Linda Bisesti
Linda Bisesti is Professor and Head of Acting at the Department of Theatre and New Dance at Cal State Polytechnic University in Pomona, where she also serves as voice coach and directs. She’s been on the faculty of California State University/Long Beach, teaching voice in the MFA program, and at the University of Massachusetts/Boston. Guest Lecturer and Guest Artist positions include The Actors’ Center in London and Wellesley College Summer Theatre. A working SAG-AFTRA and AEA actor, Linda’s work has been seen at the Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, and Slamdance Festivals and at AFI. Her TV credits are numerous. Among her theatre credits: the L.A. Women’s Shakespeare Co., New Jersey Shakespeare, and Boston’s Shear Madness at the Charles Playhouse. California credits include The Laguna Playhouse, a Backstage West Award for Best Comic Performance, the Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts, and Cal-Rep. She’s the Artistic Director of the Southern California Shakespeare Festival. She’s coached actors for Broadway productions, as well as on the West Coast, and has worked on set for features and TV as a dialect coach and in post-production ADR. She currently coaches working actors at all levels for theatre, TV and film. She received her MFA from Boston University School for the Arts.
Doug Dearth
Doug Dearth directed and produced the award-winning documentary, 9000 Needles, and has produced documentaries for the critically acclaimed Vanguard Documentary Series on Current TV. He’s served in various positions from Music Coordinator to Associate Producer and Second Unit Director on multiple films for John Cusack’s New Crime Productions, including Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity. He’s also worked as an actor with noted directors Stephen Frears, Bruce Beresford, Clint Eastwood and Harold Ramis. Doug directed and produced the feature film Underdogs, filmed on location in Canton, Ohio. Upcoming, he’s slated to direct the feature film Three Dog Night, on which he’s also co-writer. Doug’s production company, One In A Row Films, is based in Santa Monica.
Jen Klein
Jen Klein began her screenwriting career in animation. Her first produced TV episode was for Totally Spies on Fox Family. It was followed by Bratz, Dinosaur Train, Pet Alien, I Got A Rocket, and Danger Rangers. Jen also wrote the pilot for Kingdom Hearts for Walt Disney Television Animation, she was a writer on Clone Wars for LucasFilm, and was Emmy-nominated for her work on ToddWorld on Discovery Kids. In 2012, she was head writer and supervising producer on a web series—Matching the Drapes—for MultiView, Inc. Currently, she has a one-hour drama—Launching Pad—with FanFare Productions and Sony Television, plus a half-hour comedy—Once Upon A Tween—with The Jim Henson Company. Jen is an active member of Writers Guild of America, west, and she occasionally works as a script or story consultant.
Jill Maxcy
A graduate of Western Washington University with a BA in Film Theory, Jill Maxcy has been writing and directing since college. She studied music video directing at the Art Institute of Seattle and directed various band videos during the beginning of Grunge. Her keen understanding of light and framing comes from her father, Russ Maxcy, who worked for Eastman Kodak. Jill’s talent was revealed in her awarding-winning short film, Never Rob A Bank With Someone You Love, which played in over 60 film festivals. Jill has gone on to direct four low budget feature films, all of which received distribution. Jill has also worked in the film and TV industry as an Assistant Director.
Jack Messitt
Jack Messitt has worked as a Director of Photography and Camera Operator for close to 20 years. A graduate of the American Film Institute, Jack made his directorial debut with Midnight Movie, which he co-wrote. After winning Best Feature Film at the Chicago Horror Film Festival, it was so successful on DVD that fans demanded a director’s cut: Midnight Movie: The Killer Cut, released in 2011. His TV camerawork includes hundreds of hours of programming such as Fox’s Bones, Glee, Sons of Anarchy and American Idol, ABC’s Scandal, NBC’s The Event, and Comedy Central’s Strip Mall. His feature DP credits include Irreversi, Girl With No Number and The Curiosity of Chance. He recently teamed with Hong Kong based Celestial Pictures to produce his screenplay Remote Control. His thriller screenplay Trust was produced by TF1 International and has shown on Lifetime, Movie Central and numerous networks throughout international markets. Jack is a former 1st Vice President of the Society of Camera Operators and editor of Camera Operator magazine.
Rosser Goodman
Born in Washington, D.C., Rosser Goodman got her start on Steven Spielberg’s television series, Earth2, shot in Santa Fe. With a cast and crew of over 250, Rosser recalls it as her “film boot camp.” Today she’s a successful TV and film director. Her new romantic comedy, Love Or Whatever, is opening and closing film festivals around the world. Rosser has also directed commercial campaigns for Jaguar, segments for Sundance’s rock documentary, Dropped, and as well as the commercially successful and critically acclaimed film, Holding Trevor. The Hollywood Reporter listed her as one of the Five in Focus film directors to watch. Prior to directing, Rosser worked on set as a first assistant director for many years on a myriad of television shows, movies, commercials, and music videos. She attended graduate school at Temple University’s Anthropology Film Center in Santa Fe, NM.
