Early September 2024

Joan Lane is a British film and theatre producer, primarily known for having developed the Academy Award-winning THE KING’S SPEECH, directed by Tom Hooper, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter, and adapted from the stage play by its author David Seidler.

Her company, Wild Thyme Productions, has toured six innovative productions of Shakespeare’s plays in the UK and Germany (including the first all-female production of ‘Hamlet’) mounted world premiere showcase performances of new plays and musicals in London, and has a double bill in development for late 2023-2024. 

Primarily engaged as a Consultant by the BBC, Joan's skills were used for the recording, filming, and Royal Opera House performance of ‘The Little Prince’. She was a director for BBC Radio Two and BBC Television’s New Talent UK-wide search for the ‘Voice of Musical Theatre’, involved with background music for the film ‘The Actors’, coordinated the participation of singing Angels for Stephen Fry’s directorial film debut ‘Bright Young Things’ and casting director and coordinator on a BBC’s Promenade Concert/Opera ‘The Water Diviner’s Tale’. As well as touring with her own company, she has worked on plays at the Royal National Theatre and toured with ATG, PW Productions, and Pleasance Theatre. For the last few years, she has been the resident judge on the Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing.

Joan recently edited two books, alongside which she and the writers developed TV series which are about to go to market. Brought in to edit the screenplay of ‘Gateway to the West’, she went on to completely rewrite it. The film is now in post-production and due out later this year (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13542474/). Her first fully original screenplay, completed in 2018 and based on a true story, is expected to go into production in early 2024.

Prior to co-founding the management/production company Fictional Entity in January 2017, Chris Deckard spent over seven years working with and representing talent at major agencies such as ICM Partners and WME. He has worked closely with traditional and new media buyers to find and develop content for domestic and international audiences. In addition to helping cast and package numerous features and series, he has evaluated thousands of scripts for actors and directors. Chris graduated from Cornell University and earned his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School.

Fictional Entity’s clients have been named to The Black List, The Hit List, The Young & Hungry List, The Blood List and been lauded by the PAGE Awards, the International Emmys and placed as finalists in The Heath Ledger Scholarship and the Academy Nicholl Fellowship The Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Awards, the AWG, ADG, SPA, and AACTA. Clients have written, directed, starred, and produced in numerous formats, including features, TV, virtual reality, and podcasts, independently and for companies like Netflix, NBCUniversal, AMC, Legendary, Meta, Marvel, Fremantle, SyFy, the CW, Warner Bros., Amazon, Blumhouse, Comedy Central, BBC, the ABC Australia, Foxtel, TruTV, Super Deluxe, Hallmark, CBS, Lifetime, E!, and MSNBC.

Chris has advised clients through multiple successful series pilot and pitch sales. He and his business partner were non-writing Executive Producers on a series pilot that sold to a major US network in 2021. In 2024, Fictional Entity client highlights include: a book-to-series pitch sale to Netflix, a first-time writer/director’s feature film entering production, the release of three series from first-time writing Executive Producers, and a feature film release.

Sabrina Parra is the founder of The Scriptster. She has helped hundreds of writers on their quest to craft the perfect screenplay. Sabrina is a professional script consultant with over five years of experience as a film development executive. She honed her skills as the former Vice President of Di Novi Pictures, a production company that has grossed over $1 billion worldwide and brought you films including LITTLE WOMEN, CRAZY STUPID LOVE and A WALK TO REMEMBER. She most recently was on the producing team for Apple+/A24 film THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE.

By working closely with studios like Amazon, Apple, A24, and Netflix, Sabrina has spent her career developing projects from inception and guiding writers through the studio process. Her experience provides invaluable insight into what financiers are looking for when they read your screenplay. She values creative integrity and imagination of story above all. She believes there is nothing stronger than a film or series that allow its viewer to catapult themselves into the perspective of another.

Wendy Kram is a producer and one of the industry’s leading script consultants. She is the founder of L.A. For Hire, an international consulting company that specializes in acquiring IP, developing scripts, packaging them with talent and directors and matching them with production companies, studios, streaming providers, networks and cable companies.

Wendy currently serves as an executive and producing partner at Reuben Cannon Productions, overseeing development for features and televisions series in partnership with DISNEY +, Oprah Winfrey’s HARPO FILMS, TRIBECA, and FOREST WHITAKER’S SIGNIFICANT PICTURES, among others.  She is also producing a new feature film written by Rocaberti alumni, Carrie Wachob.

Previously, Wendy served as Vice President for UK’s media conglomerate Granada Entertainment, where she oversaw development and international co-productions. She was an executive for production companies based at Sony, Disney and Universal, developing and producing projects that received Humanitas, NAACP, WGA, and Golden Globe Awards, starring actors such as Sissy Spacek, Helen Mirren, Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes, to name a few. Past credits include MAD MONEY directed by Oscar-winning writer/director Callie Khouri (THELMA & LOUISE) and SALLY HEMINGS: AN AMERICAN SCANDAL for CBS, which won the WGA award for outstanding writing in a miniseries.

Wendy also manages a small group of screenwriters and filmmakers, including John W. Richardson, who wrote the action blockbuster NON-STOP for Universal, which starred Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Lupita Nyong’o.

Wendy graduated Cum Laude from Columbia University in New York City. She has been a guest speaker and conducted film and television workshops at Harvard University, USC School of Cinematic Arts, UCLA and NYU Tisch. Creative Screenwriting Magazine ranks Wendy as one of the industry’s top script consultants.

Having worked on over seventy feature films, covering all genres from big action movies such as TERMINATOR 2, THE ROCK, and XXX and studio classics such as GHOST, THE MASK OF ZORRO, and THE FAST AND FURIOUS, Parra’s success came from smaller, more independent films, such as ELECTION, SIDEWAYS, THE DESCENDANTS, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, THE WAY WAY BACK, NEBRASKA, AMERICAN HUSTLE, and JOY.

Parra has collaborated both as an Assistant Director and now as a Producer, with renowned directors such as Alexander Payne, Peter Yates, Oliver Stone, James Cameron, Michael Bay, Rob Cohen, Martin Campbell, Jay Roach, and David O’Russell to name a few.

After Graduating from San Diego State University, with a degree in Film and Theatre, he began his career working as a Production Assistant with directors such as James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola on their films THE TERMINATOR and PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED.

A member of the Directors’ Guild and Producers’ Guild of America, Parra has been steadily producing a number of films for various companies as well as developing his own projects. Fluent in Spanish, he currently resides in Deer Valley, Utah.

George Parra is attending this retreat as a Roving Mentor.