Come learn about the latest trends in the world of film. AWC-SB launches their new series of programs on “Giving Voice: Leadership, Education, Community” with Women Giving Voice Through Film. A panel of industry professionals, moderated by former Santa Barbara County Film Commissioner Martine White, takes place Wednesday, October 1, 5:30-7:30 pm at Antioch University in downtown Santa Barbara. The four award-winning panelists, Dale Griffiths Stamos, Pamela Gray, Gwyn Lurie, and Kathleen Sharp each possess varied talents across the board in the entertainment biz. They will discuss the unique voice women bring to screenwriting, and how the film development process has changed over the years in both film and Television. The event is free to members; $20 for Non-members of AWC.
Wednesday, October 1, 5:30- 7:30 pm
Antioch University Santa Barbara, Community Hall
602 Anacapa Street,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
AWC-SB Members Free; Nonmembers $20
Moderator: Martine White has 35 years of experience in TV, film and video production including 15 years in location management with credits such as Scandal, Bones, White House Down, GI Joe, Sister Act II, Absolute Power and Batman Forever. She is currently TV Santa Barbara’s Director of Programs, which includes business development, and building alliances with area nonprofits, schools and colleges. Martine began her career as a copywriter and associate producer at KTTV Metromedia in Los Angeles. Serving as Santa Barbara County Film Commissioner (2001-2008), Martine and her team built an award-winning website and online location library, and was key in building a countywide coalition supporting filming. She was deeply involved in facilitating the production of the Oscar-winning movie Sideways that helped transform the area into a wine tourism and filming destination.
Panelists:
Dale Griffiths Stamos is a multi-award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose long and short plays have been produced and published in the United States and abroad, and whose short films have appeared in numerous film festivals. Among her theatrical productions are her full-length plays One White Crow and Dialectics of the Heart, and two evenings of thematic one-acts, Love Struck and Thicker Than Water. In film, Dale wrote screenplay adaptations of two of her short plays, Matchmade and Identity, which have been produced as the short films Match Made and Lost Music. Both star multi Emmy award-winner, Barbara Bain. Match Made screened at four festivals: Cinema at the Edge Festival (where it won Audience Award), Palms Springs International Shortfest, Sedona International Film Festival (where it won Audience Choice Award) and Newport Beach Film Festival. It was also featured at the Orange County Film Society Shorts Showcase. Lost Music, completed in July of 2014, screened at Cinema at the Edge Independent Film Festival where it received the Jury Award for Short. Dale’s feature-length screenplay adaptation of her play One White Crow, has been optioned for film. She has also written a feature-length version of her short, Match Made. Additional awards and recognitions include the Heideman Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville, top ten winner (twice) in the Writer’s Digest Stage Play Competition, first prize in the Jewel Box Theatre’s Original Playwrighting Competition and an Emmy nomination for shared story credit on the CBS special: Words Up. Dale teaches a yearly workshop on story structure at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and has conducted workshops and presentations for writers throughout the Southern California area.
Pamela Gray is the screenwriter of Conviction, which won Best Picture at the Boston Film Festival and had gala premieres at the 2010 Toronto, Mill Valley, and London Film Festivals. Conviction star Hilary Swank earned a SAG nomination for Best Actress, and co-star Sam Rockwell earned a Critics Choice nomination. The film received a National Board of Review “Freedom of Expression Award” and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. Pamela’s other credits include Music of the Heart, which earned Meryl Streep an Oscar nomination, and A Walk on the Moon, produced by Dustin Hoffman, starring Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen, and rated #9 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of the “50 Sexiest Movies of All Time.” Pamela has written screenplays for Warner Bros., New Line, Miramax, Disney, Paramount, Universal and HBO, pilot scripts for CBS and ABC, and an episode of the critically-acclaimed new drama The Divide. Pamela is adapting A Walk on the Moon into a Broadway-bound musical. A workshop production of the musical premiered at New York Stage and Film’s 2014 Powerhouse Season. Pamela is currently writing a feature adaptation of the best-selling novel The Husband’s Secret. Variety named Pamela one of “Ten Screenwriters to Watch.”
Gwyn Lurie adapted the Oliver Sacks story The Last Hippie which became The Music Never Stopped starring JK Simmonds and Julia Ormond (Sundance opening selection, 2010). Gwyn started in broadcast news (ABC/Cap Cities) upon completion of her studies at UCLA and then Oxford University where she studied international affairs as a Newton Tatum Scholar. She produced the award winning documentary Voices From the Attic about her mother’s years in hiding during the holocaust. Gwyn then worked as a film executive first at 20th Century Fox Night at the Movies and then Interscope Entertainment before venturing onto the creative side as a screenwriter. Gwyn has written for Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Anniston among others, has adapted many high profile literary works including Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG, and is currently working on, among other things, an original novel entitled: The Little Guy. Gwyn is also currently serving a four year term as a member on the Montecito Union School Board to which she was elected to in 2010.
Kathleen Sharp is an award-winning journalist, top-selling author, screenwriter and film producer. Her latest book Blood Medicine (Dutton/Plume 2012), received excellent reviews from Newsweek, Boston Globe, and was a Top Ten Pick of Oprah’s O Magazine. The book is being developed by New Regency with producer Alli Shearmur (The Hunger Games) and screenwriters Adam Cooper and Bill Collage (Tower Heist). Kathleen also wrote Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood (Carroll & Graf), the dual biography of movie mogul Lew Wasserman and his wife, which Kirkus called “dramatic and enthralling.” Kathleen turned it into a film documentary, The Last Mogul, which had a gala premiere at the Palm Springs Film Festival and played at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It was released theatrically by ThinkFilm (2005) and hailed as “extremely classy” (Variety). She’s consulted for Bravo, A&E, and for the Turner Classic Movie mini-series, Moguls and Movie Stars. She’s now developing a project with Lionsgate. A former West Coast correspondent for the Boston Globe, Kathleen has written for Playboy, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times Magazine among others, and has been honored with a fellowship from USC Annenberg School for Communication. She chairs an awards committee for the International Thriller Writers, volunteers with Partners in Education and sits on a committee of the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation.