2024 GUEST FIlmmaker workshops and panels

No Right Way filmmaker Q&A | THURSDAY 10/3 | 9PM | THEATER 8

Join us after the screening of No Right Way for a Q&A with filmmakers Chelsea Bo (Director, Writer, and Producer), Sean Drummond (Producer), Ava Acres (Cast), and Eliza Coupe (Cast)

Chelsea Bo and Sean Drummond | friday 10/4 | 5pM | Theater 8

Workshop Title: The Independent Filmmaker Toolkit

Description: Having produced a variety of independent films Chelsea and Sean will share the essential toolkit they use when producing independent films. 

anna Weinstein | saturday 10/5 | 11AM | theater 8

Workshop Title: What Does Hollywood Want? Developing the Feature Screenplay/Pilot Script

Description: In this interactive workshop, you will learn what studios, networks, and streamers are looking for in features and television series. We will break down structure, character(s), and integration of theme and story engines, and you will also have a chance to workshop new and old story ideas so you can develop your project to be marketable to a range of audiences.

john gray | saturday 10/5 | 2pm | theater 8

Workshop Title: Practical Screenwriting: where the rubber meets the road.

Description: John Gray, creator of the hit CBS series  Ghost Whisperer, and veteran of many years in the film and television trenches, shares screenwriting tips that are short on theory and long on practical hands-on advice. 

Filmmakers Roundtable | SATURDAY 10/5 | 5pm | theater 8

A signature film fest event, meet our guest artists and professional filmmakers as they come together for a discussion and Q&A about the process of creating films.

2024 Festival Guest Artists

Chelsea Bo

Chelsea Bo is an award-winning writer/director with a theater and improv background. She graduated from Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film & Television and was selected for both Film Independent’s Incubator Lab and Village Roadshow’s Emerging Talent Program. Chelsea co-founded the production company Paxeros with her husband/producing partner Sean Drummond, and together they have produced four feature films, including Joshua Leonard’s Fully Realized Humans (Tribeca, 2020) and Sarah Adina Smith’s The Drop (Tribeca, 2022). Her feature directorial debut No Right Way premiered in 2023 and has garnered 15 awards across 17 festivals thus far.

Sean Drummond

Sean Drummond is a multi-disciplinary film producer working in docs, ads, and features. His career in producing began in high school when he won an Emerging Filmmaker award for a short doc about the Vietnam Anti-War movement, followed by winning a midwestern EMMY for a PSA he created. Sean followed his passion to Los Angeles where he graduated with a BA in Film and Television Production from Loyola Marymount University, where he met director Chelsea Bo and began producing for her. In 2016, the duo formed the award-winning production company PAXEROS. To date, he’s produced 75+ short form digital projects, a handful of national TV commercials, one feature documentary entitled WAKE UP that premiered at Tribeca & YouTube’s WE ARE ONE Online Festival 2020, and two dramedy feature films – FULLY REALIZED HUMANS starring Joshua Leonard and Jess Weixler that was accepted into the U.S. Narrative Competition at Tribeca Film Festival 2020, as well as, THE DROP with Duplass Brothers Production that he co-produced.

John Gray

John Gray is a New York based writer-director-producer. He created the long running hit CBS series, GHOST WHISPERER, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, as well as writing and directing many award-winning and critically acclaimed movies for television, such as MARTIN AND LEWIS, starring Sean Hayes and Jeremy Northam; the Emmy® nominated A PLACE FOR ANNIE with Sissy Spacek; the Emmy® nominated mini-series HAVEN with Natasha Richardson and Anne Bancroft; HELTER SKELTER with Clea DuVall and Bruno Kirby, and many others. Gray has directed dozens of episodes of broadcast and cable series and was also the producing director of the CBS series RECKLESS. He has written and directed several studio and independent feature films, including the award winning WHITE IRISH DRINKERS, starring Stephen Lang and Karen Allen, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Gray’s acclaimed short films have played and are currently playing in film festivals all over the world, including FRENCH KISS, which has also notched 6.3 million views to date on YouTube. His first novel, the award winning supernatural thriller THE DESECRATED, was published in 2022. Follow him on Twitter @JThomasGray, Instagram @bayrdge, TikTok @johngrayfilmmaker, and visit him at JohnGrayOfficial.com.