Lesson 7 - The Implication of Genre

Anne Marie Gillen, CEO of Gillen Group, LLC is an independent Producer whose goal is to develop and produce commercially successful entertainment that expresses heart and enlightens the human experience. She is extensively experienced in motion picture and television development and has exceptional relationships with studios, international distributors, production and acting talent.

Presently Anne Marie’s film slate includes the recently released Cabin 14 Production Into Temptation starring Kristin Chenoweth and Jeremy Sisto; she is producing The Schwa Was Here based on the bestselling Young Adult novel written by Neal Shusterman; and developing and producing Charlie’s Place with director Thomas Carter (Save the Last Dance, Coach Carter, Swing Kids). In Fall 2010 Ms. Gillen released her first book – the 3rd edition of The Producer’s Business Handbook – through Focal Press and co-branded by Variety.

 

Ms. Gillen is a lecturer and panelist and gives workshop seminars for such organizations as:  International Institute of Film Financing (IIFF), Show Biz Expo, Screenwriters Expo, UCLA Film School, USC Film School, Chapman University, Act One Producer Program, Century City Chamber of Commerce Entertainment Symposiums, Independent Feature Project seminars in New York, Minneapolis and Cannes, France, California Lawyers for the Arts, Women In Film, and Playback.

 

From 2002 – May 2006, Anne Marie was consulting to Entertainment Business Group (EBG) as their President, Development & Production, an independent motion picture and television funding, global rights sales, research, analysis and business services entity.

 

From 1996 – 2001, Anne Marie was the Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Freeman’s company, Revelations Entertainment. She led the company in the strategic financing and distribution of Revelations’ projects. During her tenure, Revelations Entertainment produced Along Came the Spider for Paramount; developed Port Chicago Mutiny for NBC Network; and developed, independently financed and produced Under Suspicion starring Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman for Sony Premiere DVDs/Lions Gate.

 

Prior to her tenure at Revelations Entertainment, Anne Marie was co-founder and CEO of Electric Shadow Productions, and it’s Chair. Electric Shadow fully financed, and Anne Marie was the Executive Producer of its first feature, Fried Green Tomatoes which was released by Universal and starred Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy. This picture earned over $200 million worldwide and was nominated for two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes.

 

She came to Electric Shadow Productions from Hemdale Releasing Corporation where she was Vice President of Acquisitions and Ancillary Sales. During her tenure, Hemdale was one of the leading independent film companies producing such films as: Platoon winner of Best Picture and Best Director, Hoosiers, The Last Emperor winner of nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay.

Chris Huntley is an Academy Award-winning software developer and Vice President of Write Brothers® Inc. Chris is also the co-creator of Dramatica®, an acclaimed theory of story and the basis of the popular Writer's DreamKit™ and Dramatica® Pro software. Chris regularly teaches workshops and classes on story structure and development.

While an undergraduate in Cinema Production at the University of Southern California, Chris created several short films, including the award-winning animated short, “Daddy’s Gone a’ Hunting,” which was chosen as the short film screened before the world premiere of the George Romero film, “Dawn of the Dead.” After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cinema Production, Chris worked for several years in the film industry.

In 1982, Chris went into business with fellow USCinema alum, Stephen Greenfield, and formed Screenplay Systems Inc., now doing business as Write Brothers® Inc. Together they created Scriptor™, the world’s first professional screenplay formatting software, for which they won a 1994 Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They went on to produce other award winning, industry standard software, such as Movie Magic® Budgeting and Movie Magic® Scheduling, Dramatica® Pro, Writer’s DreamKit, Movie Magic® Screenwriter, StoryView™, Word Menu® and more.

As co-creator of the Dramatica® story theory, the co-author of “Dramatica: A New Theory of Story” (1994), and co-developer of the Dramatica® Pro and Writer’s DreamKit™ software, Chris has spent thirty years working with narrative theory and its practical application.

Today, Chris splits his time working as Vice President of Write Brothers® Inc. between design work for new products and overseeing day-to-day business affairs. Chris also spends a fair amount of time giving workshops in story development in the U.S. and abroad.

Educated at Harvard and The Yale School of Drama, he began his writing career as a playwright: Failing, Rain in Lent, and Peter and Wendy.

Among his  produced screenplays: Under the Volcano, directed by John Huston;  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, directed by Peter Hunt;  The Enormous Radio, an episode of Tales from the Dark Side. His poetry and fiction have been published in BOMB and the Mississippi Review.

 

Guy has taught screenwriting at the Film Division of the Columbia University School of the Arts for over twenty years.  He also teaches at Columbia and Barnard College.  And has taught the history of modern drama at Princeton and NYU.

 

The Last Christmas, a screenplay written in collaboration with his wife Jeannine Dominy, is creeping up on pre-production. Most recently he has completed two stage play, Passage and Still Life with Nude, and a screenplay Hawker.

 

His book on screenwriting, Screenwriter’s Compass: Character as True North, was published by Focal Press in March, 2012.

 Ken Dancyger is Chairman of the Undergraduate Department of Film and Television, New York University, one of the leading programs in Film/TV in the United States, and a past president of the University Film and Video Association. Has also taught various film courses in the United States at Boston University, Emerson College, and Clark University and in Canada at Sheridan College and York University. He has edited a number of his own productions for film and television and is a screenwriter of numerous documentaries and dramas for film and television. In addition, he has been a director, production manager, producer, story editor, and script consultant for various films. He is the author of Broadcast Writing, Alternative Scriptwriting, The Technique of Film and Video Editing and Writing the Short Film (Focal Press).

SUZANNE LYONS has over 25 years experience in television and film. She was VP of Marketing and Promotions for a Canadian TV Network and while there she created, produced and directed news and series programming and has won numerous awards for her work. In 1999 Ms. Lyons co-founded Snowfall Films and Snowfall has produced or executive produced eight movies, including British comedy UNDERTAKING BETTY (aka “PLOTS WITH A VIEW”) with actors Brenda Blethyn, Alfred Molina, Naomi Watts, Lee Evans and Christopher Walken and British director Nick Hurran. Miramax is the domestic distributor. UNDERTAKING BETTY has won a BAFTA award and in now being turned into a Broadway musical. Snowfall Films produced a British/Canadian co-production thriller titled JERICHO MANSIONS staring James Caan, Genevieve Bujold, Maribel Verdu and Jennifer Tilly with Spanish director Alberto Sciamma. JERICHO MANSIONS was an official selection at the Montreal Film Festival.