New Platforms for Writers
by Website Update on March 28, 2011 in Distribution
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As hype rapidly builds for new platforms and technologies for screenwriters and filmmakers to tell their stories, competition is growing stiffer for more traditional writers to “make it” – unless they, too, become curious about these new methods. In this conversation with “Onion News Network” Head Writer Carol Kolb, who took the show from a web series to national broadcast; Noah Harlan, a filmmaker and content developer for story-driven apps; and the writing team behind Writers Guild Award-winning web series “Anyone But Me”, we discuss these new landscapes, and how to approach them.
From the 2011 Script to Screen Conference
Moderator
Noah Harlan, Producer, Tehilim, Avanim, The Vanishing Point
Noah Harlan is an Emmy Award winning producer of a broad array of media. Noah has produced or co-produced six internationally acclaimed feature films, the majority of which were international co-productions. These films include the Israeli films Tehlim (Cannes Competition 2007) and Avanim(Berlin Panorama Special 2004), the French feature The Vanishing Point (Ce Que Mes Yeux Ont VuI) – Rome Competition 2007, the French-Japanese co-production Plum Rain (La Pluie Des Prunes) – Venice Days 2007, and the US-French co-production Apartment #5C (Cannes Director’s Fortnight 2002). Noah has also produced several documentary projects including the French television documentary What Rashi Said (Ce Que Dit Rashi) and he received an Emmy Award for A Clearing in the Fog, produced in collaboration with WGBH Boston. In addition to films, he has produced media content projects for a variety of brands, formats and television networks including Chevrolet, Audi, Lincoln/Mercury, Southwest Airlines, MTV, College Sports Television and others. He is also the co-founder of Two Bulls, a mobile and immersive reality media company which has built projects for an array of major brands around the world. Noah is a CineMart Producer’s Lab alumnus and was a 2008 Sundance Institute Producing Fellow.
Participants
Carol Kolb, Head Writer, Onion News Network
Carol Kolb is Head Writer of the Onion News Network, The Onion’s Peabody Award-winning web video series and the IFC television show by the same name. Before helping create video for The Onion, Carol served as Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper and website. Hailing from a small town in Wisconsin, Carol began writing for The Onion more than ten years ago while attending college at UW-Madison. There she worked on seminal Onion projects as the Thurber Prize-winning book, Our Dumb Century, while the Onion writing team was still based in Wisconsin. She now lives in New York City with her husband and her dog Dummy.
Ursula Lawrence, Lead Strategic Organizer, Writers Guild of America, East
Ursula Lawrence is Lead Strategic Organizer, Writers Guild of America, East. Her primary tasks include expanding the Guild’s membership in independent film and digital media. Prior to working at the WGAE, Lawrence spent three years as a field representative for the Directors Guild of America, where she was responsible for visiting DGA members on the sets of feature films, television shows, broadcast news and commercials. Lawrence graduated from Oberlin College and achieved candidacy for a PhD in Sociology at the University of Michigan, before leaving academia to pursue a career in the entertainment unions.
Susan Miller, Writer, Anyone But Me
Susan Miller is the winner of the first WGA award given for Outstanding Writing in Original New Media, along with Tina Cesa Ward, for the webseries Anyone But Me. Miller is an Obie award winning playwright and Guggenheim Fellow whose work includes the critically acclaimed one-woman play, My Left Breast, and A Map of Doubt And Rescue (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize). She’s been produced at The Public Theatre, Second Stage, Naked Angels, and New York Stage & Film, among others. Miller was a Consulting Producer/writer on the first season of Showtime’s “The L Word” as well as ABC’s landmark series, “Thirtysomething.” She’s written original screenplays for Disney, Universal, Warner Brothers, and Fox. Her screen credits include Lady Beware with Diane Lane and The Grand Design, directed by and starring Eric Stoltz. In addition to writing and executive producing the Streamy, Webby, Telly winning, Anyone But Me, Miller also created and wrote the new webseries, Bestsellers.
Tina Cesa Ward, Writer, Anyone But Me
Tina Cesa Ward is a writer and director for the screen and also directs for the stage. Her stage work earned her the Jean Dalrymple Award for Best Director. Her short film In Their Absence has screened in over a dozen festivals around the world and was awarded five times both domestically and abroad. Tina is the Executive Producer/Writer/Director of the popular web series, Anyone But Me. Tina recently won the first ever Writers Guild Award for New Media with co-writer Susan Miller for their work on Anyone But Me. Tina has been nominated four times for her directing, including a Streamy Award nomination, and has been awarded over a half dozen times for her writing/producing work on Anyone But Me. Tina recently directed the branded web series Bestsellers. Between the stage, screen and web, Tina has been awarded over a dozen times.