, move up and sell projects. She currently runs the Writers Guild of America’s Showrunner Training Program and the CBS Diversity Writers Mentoring Program.
During her tenure as an executive, she heard over 3,000 pitches and hired and worked with hundreds of entertainment professionals. Through her career consulting practice, Park on the Lot, she coaches clients on exactly what they need to do to sell themselves and their projects.

Her book, Hollywood Game Plan: How to Land a Job in Film, TV or Digital Entertainment, published by Michael Wiese Productions, hit bookstores in March, 2012.

Screenwriter and producer Todd Klick is author of the bestselling books Something Startling Happens: The 120 Story Beats Every Writer Needs to Know and The Screenwriter's Fairy Tale. Klick’s screenplays have earned him recognition with the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship and the PAGE International screenwriting competitions. In addition to optioning five scripts, he recently sold a full-length screenplay and inked two deals to develop stories for the London and Broadway stages. Todd is a contributor to The Huffington Post and MovieMaker magazine, and has also appeared on Dateline NBC and NPR.

Wendy Kram is a respected, active producer working with hundreds of writers through consultations as well as studio and network deals. She has developed and produced award-winning film and television projects with Oscar talent for Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, HBO, ABC, NBC, CBS, Showtime and Lifetime. Her credits include “Mad Money” with Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes, “Making Mr. Right” with Dean Cain for Lifetime, and “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal” for CBS. Wendy is also the founder of L.A. FOR HIRE, a consulting company for international screenwriters, filmmakers and production companies seeking development expertise and Hollywood connections for selling their projects: www.la4hire.com. She is ranked by Creative Screenwriting Magazine in the Industry’s “Top 3 Picks” for “Best Script Consultants” and #1 in marketing. Known for her sharp insights about the market place, strong creative instincts, and extensive industry relationships, she provides insider tips and the right tools to help screenwriters advance their projects and careers.

Mike Kuciak served for seven years as senior vice president of development for a management/production company where he found, developed, and set up projects at Fox 2000 and Universal. Kuciak left to found the management and production company Samurai MK, where he represents screenwriters and authors, and is producing a slate of comedies and thrillers.

Paul S. Levine “wears two hats”– he is a lawyer and a literary agent. Mr. Levine has practiced entertainment law for over 29 years, representing writers and other creative types in the fields of motion pictures, television, interactive multimedia, publishing, and advertising. In 1998, Mr. Levine opened the Paul S. Levine Literary Agency, specializing in the representation of book authors and the sale of motion picture and television rights in and to books. Since starting his literary agency, Mr. Levine has sold over 80 fiction and non-fiction books to at least 30 different publishers and has had many books developed as movies-for-television and feature films. Mr. Levine represents thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, and literary fiction, as well as nonfiction with a focus on self-help, how-to, relationships, memoirs, health, women’s issues, pop culture, new age, and business. For both fiction and non-fiction books, his biggest successes have been with authors who originally self-publish their books and then wish to have their books republished by a major publishing house.

Christopher Lockhart is a Hollywood executive, filmmaker and educator.   He started his career at ICM working alongside legendary talent agent Ed Limato, advising him on projects for his star-studded clientele that included Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere, Steve Martin, Robert Downey, Jr., and Liam Neeson.   Chris also ran the Story Department and oversaw the Agent Trainee Program.   After Limato won a public lawsuit against the agency, Chris followed him to the fabled William Morris and stayed by Limato’s side through the merge with Endeavor until the time of his death in 2010.  Chris remains at WME Entertainment as the Story Editor, helping to find projects for celebrated talent like Denzel Washington.   Chris has an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he won the Public Service Prize.  He has lectured around the country and taught at Los Angeles Valley College and UCLA. Chris created a series of free screenwriting workshops that inspired a local TV special called “The Inside Pitch,” for which he earned an LA Area Emmy nomination.     He is currently an adjunct professor for National University’s MFA program in Professional Screenwriting.    As a filmmaker, Chris co-produced the 2009 cult horror movie “The Collector” (which Variety said was a “highly stylized and confident high concept thriller”).  He wrote and produced the documentary “Most Valuable Players,” which won many awards on the festival circuit (including the “Documentary Channel Audience Award” at the Nashville Film Festival).  It made its theatrical debut in 2010 and was hailed by the International Documentary Association as the “feel good documentary of the year.”   It was subsequently acquired by Oprah Winfrey to be part of her Documentary Club.  It had its broadcast premiere on OWN in 2011 (TV Guide called it “a genuine treat”) and was released on DVD & VOD earlier this year.  Chris is co-producer on “The Collection” – the sequel to his horror film - which opens nationwide on November 30, 2012.  He’s currently in pre-production on a web series to shoot early next year and has several projects in development.   Chris is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; the Writers Guild of America, West; and the Producers Guild of America.   Chris estimates he has read over 30,000 scripts throughout his career. 

