WRITING FOR FILM + TV INSTRUCTORS
CRYSTAL VERGE
SCREENWRITING DEPARTMENT HEAD
Crystal Verge is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright. Her feature screenplay Defiant won several prestigeous placements including a top finalist of Hedgebrook’s 2017 Women’ Screenwriter’s Lab with Advisors Jane Anderson, (The Wife, Olive Kitteridge) and Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Memoirs of a Geisha), a 2019 Nicholl Felowship quarterfinalist, and a finalist for the VWIFF International Screenwriting Competition. She has written two movies for television and currently has a theatrical feature film in development with producer Robin Cass.
Crystal writes plays and non-fiction as well and has won awards for both. Her play Criminal was a 2017 finalist in Nightwood Theatre’s National Playwrighting Competition and a 2018 finalist in BC’s Flying Start Program. Her non-fiction has been featured in magazines and periodicals around the world. She is also an actor who has had numerous lead roles on stages across Canada and numerous supporting and principal roles in Television and Film.
She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and a Diploma in Theatre Arts from George Brown College, Toronto.
ROSLYN MUIR
SCREENWRITING
Roslyn Muir is an award-winning screenwriter who writes YA stories, family drama and thrillers. She was a writer on the Global/CBS one-hour drama, Ransom, created by Frank Spotnitz (Man in the High Castle). Roslyn has also written several movies that have aired on TV around the world: Washed Away, Stranger in the House, and Reluctant Witness to name a few. Roslyn also wrote and produced the dramatic feature film, The Birdwatcher, directed by Siobhan Devine. Her co-written, half-hour YA comedy, The Tutors, is in development with the CBC. Roslyn has a MFA from UBC’s Creative Writing Program.
JACKIE BLACKMORE
SCREENWRITING
Jackie Blackmore is a professional Film & TV Actor, Director, Sketch Comedian, Improviser, Award-winning Playwright & Comedy Writer with over 30 years of experience.
Jackie has a BFA in Media Arts from Emily Carr University. As an Instructor, Jackie has taught at InFocus Film School, Instant Theatre, Carousel Theatre, and Arts Umbrella. As a writer, Jackie has written sketches, plays & short films, was a comedy TV writer for Off Centre Television, and is currently developing two feature film screenplays. She’s written & performed in many sketch comedy groups including Strapless Comedy, The Skinny, Grimaldi’s Asylum, Blackout Broadcast, Off Centre Television, Terribly Inappropriate, One Night Stand, Radio Edit, Tight Corset Theatre, & The Legend of Bonefish.
Jackie is extremely passionate about comedy & storytelling and she loves to inspire new writers to use comedy to entertain & incite change!
WANETA STORMS
SCREENWRITING
After completing her residency at the CFC TV Writing Program, Waneta Storms became a Writer/Consulting Producer for four seasons of the CTV/Ion/eOne/ICF dramatic series Saving Hope. She then helped develop, write, and consult on the CBC/Back Alley one-hour series, The Coroner, with creator Morwyn Brebner. She co-produced and wrote for the limited-series dramas Bellevue (CBC/Back Alley), as well as Pure (CBC/WGN/Two East Productions). Recently, she wrote a comedy webisode for The Communist Daughter (Natalie Novak Films/LocoMotion Pictures). Currently, she is adapting Cracked, a novel by Barbra Leslie, into a one-hour dramatic series for High Dive Media and Lark Ent.
Waneta has also worked extensively as an actor. She trained at Simon Fraser University and the National Theatre School of Canada. She has been nominated for a Gemini Award four times, once for her Guest-starring role on Blue Murder, and three times for Lead Actress on The Eleventh Hour. She has won a Dora Award for her performance in DVxT’s theatre production of Lynn Seifert’s Coyote Ugly.
RYAN BRIGHT
SCREENWRITING
Ryan Bright is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter working out of Vancouver. His first short film, ‘Til Death, won Best Screenplay honours at the Vancouver Short Film Festival. Ryan is a two-time Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship Semi-Finalist. His feature script, We Came From the Sea, was selected for the NSI Features First Program and won the DGC Legacy Award. He was nominated for a Leo award for the film Reset, which has been viewed more than a million times. Ryan studied screenwriting at the University of British Columbia where he received his MFA.
DAVID VAISBORD
SCREENWRITING
David Vaisbord completed his Bachelors of Arts at the UBC before going to Emily Carr to complete his Masters of Arts in Applied Arts, Art, Filmmaking, and Multimedia.
Some of David Vaisbord’s films and documentaries include Drawing Out the Demons, Juicy Danger Meets Burning Man, Mischa, Britannia Beach, and Dark Pines: An Investigation into the Death of Tom Thomson. In 2008 Vaisbord embedded himself in a low-income community and created the hyperlocal doc project The Little Mountain Project, iterating several short advocacy films, a website and blogsite, gallery installations, a successful crowdfunding campaign and an MA thesis.
