Barbara Nance

Barbara Nance is a professional screenwriter with over twenty-five years of experience working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Among her TV series credits are Threshold (CBS), Blade (Spike), Flashforward (ABC), In Plain Sight (USA), House of Lies (Showtime), and The Lizzie Bordon Chronicles (Lifetime). Widening out into film, she penned the widely-acclaimed movie, I Was Lorena (Lifetime/Amazon), for which she received a Canadian Screen Award in 2022 for Best Writing, TV Movie. Her second Lifetime movie, An Amish Sin, explored sexual abuse in the Amish community. For this film, she is very proud to have been nominated for a prestigious Humanitas Award in 2023.

In addition, from 2016-2021, Barbara was a Professor of Practice in the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television at the University of Southern California where she taught screenwriting, primarily one-hour drama. She has been a frequent guest lecturer for Stephens College, and she taught a TV writing seminar at her alma mater in Paris, France.

Barbara is also a consultant for the Grow Creative Initiative at Netflix International. To date, she has given workshops to both students and professional writers in France, Italy, Poland, Turkey, India, and Saudia Arabia.

Christopher Neil

Christopher Neil is a filmmaker with over 30 years of experience in the industry. He discovered his passion for storytelling through working with actors on stage, which led to the launch of his film career as an acting coach and dialogue director with visionary directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, and later with emerging filmmakers such as Mike Mills, Sofia Coppola, and Spike Jonze.

He made his feature directorial debut with Goats, starring David Duchovny, Vera Farmiga, Dakota Johnson, Ty Burrell, Keri Russell, and Anthony Anderson. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically. His short film Into Being won the Patagonia Film Festival.

In addition to his work in film, Chris has directed award-winning commercials, created original audio programming for global brands, and led the development of in-house content studios at GoFundMe and Apple.

Chris is also an Advisory Board Member at The Redford Center, an environmental nonprofit founded by Robert and James Redford, dedicated to driving environmental awareness and action through film.

TJ Sullivan

An Emmy and Annie Award nominated Director and Animator, TJ brings over 25 years of experience working in TV and feature films on animated productions. Having directed on shows such as "Dragons: Race to the Edge", and "Madagascar: A  Little Wild", TJ has worked for such studios as Dreamworks, Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers Animation, among others.  

As an animator, TJ has worked on the feature film “Barnyard: The Original Party Animals”, and “Beware the Batman”, which earned him a Daytime Emmy nod for his animation in the opening title sequence.  More recently his series of animated shorts, titled "a Mother's Day Short Tale" series, has been screened at several film festivals around the country. TJ continues to produce and direct for various productions around the globe.