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, Kopelson Entertainment and Walt Disney Pictures. Corey is 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 and UCLA MFA Screenwriting Programs, the AFI Conservatory Screenwriting Program and Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. He is also a mentor for Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab.

Danny Manus is an in-demand script consultant and CEO of No BullScript Consulting (nobullscript.net), and was ranked in the Top 15 “Cream of the Crop” Script Consultants by Creative Screenwriting Magazine in 2010. He is the author of the ebook No BS for Screenwriters: Advice from the Executive Perspective and brings an exciting new voice to the classroom, teaching seminars and workshops to writers around the country at events and venues including the Screenwriting Expo, Great American Pitchfest, ShowBiz Expo, Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference, Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, Las Vegas Writers Conference, The Writers Store, Writers Junction, Vancouver Pitchmart, etc., and to groups in LA, NY, Chicago, Dallas, Idaho, etc. He’s also appeared on the Film Courage radio show and the “On the Page” podcast.

Manus was the Director of Development for Clifford Werber Productions (A Cinderella Story) where he sold the family adventure project, To Oz, to United Artists, and was instrumental in developing numerous projects including the Amanda Bynes starrer Sydney White and the dark comedy Just Add Water, starring Dylan Walsh, Jonah Hill, Justin Long and Danny DeVito. He continues to work with the company as a producer on numerous projects and is also attached to produce several projects independently. Before launching No BullScript, Manus also worked as a freelance script analyst for companies such as ScriptShark and Script Coach.

Previously, Manus was a development consultant for Eclectic Pictures (deal with Millennium Films) and the Director of Development for Sandstorm Films, which had a first look deal at Sony Screen Gems and a development deal with Top Cow Comics. He was instrumental in developing a number of films for the company including The Covenant, 8MM2, and Sniper 3. He also interned at Columbia Tri-Star in the Television Development department and at 20th Century Fox in Feature Casting.

Manus is currently a contributing writer and columnist for The Business of Show Institute and Script magazine online. He has written articles for numerous screenwriting websites and publications including the “2010 Screenwriter’s and Playwright’s Market” and is currently writing the full-length version of his Eebook. Raised on Long Island, NY, in an amusingly dysfunctional household, Daniel holds a B.S. degree in Television with a concentration in Screenwriting from the Ithaca College Park School of Communications.

William C. Martell has written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: three for HBO, two for Showtime, two for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). He has been on some film festival juries, including Raindance in London (once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright). He's quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book The Way Hollywood Tells It. His 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 he had two films released on DVD on the same day and both made the top 10 rentals. He has two films shooting in 2012.

William Massa has been a professional screenwriter since 2000. He has sold specs and pitches and has done screenwriting work for Silver Pictures, Dark Castle, Warner Brothers, Sony, Maverick, MGM, USA and Mandalay. He is the writer of Return to House on Haunted Hill, which was one of the first movies to use Navigational Cinema technology. In addition, he has been evaluating pitches for Circle of Confusion and freelancing as a reader for the Page Awards, Creative Screenwriting and the Big Break Contest. He is currently busy adapting one of his scripts into a comic book property.

Aaron Mendelsohn has been a working screen, TV and new media writer and producer for nearly twenty years. He is best known for co-creating and co-writing the successful “Air Bud” family film franchise, which has sired eleven sequels to date.

Currently in production is the CG-animated feature Monkeyking, which Mendelsohn wrote for Hong Kong-based Unicorn/Imagi Studios. Recently he wrote the movie The 12 Dates of Chirstmas for ABC Family Channel, which aired this past Christmas. The highly rated rom com starred Amy Smart and Mark Paul Gosselar. He also wrote and produced the successful web series Secret Diary of an American Cheerleader for Cheer Channel. He is currently developing the animated series Hoods for the Cartoon Network and writing the animated feature Microzilla for Marza Studios. Among his other writing credits are the family film Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle for Studio Hamburg, the Lifetime movie Change of Heart, the Disney Channel movie The Heidi War with Zaden&Maron producing, the family feature Action Abramowitz for New Line, the independent feature Elmer McCurdy with Mark Forrester directing, the Fox series Kindred: The Embraced and the independent feature Chapter Zero, which he also directed. Mendelsohn has also written projects for Fox, Showtime, Paramount, New Regency, Bob Yari, Lightstorm, Arnold Kopelson and others.

For the last four years Mendelsohn has been working extensively in new media. Recently he started The Artists Group (formerly Virtual Artists), a digital studio that produces sponsor-supported, "water cooler" entertainment for new media platforms. TAG/Virtual Artists client have included NBCU Digital, Paramount Digital, GE, Group M, Mark Burnett, Ace Hardware, Mindshare, Lockheed Martin, Audi, Unilever, Ford, Party City and many other top media companies, agencies and brands. Currently Mendelsohn is developing the original web series The Crew for AOL and Dolphin Entertainment, starring Anne Heche.