Eric Freeman
Eric Freeman is a multi-award-winning Sound Editor, Sound Designer, and Mixer with more than 14 of years of professional experience. He’s worked with such diverse studios as Cartoon Network, Fox, Starz, Disney, Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon. He won double-whammy Emmy Awards for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing for The Batman in 2007, to add to his previous four Emmies for sound Editing on the same show. He’s won multiple Golden Reel Awards for Best TV and Direct-to-Video Sound Editing in Animation as well as Live Action. A sampling of the shows he’s worked on: Spongebob Squarepants, The Powerpuff Girls, Ice Age Continental Drift, Xiaolin Showdown, Everybody Loves Raymond, Smallville, Robot Chicken, Samurai Jack, and Stargate Atlantis, plus reality shows, documentaries and video games. Eric is based out of Hacienda Post in beautiful, downtown Burbank.
Lane Shefter Bishop
Lane Shefter Bishop is CEO of Vast Entertainment, a book-to-screen company with numerous projects in development. She began in the industry at Moxie Productions, where she produced and directed projects for ABC, Showtime, HBO and MTV. Since then, she’s directed numerous television shows and five feature-length motion pictures, including The Day Laborers (Los Jornaleros), an Official Selection in the L.A. Latino Int’l Film Festival, Cine Accion in San Francisco, and other festivals, including Milan in Italy. The film was distributed through both HBO and Blockbuster. She’s also the former Executive VP of Motion Pictures and Television at TwinStar Entertainment. Among her numerous accolades: an EMMY, three Telly Awards, a Videographer Award, a Sherrill C. Corwin Award, an Aurora Award, a New York Festivals Award and the DGA Fellowship Award for Episodic Television. Ms. Bishop holds a B.A. in Literature from UC Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. in Production from USC’s School of Cinema/Television. She’s a director-member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Clyde Smith
Clyde was born in a Missouri farm town where the notion of a career as a Director of Photography simply did not exist. At Colorado College he studied with Myron Wood, the first renowned professional photographer he’d ever met. Then he finished his degree in Psychology. After ski bumming in Aspen, he applied to the CalArts film school, earned an MFA, and embarked on a 26-year (and counting) career as a Cinematographer. While at CalArts, Clyde assisted Kris Malkiewicz, author of CINEMATOGRAPHY (now in its third edition). His mentor at CalArts was Dr. Don Levy, whose broad background and amazing sense of how “deep aesthetics” could enhance visual storytelling gave Clyde a solid creative foundation. Since then, he’s DP’ed countless TV shows and documentaries, music videos and feature films, working with people like Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Helen Mirren, Laszlo Kovacs, Jessica Alba, Steve Martin, and many more amazing talents. When Clyde won an Emmy and called his beloved hometown paper, they responded, “What’s an Emmy?”
Maury Sterling
Maury Sterling’s movie credits include Veronica Mars, Coherence, Kung Fu Panda 2, A-Team, Smokin’ Aces 1 & 2, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, The Frolic, Frankie and Johnny Get Married, Impostor, Bulletproof, and Outbreak. TV credits include Homeland, Ironside, In Plain Sight, Longmire, Private Practice, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Lie to Me, Dollhouse, Cold Case, Close to Home, 24, ER, Criminal Minds, CSI & CSI Miami, Judging Amy, Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan, Angel, and The Pretender. He’s a founding member of the Buffalo Nights Theatre Co., where he’s done Crazy Drunk, J.B., Firebugs, Modigliani, and Incident at Vichy. His other stage work: Measure for Measure at A Noise Within, Love and Understanding at the Lilian, and Judgment at Nuremberg at ICT. He graduated from UCLA with a BA in Theatre and has studied at Circle in the Square in NY and ACT in San Francisco. When not working, Maury spends as much time as he can in Montana.
Lisa Schahet
Lisa Schahet is an independent film and television producer. Her international experience includes features produced in Europe, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Los Angeles. She began her Hollywood career working in development at Warner Bros. for John Wells Productions and in feature film production at 20th Century Fox. Her first independent production, the short comedy Cloud Nine, debuted on HBO. She recently joined Scenario, a literary management and production company, as a Producer/Manager. In Chicago, Lisa produced sports television specials for ABC, NBC, CBS, and ESPN. Lisa is a graduate of Northwestern University, a member of Film Independent, a featured music contributor for Buzzine.com, and a fan of Indiana Basketball.
Frank Fuller
Frank Fuller is an Emmy-winning veteran with 25 years of experience in film and sound, of which 17 were spent in post-production. Born and raised in Hollywood, Frank started out as a vault manager and went on to design and build one of the first tape- and sample-based feature-film sound design studios, as well as spearhead the migration of the largest analog sound library in Hollywood to a format for digital storage and management. He eventually ended up working for Todd AO/Glen Glenn Sound and Soundstorm, where he designed sound effects and supervised, edited and mixed television programs and features. He’s worked with such majors as Paramount, Universal, Warners, and Sony Pictures. He grabbed an Emmy in 1991 for Outstanding Sound Editing for Law & Order. He’s also got six Emmy nominations and seven Golden Reel nominations. Frank has served as a creative and technical consultant to the visual arts and media industry in Southeast Asia and started a commercial photography company in Bangkok, managing advertising and branding accounts as well as shooting commercials. In recent years, he’s been head of post-production at Bigfoot Studios and head of production and development at ChannelFix, doing original in-house content.