We are excited to announce the finalist judges for the 2024 Script Competition! Here is the list:
Sarah Beckett
Sarah Beckett hails from Canada and has a lengthy background working in true crime documentary TV. After moving to LA in 2015 and making the switch to fiction, Sarah wrote on three seasons of Resident Alien on SyFy and Peacock, as well as both seasons of the legal thriller 61st Street for AMC (now at CW). She wrote on Robert and Michelle King’s upcoming true crime drama series Happy Face at Paramount+, and is now writing on the second season of King’s hit procedural Elsbeth on CBS. Sarah and her family live in the remote California desert, where she works out of a 1963 Streamline trailer.
Marc Bernardin
Marc Bernardin is a WGA Award-winning television writer-producer who has worked on Star Trek: Picard, Batman: Caped Crusader, The Continental, Carnival Row, Treadstone, Castle Rock, Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina, Masters of the Universe: Revelations, and Alphas. In 2023, he made his directorial debut with the award-winning short film, Splinter. In comics, he’s the Eisner-nominated writer of Star Wars: Mace Windu, Anansi Boys, Messenger: The Legend of Muhammad Ali, Adora and the Distance, Census, Peter Parker: The Amazing Shutterbug, Genius, and The Highwaymen. In an earlier life, he was an editor-writer for the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Playboy, and Entertainment Weekly. He also cohosts the Fatman Beyond pop-culture podcast with Kevin Smith.
VJ Boyd
VJ Boyd most recently worked on the upcoming Justified spinoff, City Primeval, for FX/Hulu. He previously wrote for SWAT and Justified and co-created Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt For The Bone Collector. He is also the co-author of the IDW comic book series Night Moves.
Dave Brown
Dave Brown started in an agency mailroom and was promoted to agent. As an agent he discovered and brokered the initial deal for James Wan and Leigh Whannell to direct and star in the billion dollar SAW franchise. After transitioning to management, Dave facilitated the deal for the award winning Showtime series Dexter. In 2013, Brown and his business partner Zadoc Angell moved their management team to Echo Lake Entertainment. Brown’s client list boasts some of the most sought after TV showrunners and filmmakers in the industry, many of which he discovered. Brown has also been a trailblazer in the packaging of straight to series and international co-productions.
Wendy Calhoun
Peabody-award-winning Wendy Calhoun’s unique career spans one-hour dramas, unscripted series, VR, and gaming. She currently developing new scripted series for Starz, FX, and Universal UK. Her drama credits include writing/producing the historic blockbuster first season of Fox’s Empire and debut seasons for The Rookie: Feds Prodigal Son, Station 19, Nashville, Revenge, and Justified.
Tripper Clancy
Tripper Clancy has written projects of all shapes and sizes for Disney, Universal, Netflix, Pixar, Amazon, Paramount, Columbia, 20th, MGM and even studios abroad. Tripper is the creator and showrunner of Die Hart on Roku, which recently wrapped its third season with Kevin Hart, Nathalie Emmanuel, JK Simmons and Kathryn Hahn. His other credits include coming-of-age dramedy I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix) and action comedy Stuber (Disney). A graduate of Wake Forest undergrad and The University of Texas grad school, Tripper lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Maggie, and their daughters, Olive and Ruby.
Peter Craig
Peter Craig is a crime novelist and screenwriter, whose credits include The Town (2010), The Batman (2022), Bad Boys For Life (2021), and Parts 1 and 2 of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (2014, 2015). He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2022 for his contributions to Top Gun: Maverick. His upcoming series, Dope Thief, will air in early 2025, the pilot episode of which was directed by Ridley Scott.
Jihan Crowther
Jihan Crowther is a TV writer whose recent credits include Daisy Jones & The Six, Class of ’09, and the forthcoming Under the Bridge. Previous credits include The Underground Railroad, The Man in the High Castle, and Here and Now. Her essays have appeared in Jezebel and Esquire. Her plays have been read, produced, and developed at the theaters and festivals in New York, London, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Montreal, Quebec. Previous fellowships and residencies include New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, New York Theatre Workshop Emerging Artists Fellow, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood Writers Collective, and the LA-based Playwrights Union. She received her MA in Writing for Performance at University of London – Goldsmiths College.
Fred Greenhalgh
US-based audio pioneer Fred Greenhalgh is best known for bringing location-recording techniques from his indie film background to the production of immersive audio movies. He’s Head of Audio Production at Realm, overseeing their original and partner scripted fiction programming, working on projects like Harley Quinn & The Joker: Sound Mind for WB/DC/Spotify and The Flash: Escape The Midnight Circus for WB/DC. He also produces, hosts, and curates Realm’s original horror podcast channel, Undertow.
Fred’s career started with his original series, The Cleansed, which led to him catching the attention of Audible, and ultimately the opportunity to team up with audio legend William Dufris to develop Locke & Key as a faithful 13.5 hour location recorded audio movie (feat. Tatiana Maslany, Haley Joel Osment, and Stephen King).