Mendelsohn is currently serving his fourth term on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America West. You can find him on IMDB at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0578850/.

Ray Morton is a writer and script consultant. A graduate of New York University and a former screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute, Morton has co-written several produced teleplays, was a story consultant on Showtime’s groundbreaking situation comedy Brothers, was a senior writer for Script magazine, and has written four books on film history: King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon; Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Classic Film; Amadeus: Music on Film; and A Hard Day’s Night: Music on Film. In his role as a script consultant, he analyzes screenplays and provides rewrite and development notes for production companies, producers, and individual screenwriters and writes the Meet the Reader column for Scriptmag.com.

Ellen Sandler received an Emmy nomination for her work as Co-Executive Producer of Everybody Loves Raymond and she is the author of The TV Writer’s Workbook (Bantam/Dell) which is used as a text book at UCLA, USC, Stanford and NYU.

Sandler has had a long career as a writer/producer on many prime time TV shows, and has created pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Family, Oxygen and the Disney Channel, as well as consulted internationally on pilots for the ABC Australia; the CBC Canada; Media Marketing, Dubai; and MediaCorp, Singapore.

As a teacher and a consultant, Sandler provides script development and career coaching for professionals and emerging writers in the entertainment industry, as well as writing workshops and seminars at conferences and universities both in the US and abroad.

She is a member of the Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild. She holds a BS from Syracuse University and an MFA from The American Film Institute.

Jeffrey Alan Schechter is a WGA, WGC, Emmy and BAFTA-nominated writer, a million-dollar spec screenplay seller, a Gemini award winning producer, and the developer of the underlying story principles behind Mariner Software’s Contour Story Development program. Schechter’s credits span the worlds of features and television, live action and animation.

In features, his work includes Bloodsport 2, Street Knight, The Amazing Panda Adventure, Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!, It Takes Two, Beethoven’s 3rd, I'll Be Home for Christmas, and Breakaway.

In television, Schechter has written and/or served as executive story editor on dozens of episodes for series such as The Famous Jett Jackson, Animorphs, Martin Mystery, Totally Spies!, Team Galaxy, Get Ed, Freefonix, Di-Gata Defenders, Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5, and Jane and the Dragon.

He was an executive story editor and director on the hit Discovery Kids/NBC series Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (aka Black Hole High), for which he was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing. His work also earned the series a BAFTA Award nomination for Best International Series. Jeff has also co-created and executive-produced several television series, most recently Overruled!, which earned him a Gemini award in 2010 for Best Children's Series.

Recognizing the need for killer content on tablet devices, Jeff co-founded PadWorx Digital Media Inc. PadWorx has had three book/apps crowned iTunes "Apps of the Week," with Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition going on to win a Publishing Innovation Award for Fiction in 2010.

Brad Schreiber is the author of What Are You Laughing At?: How to Write Funny Screenplays, Stories and More (Michael Wiese) and five other books. He has also written for Daily Variety, Script, The Writer and has won awards from the National Press Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, International Book Awards and other organizations. Schreiber was Vice President of Storytech Literary Consulting, founded by Christopher Vogler, and now does literary consulting via BradSchreiber.com. He created the Court TV series North Mission Road, inspired by his book on the L.A. Coroner, Death in Paradise. Schreiber has been a writer-producer and executive for KCET-TV (PBS) and head of development for film/TV director Jonathan Kaplan. He is currently adapting his biography Becoming Jimi Hendrix as both a film and a musical.

José Silerio is a screenwriter who served as Blake Snyder’s development director. Silerio has been integral to the success of Snyder’s workshops and classes as he worked alongside Snyder schooling writers in the “Cat!” method. As a teacher and consultant, Silerio continues to help numerous writers learn Snyder’s paradigm and apply it to their projects. “José is my right-hand man when it comes to script consultations.”– Blake Snyder, Save the Cat!® Strikes Back More Trouble for Writers to Get Into… and Out Of.

Dwayne Alexander Smith is a screenwriter represented by The Gersh Agency and Circle of Confusion. He's sold four spec screenplays and has been hired by studios for numerous rewrites. In 2009, Smith created a hidden camera show called True Colors for Sony Television’s website Crackle. Currently, he’s the author of the book Ten Simple F*cking Rules for Writing a Great F*cking Screenplay and the host of the weekly podcast “Damn Good Movie Show.” He also has two feature thrillers scheduled to shoot this year, Stuck and God Fearing. Just last month Dwayne sold his first novel, a thriller titled Forty Acres, to Simon and Schuster. Forty Acres will be released to bookstores January 2014.

