TV Writing: Crafting Your Pilot (Mar. 2021)

Peter Biegen is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, film maker and wanna-be alchemist. He co-wrote the screenplay THE LAST LULLABY (with Max Allan Collins) and wrote and directed the short film CEREMONIES OF THE HORSEMEN (starring Richard Schiff and Josh Zuckerman). The short was selected to be part of the permanent archive at the Visual Center of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. He adapted the Spanish film TODAS LAS MUJERES with acclaimed writer/director Rodrigo Garcia (NINE LIVES/ALBERT NOBBS) to direct. Peter is a Fellow from the inaugural Episodic Lab at the Sundance Institute. His television credits include the series adaptation of THE MIST (Dimension Films), FOUR EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN (Lifetime), and is the creator of a new series for ABC-Signature based on his Sundance developed pilot SMALL CHANGE. He’s currently developing another original television series based in Morocco with Producer Bob Cooper and Academy Award winning director James Marsh.

Kimberly Barrante is the geeky offspring of a chemist and a librarian. She began her career as a playwright in New York City, after receiving a BA from Emerson College. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at Tisch NYU before moving to Los Angeles. Her award-winning screenplay CELERITAS was on the Annual Black List in 2014. It was later performed on The Black List Table Reads Podcast in 2015. Kim completed a feature-writing fellowship at Lionsgate Studios in 2016. She has gone on to work in both features and television. Her pilot, SEDNA, was recently optioned to Universal Content Productions. Composition 8 is attached to produce.

Jeremy was 14 years-old when he realized that his Mormon bishop could not, in fact, read his mind during priesthood-worthiness interviews. From there, after over 30 years of unravelling the web of illusory doctrine, he still wonders if this last cup of coffee will be the one that shepherds his soul to hell. It took getting stabbed in the face the first week on the job at a detention center, for Nielsen to realize he could only do that job for another eight years. Jeremy logged thousands of miles in the back of a 1985 Ford Econoline van, touring the country playing music, then pivoted to the movie business as a Gaffer and Cinematographer. He currently resides on the barren plains of rural Wyoming.

Jeremy is a SUNDANCE EPISODIC TELEVISION WRITING LAB FELLOW. He is currently the Director of Photography for STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND and NOWHERE MAN AND A WHISKEY GIRL for Christopher Charles Scott and Strategery Films/Shoplifter (CLASS ACTION PARK on HBOMax). Jeremy is also a Sundance Collab Advisor. His pilot script TICKER won the NEW YORK TELEVISION FESTIVAL and was a finalist at the AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL. Listed on the 2018 Young and Hungry Screenwriters list, Jeremy acknowledges that only one of those descriptors remains true. 

Paola Villegas Soruco is a Bolivian-born drama writer who gave up her lifelong pursuit of medical school to write screenplays. She moved from a hectic E.R. in Virginia to the AFI Conservatory's MFA Program in Screenwriting in Los Angeles. Paola was a Writers' and Showrunner's Assistant on NARCOS and worked in development at Gaumont and Blumhouse before joining the Disney/ABC family, where she was a staff writer on the second season of STUMPTOWN (ABC). Paola has always loved the power of the written word, which she uses as a shield and sword to tell stories that focus on the resilience of the human spirit across a variety of genres.