This was followed by The X-Files: Cold Cases and Stolen Lives (feat. David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and many of the original cast members), The Mayan Crystal (with Gen-Z Media), and Expeditionary Force: Homefront with Podium (feat. Zachary Quinto, Kate Mulgrew, and RC Bray). His original work includes critically-acclaimed The Dark Tome and Of Fae And Friends, released as Stitcher Premium exclusives and now on wide release via Realm.
Christy Gressman
Christy Gressman is the vice president and executive producer of podcasts at Topic Studios, overseeing creative, production, and business strategy. She formerly led audio at The Intercept and was a partner and the executive producer at the fiction-focused podcast network Night Vale Presents, where she oversaw network-wide development, production, and distribution.
Christy has also served as producer, executive producer, and/or co-creator of a number of pioneering and critically-acclaimed podcasts, including The Space Within, a thrilling sci-fi mystery starring Jessica Chastain, Michael Shannon, Bobby Cannavale, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Stuhlbarg, Shea Whigham, and Carmen Ejogo (Audible), which debuted at #1 on Audible’s charts and is an Audible Best of 2023; 100 Foot Wave Podcast, the companion show to the studio’s Emmy® and PGA-winning HBO big wave surfing series; Not Lost, the acclaimed food and travel show from former Dinner Party Download host Brendan Francis Newnam, a New York Times and Vulture Best Podcast of 2022 (Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio); Operator (Wondery), about the dramatic rise and fall of the telecommunications company that pioneered live phone sex, which debuted at #1 on Apple’s Top Podcasts chart; Somebody (iHeartRadio), with The Intercept and the Invisible Institute, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; the Signal Award-winning Politically Re-Active with W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu (WarnerMedia); Fine Gorilla Person, hosted by Lauren Ober, about Koko the Gorilla (Audible);The Messenger, an extraordinary tale of friendship, lies, betrayal and terrorism (Audible); American ISIS, a portrait of an ordinary American who became a fighter for the Islamic State (Audible); the powerful investigative series Impostors (Spotify); and the groundbreaking fiction series The Orbiting Human Circus (featuring John Cameron Mitchell, Tim Robbins, and Mandy Patinkin), Dreamboy, Adventures in New America, Milky Way Underground, It Makes A Sound, and the upcoming Cancellation Island, from John Cameron Mitchell and Michael Cavadias, starring Holly Hunter.
She has an MBA from Yale School of Management, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA in fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania.
Tate Hanyok
Tate Hanyok is a director-writer-producer focused on female-driven comedy and young adult stories. Tate’s AFF winning feature script Sex APPeal, which she produced alongside American High as a Hulu Original, premiered January 2022. The indie feature film Love and Baseball which she both produced and adapted from the play of the same name, was released on HBO Max spring of 2022.
As a writer, Tate has been hired to adapt two novels into motion pictures. A female-driven soccer romance for PictureStart and a Catholic school whodunnit for Wattpad. She’s also written feature rom com The Pet Nup and family dramady Family Week for Mucho Mas. Tate was named one of the AFF & Moviemaker Top 25 Writers to Watch and one of the Top 100 Emerging Writers on the Young and Hungry List. She hails from Virginia where her multi-hyphenate career began on the stage. Tate is driven to lift all dreamers, doers, and empower the underestimated.
Karl Hartman
After returning from Peace Corps Albania, Karl began his career in physical production on feature films and television shows. He met veteran producer Declan Baldwin in 2009. They worked together on projects like: Still Alice, Manchester by the Sea, and Captain Fantastic. In 2016, Karl joined Declan at Big Indie Pictures and became a co-owner in 2018. He oversees all of its day-to-day operations. Karl produced Eric LaRue which he partnered on with Sarah Green and Jina Panebianco. The movie marks the directorial debut of Oscar nominated actor, Michael Shannon, and stars Judy Greer, Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Sparks, and Tracy Letts. In 2023, Karl was named as one of Variety’s Ten Producers to Watch. The Production Services arm of Big Indie is one of the most successful in the US working on feature films and TV projects for Amazon, Apple, Searchlight, and many others. Some of their most recent projects include: Swarm, Fallout, Being the Ricardos, Tender Bar, and Underground Railroad.
Chuck Hayward
Chuck Hayward is a renaissance man – in that he’s a man who’s stayed multiple times at Renaissance Hotels. But mostly he writes things. A lot. And sometimes he actually writes them well. And sometimes they’re even funny! Just ask his fellow writers on Netflix’s Dear White People, Disney+’s WandaVision, ABC’s Mixed-Ish, or Showtime’s Flatbush Misdemeanors. Or you can ask the directors and producers of the movies he’s written, Netflix’s Step Sisters, the indie film Fat Camp; and the upcoming remake of the 90’s cult classic, Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. Chuck promises they’ll confirm it. You calling him a liar?!?!