Pamela Jaye Smith is a mythologist, writer, international consultant/speaker and award-winning producer/director. Her books are The Power of the Dark Side, Inner Drives, Symbols-Images-Codes and Beyond the Hero’s Journey. Clients and credits include Microsoft, Disney, Paramount, Universal, RAI-TV Rome, UCLA, USC, AFI, Natl. Film School of Denmark, LA WebFest, Marseilles WebFest, Romance Writers of America, and many more. She is founder of MYTHWORKS and co-founder of the Alpha Babe Academy and of Mythic Challenges, in affiliation with the UN Millennium Project.

Brian Spink is a literary manager/producer at boutique management company REALM which he founded in January 2011. Prior to that, he spent over a decade at Benderspink. He represents screenwriters and directors in film & television as well as comic book writers. Feature projects that Brian is executive producing include ABDUCTED at Paramount, LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER at Millennium, SHADOWS OF PARIS at Telefilm, and UNT. THRILLER with Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity). His clients have worked at every studio and with A-list filmmakers including Sam Raimi, Roland Emmerich, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Ridley Scott, Phillip Noyce, John Woo, Robert Schwentke, David Goyer, Kathleen Kennedy, Mark Gordon, Gale Anne Hurd, Chuck Roven, and Will Smith.

Jeanne Veillette Bowerman is Editor and Online Community Manager of ScriptMag.com and the co-founder and moderator of the weekly Twitter screenwriter chat, #Scriptchat. She writes a column for ScriptMag entitled Balls of Steel and has written several spec scripts, including the adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery by Another Name, with its author, Douglas A. Blackmon, former senior national correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. More information can be found on her blog: www.jeannevb.com.

Joan Wai is Program Manager of the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. She previously worked as a script consultant and story analyst, and judged various screenwriting competitions including the Nicholl Fellowships, Sundance Workshops, and Writer’s Digest. Joan earned her screenwriting degree from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

About the Nicholl Fellowships
The Academy’s Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is an international screenwriting competition established to identify and encourage talented new screenwriters. Up to five $35,000 fellowships are awarded annually. Last year’s competition drew a record 6,730 entries. Since the program’s inception in 1985, 123 fellowships have been awarded.

Michele Wallerstein is an author and screenplay, novel and career consultant, whose work with writers includes helping them get their work into shape so that it is marketable for the Hollywood community and/or the publishing world. Wallerstein’s career consulting also consists of private meetings where she can answer all of the questions that new writers have about their creative work as well as questions about the business side of their creative life.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Wallerstein was a Hollywood literary agent where she represented writers, directors and producers in motion pictures, movies for television and television series. Wallerstein served as Executive Vice-President of Women In Film and was on the Board of Directors for many years. She owned The Wallerstein Company and guided the careers of writers such as Larry Hertzog (Tin Man, La Femme Nikita, 24), Carol Mendelsohn (Fame, J.J.Starbuck, Stingray, CSI), Christopher Lofton (Robinson Crusoe, Call of the Wild, Scarlett, True Women), Peter Bellwood (Highlander, La Femme Nikita), J.Stanford (Bootsie) Parker (Booty Call; Married, With Children; The Hughley’s), and many others.

Wallerstein has been a guest speaker at numerous film festivals, pitch fests and writer’s groups all across the country. She teaches the ins and outs of navigating the world of Hollywood. She is also the author of: Mind Your Business: A Hollywood Literary Agent’s Guide To Your Writing Career.

Richard Walter is a celebrated storytelling guru, movie industry expert, and longtime chairman of UCLA’s legendary graduate program in screenwriting. A screenwriter and published novelist, his latest book, Essentials of Screenwriting, is available in stores now. Professor Walter lectures throughout North America and the world and serves as a court-authorized expert in intellectual property litigation. For more information and to order the new Essentials of Screenwriting, visit richardwalter.com. Contact Professor Walter at rwalter@tft.ucla.edu if you would like to subscribe to his monthly screenwriting tips newsletter.

Terri Zinner is SVP of Development with Gallagher Literary. She has been with Gallagher Literary for over 13 years. She is also an independent film producer (Straight Edge), screenwriter and works as a freelance story consultant. She provided development notes on the Academy Award nominated film Albert Nobbs and other produced films such as The Howling: Reborn and Bed & Breakfast. She runs her own websites, afilmwriter.com and hollywoodreadertraining. Zinner's specialty is in story development with the hopes of bringing them to the market. Gallagher Literary is a film finance, packaging, production and literary management company where we work with a select list of talented and prolific producers, screenwriters and directors. Rob Gallagher was EVP for the biggest international film finance and distribution company, GAGA, and traveled the world to finance films and meet with the heads of every studio, production company and agency.