In Conversation

Strengthening Development: A discussion about how deepening creative work in development and (pre)pre-production will enrich and elevate your story. While you're writing and pitching your film, there is essential research and world-building work to be done that can inform all creative decision-making throughout the production process. The earlier you start clarifying and communicating the vision, the better your collaborators will understand the theme, tone and style so all choices can be made with intention. We'll discuss how we each immerse ourselves in this work in different genres as writers, directors and producers and how it ripples out as the process moves into production. Free.

Allison White is an award winning Film and Television producer. She is an alumnus of the Rotterdam Producer's Lab, the Whistler Feature Project Lab and is attending IFP's No Borders in 2016. Her first feature film, 'Cast No Shadow' was nominated for four Canadian Academy Awards including Best Picture. She is currently developing a slate of feature films and her first dramatic television series.

Melanie Oates is a writer, director, producer, and costume designer. Her feature films are Sweet Angel Baby (2024), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, won Best Atlantic Canadian Screenwriting at the Atlantic International Film Festival, and was longlisted for the DGC's Jean-Marc Vallée Discovery Award, and Body and Bones (2019), which premiered at the Atlantic International Film Festival. Her next feature, Stranger in Town, is in production and expected to be released this year. She has also written and directed five short films (Get Out (2013), Distance (2014), Bait (2014), There You Are, Ida Here and There (2016)) and the digital comedy series The Manor (2016). Melanie was the Costume Designer for the feature films Cast No Shadow (2014) and Closet Monster (2015). She currently lives in St. John's.

Jamie Miller is an award-winning Director/Producer of documentary, narrative, music video and commercial work. She is passionate about crafting poetic human portraits in a moment of transformation within a cinematic landscape. Jamie received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for her first short documentary Prince’s Tale, which went on to win 7 Canadian festival awards. Her short films have been screened in festivals throughout North America, Europe and Asia and have been licensed by CBC & BBC. Jamie was recently the recipient of the 2020 RBC Michelle Jackson Emerging Filmmaker award presented by the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival for her first short drama, Proximity, currently being presented across the country. She earned her BFA in Film Production from York University in 2012, and is an alumna of DOC Breakthrough and Women in the Director’s Chair. She loves nothing more than using her own education and experience to help emerging voices cultivate their own story-telling skills.