Screenwriting: Writing Your Comedy Feature (Sept. 2020)

Michael Urban is a graduate of the AFI Screenwriting program. His first feature film, SAVED! (co-written with Brian Dannelly), was produced by MGM/UA in 2004. He has since completed writing assignments for several major film and television studios including Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, ABC Television, Lionsgate, Universal Studios and HBO.

Kim Spurlock is a Vietnamese-American filmmaker based in New York. She holds an MFA in Film Production from NYU. Kim has written, produced and directed multiple award-winning short films including Buổi Chiều, a Vietnamese language ghost story that premiered at Slamdance before winning the Jury Prize at the Vietnamese International Film Festival, and the Student Academy Award Winning DOWN IN NUMBER 5, a Southern Gothic tale of a coal miner pushed to his limits for the love of his son. The film won top prizes for writing and directing at NYU, as well as the Austin Film Festival, the Miami Film Festival and many others. It was selected for America: Here and Now, a traveling art exhibition featuring the works of Cindy Sherman, Lou Reed and Chuck Close. Features in development have drawn support from the New York State Council on the Arts, Venice Biennale Cinema College, IFP, Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Sloan Foundation, The Black List and The Writer’s Lab. Additionally Kim co-created the comedic web series LIVIN' THE DREAM which was nominated for two Indie Series Awards after winning both Best Writing and Best Series at the Brooklyn Webfest. www.spurlocksisters.com

Aadip Desai is an Indian American television writer, comedian, and Air Force brat. He was most recently a Staff Writer on ABC’s THE GOLDBERGS, which is a show mostly about yelling. He also runs the daunting 15,000-member LA TV Writers Facebook Group. Aadip took an early departure from the MFA screenwriting program at AFI after being accepted into the ABC/Disney TV Writing Program. He has studied and performed comedy at all the same places as everyone else, so a name drop would be meaningless. Aadip was the longtime co-host/producer of the On The Page screenwriting podcast and President of the Northwest Screenwriters Guild. He’s most known for his issues chopping onions as a cast member on S4 of Food Network’s WORST COOKS IN AMERICA.

In his somewhat hazy life before writing, Aadip had a long career in the music business working with the best and worst of humanity as a session/touring musician (drums, trumpet), music supervisor, and executive in charge of background music for Starbucks globally when it was still good. He has a vestigial BA in Economics and a minor in Music from the University of Puget Sound. Aadip is tolerated by his wife, humbled by his two daughters, and nursemaid to two geriatric Maltese dogs. In the last year, he’s killed four sideburn trimmers. Aadip is repped by David Baggelaar at Good Fear Content and Varun Monga at Kaplan Stahler Agency.