Talton Wingate
Program Creator
Lead Teacher
Talton Wingate is an award-winning writer and professional screenwriter. He was honored for his first script Norman, named one of the “Top 10 Scripts of 2005,” alongside other screenwriting luminaries that year such as Aaron Sorkin (with Charlie Wilson’s War), Diablo Cody (with Juno), and David Benioff (with The Kite-Runner). Norman was released in 2011 as a feature film starring Richard Jenkins, Dan Byrd, Emily Van Camp and Adam Goldberg.
Talton has experience with all aspects of the business from selling specs, adapting original properties, rewriting and pitching. He has also been featured in scr(i)pt magazine. Talton is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Film Program and Creative Writing Program, where he was awarded Best Fiction Writer of 2003. He hails from Atlanta and currently resides in Los Angeles.
Lauren Ludwig
Teacher
Lauren Ludwig is a writer, director and teacher whose work focuses on comedy and interactive storytelling. As a writer/director, Lauren’s work has appeared on truTv and Sony Crackle. She is currently developing an animated series at FX. Lauren is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Capital W, an award-winning immersive theater company. As an educator, Lauren has taught at the Good Material Screenwriting Workshops and was the Director of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women.
Danny Reckart
Teacher
Danny Reckart is a LA-based screenwriter and playwright. A graduate of NYU Tisch, Danny wrote numerous plays and musicals that were performed throughout New York City, including writing for Broken Box Mime Theater for which he won a New York Innovative Theater award. His screenplays have been recognized by the Nicholl Fellowship, the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, and the BlueCat Screenwriting Competition. He is currently in development at Dreamworks working on an animated TV show he co-created with his brother based on their childhood road trips.
Garfield Miller
Teacher
Garfield Lindsay Miller, president of Storyfield Productions, is an award-winning filmmaker who’s worked as a fiction and non-fiction producer and writer for over fifteen years.
He is a producer and writer of the feature film, Percy vs. Goliath (Saban Films), a true-story scripted drama starring Academy Award winner, Christopher Walken, Christina Ricci, and Zach Braff. Upon its release, the film reached #2 on iTunes (#1 in Canada) and received “Certified Fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com.
Previously, Garfield co-wrote and produced the documentary, The Fires That Burn, nominated for a Gemini and recipient of the Silver Chris and the Wilber awards. His feature film directorial debut, The Last New Year, was selected as the Canadian Gala film for the Victoria Film Festival, and aired nationally in Canada.
Garfield was a staff writer on the werewolf drama, Bitten (Netflix). He has since worked as a producer and writer on a number of non-fiction series including Cyberwar, Dark Side of the 90s (Vice), The Devil Next Door seasons 1 & 2 (Hulu), Fight or Flight (Discovery+), and Sampled (Paramount+), a six-part docuseries premiering in the fall of 2022.
Kate Gray
Teacher
Kate Gray is a professional screenwriter and script consultant. Originally from Tucson, AZ, she has since lived around the world, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Charleston, Chile, and the UK.
In 2021, Kate sold her project Thinkies, an animated dark comedy based on her time in the tech industry, to YLE Finland. In 2022, she was brought on to co-write the adaptation of a young-adult animated web series for YLE.
Before jumping into the world of screenwriting, Kate worked in animation production for Sony Pictures and Warner Bros Animation. She also served as marketing director with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Microsoft.
A lifelong fan of both film and television, Kate is particularly drawn to drama and dark comedy series. Some of her favorites include Fleabag, Succession, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, the Americans, and 30 Rock.
Tillery Johnson
Teacher
Born and raised in rural North Carolina, Tillery is an award-winning writer with experience developing and selling original material as well as adapting from pre-existing IP. From 2016 to 2017, he worked as a writer in the Nickelodeon Writing Program, and in 2019 his script "Good Lord" won Best Comedy Pilot at the Austin Film Festival, where he has subsequently spoken as a panelist and was named one of AFF's Screenwriters To Watch. He has written for AwesomenessTV and was a staff writer on Nickelodeon's GLITCH TECHS, which was released on Netflix in 2020. When he's not immersed in writing, he enjoys traveling, playing music and performing improv comedy.
Jesse Pepe
Teacher
Jesse Pepe is a Los Angeles-native screenwriter, recently relocated to Yucca Valley, California. He currently has two feature films in development: a movie musical sold to an independent producer, for which he’s also writing the music as an award-winning lyricist, and a sci-fi dramedy he was hired to write based on company IP.
Previously, Jesse served as Head of Creative Development at Echobend for over two years before transitioning back to his independent writing career. Additionally, he’s a yoga and meditation instructor, skills that really come in handy when he's having a tough writing day and wants to bang his head through a wall.
Amy Thurlow
Program Coordinator
Amy Do Thurlow (she/her/hers) is a writer and filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles, California. Her writing spans two very different genres: dramedy and horror, both of which she uses to tell stories of identity, heart, and humanity.
Most recently, Amy wrote an episode of the Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo-led family dramedy UNPRISONED which is now streaming on Hulu. Previously, Amy co-wrote the penultimate episode of GOTHAM KNIGHTS “City of Owls” which aired in 2023 on the CW.
Her episode of TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES “Crush” premiered in 2022 on the CW and is currently streaming on Netflix. Amy graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts with a degree in Film and Television Production