From 2014 – 2019 through his participation on executive boards for both national and local chapters, Vaisbord lent his leadership skills to the growth of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. Throughout, Vaisbord was continuously inspired by the passion, wit and imagination of documentary filmmakers and is looking forward to a lively exchange of ideas with the students at the InFocus Film School.
JULIA KWAN
SCREENWRITING
Julia Kwon, a writer and director living in Vancouver, was a director resident at the Canadian Film Centre, where she made her award-winning short drama, Three Sisters on Moon Lake. Ms. Kwan’s feature film debut, Eve & the Fire Horse, had its international premiere at The Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize for World Cinema and screened at over 30 film festivals. Since then, Ms. Kwan has written and directed numerous short and feature-length films in different genres (drama, documentary, and/or animation) over the years, including the NFB’s Everything Will Be, her award-winning debut feature documentary and The Zoo, an animated short film. Ms. Kwan is driven to tell original stories that resonate and entertain as well as inspire others to use their distinct voices to tell their diverse stories.
CARLEEN KYLE
SCRENWRITING
Carleen Kyle has directed and written for a variety of media—features, shorts, corporate projects, and a music video. She directed the TV pilot for Scrounger, which was nominated for a Gemini in the Best Drama category, won the Saskatchewan Showcase Best Drama award, and earned a Best Director nomination.
“The Weather Girl,” her Crazy8s and festival-featured short, was the Best Female Director recipient at the Vancouver Short Film Festival and received multiple Leo Award nominations including Best Screenplay. Her feature screenplay “Interspecies Family Therapy” won the 2015 From Our Dark Side competition from Women in Film and Television, sponsored by Telefilm, Creative BC and Superchannel.
Carleen turned the camera on herself in the feature-length documentary Heavy Heart Laughs, using stand-up comedy to recover from trauma with humour. Her feature screenplay “Pearl’s Cut & Curl” was the winner of a Praxis Centre for Screenwriting fellowship and was selected to represent Canada for the prestigious Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Award where it received honourable mention.
Carleen holds a BFA from the University of Regina where for two consecutive years she was honoured with Best Student Film.
TITUS HECKEL
SCREENWRITING
Titus Heckel is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter. As writer-director, his most recent work is the psychological crime thriller CHAINED for which he won the national “One to Watch” award by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle. He was also nominated for Best Screenplay by the VFCC, the Leos, and the NY Int’l Awards. His work has screened around the world, premiering his debut feature WITH CHILD — which he both wrote and directed — at the 2014 Busan International Film Festival in Korea. His screenplays have consistently received notice at the highest levels of the industry, including a three-time quarter or semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting with three different scripts, and twice placing in the Austin Film Festival Screenplay competition. He’s written for television and more recently for a Lifetime TV thriller. His wide-ranging education in both physics (University of Minnesota) and a graduate degree in theology give him a commanding range on the stories he creates.
ROBERT CHOMIAK
SCREENWRITING
Robert Chomiak is co-writer of the award-winning zombie-comedy cult feature Fido. He has written English adaptations for three animated theatrical features (Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Escaflowne – The Movie) and 207 episodes on seven animated series (Gundam Seed, Zoids, Inuyasha) which have aired on Cartoon Network and Teletoon.
Other television work includes the sitcom Alienated and the Gemini-nominated children’s special Twisteeria. Robert’s pilot script “Slaughter Landing” has been optioned to Frantic Films and MarVista and is currently out to broadcasters.
His screenplays have received development funding from Telefilm, Harold Greenberg, and BC Film. He is co-writer of the R-rated comedy screenplay “My A**hole Neighbour” which was selected for the Comedy Exchange program sponsored by the Canadian Film Centre. Most recently his comedy feature project “ex-gf’s” was awarded $50,000 in development from the NSI/Corus Script to Screen program.
Robert graduated with a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Lethbridge and studied for two years in the Simon Fraser University film program.
NATHANIEL MOHER
SCREENWRITING
Nathaniel Moher is an award-winning writer/producer from Vancouver, Canada, known for his work on the Disney/YTV animated series Go Away, Unicorn, APTN drama Smoke(d), YTV/Netflix’s half-hour sitcom Some Assembly Required, YTV/Disney’s sitcom Mr. Young, City TV/Hulu sitcom Package Deal, and Disney’s Pup Academy. His MOW, Hopeless Romantic, premiered on the Pixl network in 2016. He’s also worked in theatre, with his play, The Night We Missed The Apocalypse, which he co-wrote, premiering in 2012 at The Cultch in Vancouver, Canada. Beyond his film and television writing, Nathaniel has written for various publications, some of which include The Gabriola Sounder, Backofthebook.ca, and The Flying Shingle.
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