Kelly Masterson
Kelly Masterson is a playwright/screenwriter living in Costa Rica. He wrote the screenplay for Snowpiercer, a post-apocalyptic thriller, with director Bong Joon Ho. His debut film was Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, directed by Sidney Lumet, for which he received an Independent Sprit Award nomination. Other screenplays include Killing Kennedy (WGA and Emmy Award nominations) and Good People. Kelly’s stage plays have been produced Off Broadway and in regional theater including: Edith, Against the Rising Sea, Touch, The Word is Out, and Dare Not Speak Its Name. Kelly is a member of Writer’s Guild of America East.
Ramlaa Mohamed
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Raamla Mohamed is the Creator and Showrunner/Executive Producer for Onyx Collective’s first scripted drama series, Reasonable Doubt, in conjunction with ABC Signature. The hit drama is currently in production on season two. Raamla signed her first overall with ABC Signature in 2018, and has been in the Disney family since 2009, where she started as a PA on Grey’s Anatomy followed by becoming a fellow in the Disney/ABC Writing program. She also was a writer/co-executive producer on the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere for Hulu. Prior to that, she was a writer and producer on Scandal, where she penned eleven episodes for the series, including the seventh-season crossover episode with How To Get Away with Murder. Raamla graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature. She also has an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California. Her other projects include a feature film with Devon Franklin’s company for Amazon and a romantic comedy feature for Universal Pictures.
Alvaro Rodriguez
Alvaro Rodriguez has been writing since childhood and, in fact, did his best work when he was 11. Still holding out for improvement, he is a writer for film and television (and animation!) based in Los Angeles, having worked on American Rust: Broken Justice, Florida Man, Machete, and Seis Manos. During the pandemic, he contributed a monologue from an imaginary Chet Baker not being able to leave his room to a web series based on The Decameron. He maintains Austin was much cooler in 1991 (he’s wrong).
Jameel Saleem
With over fifteen years of experience, three-time Emmy nominee Jameel Saleem has built a career in television and film as a writer and producer, earning recognition for his work on series such as South Park, Bob’s Burgers, and Disenchantment. He’s currently writing two pilots for Netflix, as well as developing shows with Warner Bros. Animation, Amblin, CBS Studios and Sony TV.
Taylor Sardoni
Taylor Sardoni is an LA-based screenwriter/producer with a BFA in Film from NYU and an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia University. His horror feature, Last Straw, that he wrote and produced, screened as part of the Marquee Films at the 30th Austin Film Festival. The film was picked up by Shout! Studios and releases in theaters and digital on September 20th of this year. Additonally, Sardoni wrote Webby-award winning true crime satire, Murder in HR, held a spot as Apple’s #1 fiction podcast for five weeks during its first season.
Brian Siegele
Brian Siegele is a Colorado and Los Angeles-based writer and producer for film, television and audio. A graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, he is a former AFF Screenplay Winner (2013), Podcast Finalist (2019), and Screenwriter to Watch (2022). Though he began his career writing tentpole features, he has since pivoted to generating high concept IP for podcasts and television. His first Ambie-nominated audio series Black Box starring Joel McHale and Kelsey Grammer was acquired for television, and he is currently at work on several new franchises.
Tatiana Suarez-Pico
Tatiana Suarez-Pico is a playwright and a screenwriter. TV credits include Parenthood, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Snowfall, Iron Fist (season 2), The L Word: Generation Q, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, Hunters (season 2), and Invasion (season 2), among others. Theater residencies & fellowships include: Dramatists Guild fellow, Royal Court Theatre fellow, Mary Louise Rockwell Scholar at ESPA/Primary Stages, MFA Playwrights’ Workshop at The Kennedy Center, Old Vic Exchange, New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater Season, the Lark’s US/Mexico Exchange, among others. Tatiana is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School and she has an MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School.
Rebecca Windsor
Rebecca Windsor served as the Vice President and Head of the Warner Bros. Television Workshop, the premier writing and directing program for artists looking to launch their television careers. In her role leading the Workshops, she launched the careers of over 60 writers and 45 directors. As an extension of her role developing new talent, Rebecca helped launch Warner Bros. digital brand Stage13, overseeing the critically acclaimed Snatchers, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, and Special, which premiered on Netflix and garnered four Emmy nominations. Rebecca has also covered shows such as Riverdale, All Rise, and Shining Vale as a Current Executive for WBTV. Previously, she was the Creative Producing Initiative Manager of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, playing a key role in coordinating the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Episodic Story Lab, and Creative Producing Lab and Summit. Prior to Sundance, Rebecca was Manager of Development at Samuel L. Jackson’s television company, UppiTV, and at Mandeville Films. She started her career as an assistant at the Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann Agency and ICM. A San Diego native, she attended Northwestern University, where she received a BS in Theatre.