Creative Producing Course

Elizabeth Lodge Stepp is an Austin, TX based producer. She is a member of the Department of Motion Pictures production company, headquartered in New Orleans. Elizabeth is a 2016 Sundance Feature Film Creative Producing Fellow with Monsters and Men, which premiered in Sundance's 2018 Dramatic Competition line-up, and won the festival's Special Jury Award for Outstanding First Feature. 

In addition, she produced the documentary Brimstone & Glory, an immersive exploration of celebration, rituals, danger and the absolute beauty of fireworks, which was named 2017 Top 5 Documentaries by the National Board of Review, was nominated for 4 Cinema Eye Honors awards, and won the Golden Gate at the San Francisco International Film Festival. She also produced the documentary Kerri Walsh Jennings: Gold Within which premiered on NBC in 2016, and co-produced Knight of Cups (2015) and Song to Song (SXSW 2017), both directed by Terrence Malick.

Summer Shelton was the recipient of the 2018 Independent Spirit Producers Award.

In 2023, her directorial debut You & I which she also wrote, produced and co-starred opposite veteran actor Clayne Crawford screened as an Official Selection at the Nashville Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, River Run International Film Festival and debuted internationally at the American Film Festival. The film was released in 2024 by Slated.

Feature works she produced included Maine (Orion Classics, 2018 Tribeca Film Festival) and Keep the Change (KINO LORBER, 2017 Tribeca Film Festival Best Narrative Feature; FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize at the 2017 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival).

She was Executive Producer of People Places Things which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, produced Icarus (short) which premiered at the 2015 New Directors/New Films Festival and produced Little Accidents, which had its World Premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

She worked alongside critically acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani as Associate Producer of Goodbye Solo (2008), an official selection of the Venice Film Festival; Co-Producer of Plastic Bag (2009), opening night short film of the Corto Cortissimo at the Venice Film Festival and Associate Producer of At Any Price (2012), which premiered in main competition at the Venice Film Festival and most recently as Co-Producer of short documentary If Dreams Were Lighting, Rural Health Crisis (2023), which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.

She was the recipient of the inaugural Bingham Ray Creative Producing Fellowship, awarded by the Sundance Institute (2012), a Rotterdam Producing Fellowship (2013), Film Independent Sloan Producing Fellowship (2014) and Cannes Producing Fellowship (2021) awarded by the Gotham.

Prior to her filmmaking career, Shelton was a former high school English teacher, she remains connected to the classroom as a University Lecturer, Adjunct Professor and provides educational consulting services to arts non-profits. You can find more on her website: summershelton.com

Pamela Koffler is an award-winning producer and co-founder with Christine Vachon of the New York-based independent company Killer Films, which has been creating film and TV since 1995.

Since founding Killer, Ms. Koffler has produced many of the most celebrated American independent films of the past two decades. Among these include Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Still Alice, which won the Best Actress Oscar for Julianne Moore, and Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, which won the trophy for Hilary Swank. Her many notable movies also include Miguel Arteta’s Beatriz at Dinner, Mark Romanek’s hit, One Hour Photo, starring Robin Williams; Larry Clark’s groundbreaking, Kids; John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Todd Solondz’s Happiness; Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol and Bettie Page; and Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace, starring Ms. Moore and Eddie Redmayne. She was honored with the Independent Spirit Awards’ Producers Award for I’m Losing You, which Bruce Wagner adapted and directed from his own novel. 

Ms. Koffler has twice been nominated for Emmy, Golden Globe, and Producers Guild of America Awards, in her producing capacity on Todd Haynes’ miniseries Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood, and on Phyllis Nagy’s telefilm Mrs. Harris, starring Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley. The latter is one of several projects Killer has teamed on with production company Number 9 Films, a collaboration that now continues with Colette.