Top-Rated Industry Workshops
Free for registered Filmmakers with VIP All Access Pass
All workshops will be finalized and posted by the end of August!
Optional for the public at a cost, if space is available! Please purchase under “Tickets”
Maximizing your Art Department Budget
with Industry Expert Christina Brown
How and where to think outside the box for set design, set dressing, and props. Get tips and tricks for seeing a "big budget" set on film with the limitations of an "Independent film" budget.
Christina C. Brown has been working in film for 5 years, but has been involved in the performing arts in one way or another since grade school. She has worked on both short films and features and even has a web series in production. She has worked the Show Low Film Festival since year one and is the Art Director for the Amberlight Valley series of films written by Dalea Faulkner.
Learn How To Pitch
with Industry Expert Dawn Fields
This popular workshop is back! Join Pitch Coach and filmmaker Dawn Fields for an exciting workshop on pitching your project. From features to television, shorts, and documentaries, learn how to pitch your project with ease and clarity. Practice your pitch and get valuable feedback in this fun, interactive workshop. Hope to see you there!
Dawn Fields is a Los Angeles–based filmmaker known for making emotionally charged films that linger long after the credits roll. With a background that includes work for Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, ABC, NBC Universal and more, she’s earned over 100 IMDb credits spanning production, development, acquisitions, and distribution. Her films have been distributed on Amazon, Apple TV, FreeVee, Tubi, Cineverse, and more. Her multiple award-winning projects include the heart-wrenching Fragile Storm (starring Lance Henriksen), the holiday delight Evie's Christmas Gift and the upcoming intimate and haunting feature film The Glass Bear. She is the President and Founder of www.RedHoneyStudios.com (her film production company) and www.RedHoneyCreative.com where she offers ongoing pitching and filmmaking workshops as well as graphic design services. Follow her on social @DawnFieldsHQ Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Thanks!
Script to Screen & All Things In Between
with Industry Expert Marilyn Swick
Script to Screen & All Things In Between is a film workshop designed to take participants through the complete filmmaking journey—from the first spark of an idea and the development of a screenplay through pre-production, casting, contracts, music, post-production, festivals, pitch, and distribution.
Whether participants are aspiring screenwriters, directors, producers, actors, or emerging filmmakers, this workshop provides a practical overview of the entire filmmaking process, key decisions, collaborations, and creative challenges that connect a script to a finished film and ultimately to its audience.
Marilyn Swick is a Cave Creek based multiple award-winning Director, screenwriter, ASCAP Music Publisher & writer, SAG-AFTRA actor, acting coach, and producer under her company, Sleep On It Productions. Marilyn attended the New York Film Academy, received her Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts from Georgetown University, and was accepted into the Juilliard School of Drama Extension Division, NYC in 2025. When not on a film set, you may find her showing her horse in Hunter Under Saddle or Pleasure Driving classes.
Follow her at: https://www.instagram.com/marilynswick/
Follow her films and awards at: http://www.imdb.me/marilynswick
Beyond the Premiere: Social Media Marketing
with Industry Expert Melissa Farley
Your film deserves an audience. Let’s help you find it. 🎬
Social media doesn’t have to mean chasing trends, becoming an influencer, or shouting “WATCH MY MOVIE!” into the void. In this energetic, practical workshop, media and marketing strategist Melissa Farley shows filmmakers and performers how to turn the creative process itself into compelling content that builds genuine connections and gets people invested before the premiere. Learn what’s working on social media right now, what to post when you think you have “nothing to post,” how to make festivals work harder for your visibility, and how to transform followers into a community that’s actually excited to see what you create next. Come with a project. Leave with a plan.
Melissa Farley is an award-winning filmmaker, actor, media producer, and marketing strategist with more than two decades of experience helping stories find—and move—their audiences. After building social and digital teams within the USA TODAY NETWORK, she founded Stronger Today, a boutique agency serving filmmakers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and purpose-driven organizations, while continuing a performance career spanning more than 35 IMDb credits and major network roles. Drawing on her experience both in front of the camera and behind the scenes at film festivals throughout Arizona, she currently serves on the board of the Worldwide Women’s Film Festival, is the host and producer of Arizona’s The Morning Show, and is a Disney Teaching Artist.
Follow her at:
@TheMelissaFarley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelissafarley/?hl=en
@OnTheMorningShow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onthemorningshow/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-farley-b8097531/
The Four P’s of Screenwriting, but wait, there’s a fifth!
with Industry Expert Beverly Nault
Whether you’re writing for spec or to produce your own film, discover the four P’s that turn promising ideas into compelling screenplays: how to meet audience expectations, build an engaging story world, create a satisfying journey, and deliver an ending that works.
Beverly Nault is an award-winning screenwriter, producer, and published author specializing in uplifting, character-driven stories with engaging humor and meaningful emotional stakes. She creates stories that entertain while taking audiences on journeys they’ll remember long after the story ends. She believes memorable storytelling depends on understanding audiences as deeply as we understand our characters: what they expect, what they need and want, and what keeps them invested in the journey.
Her feature screenplay, Better Angels (formerly Perfect Misfits, Show Low Top 3, 2023), is now with multiple Emmy Award-winning director Paul A. Kaufman moving toward production. She is a producer of the feature documentary My Life Between the Reins and serves on the crew of Life Interrupted: The Cancer Series. She is currently on the production staff of Running on Faith, a feature documentary and music video about rising barrel-racing star Faith Hudson.
Bev has written, co-written, or consulted on dozens of screenplays. She worked as a first reader for a literary agency and as an acquisitions editor for an acclaimed literary journal. Today, she works as a development editor on screenplays and with select clients writing fiction and nonfiction. Bev lives in Mesa, Arizona, with her husband, Gary. A Texas native who grew up riding horses, she also enjoys photography, tennis, and travel—and majors in spoiling her four granddaughters.
Insta: @bevnault
Music in Film
with Industry Expert Les Scott
LES SCOTT WILL WALK YOU THROUGH THE PROCESS OF FINDING PROPER MUSIC SOURCES, AVOIDING LICENSING PITFALLS, BREAKING DOWN FESTIVAL & STEP DEAL LICENSES USED IN INDIE FILMS. In this workshop, Les will present current information on:
· Artificial Intelligence – the current landscape
· securing the legal documents that will be required of you
· types of licenses (festival, step deals, non-exclusive)
· music – specially commissioned Work-Made-For-Hire
· vetting the provider and music you’re planning to use
· union/guild issues regarding musicians/singers on recordings
Les Scott is a veteran of the music industry whose publishing company Source Q Boutique specializes in music placement in film & television and currently represents over 400 writers/artists. SQB is exclusively marketed through its alliances with Crucial Music Group, Expressive Artists LLC., Generation Music, Inc., Words West LLC,
JC3 Media Music.
A few of SQB placements include; 9-1-1 (fox), Shameless (show), Pivoting (fox), Chicago P.D. (nbc), American Idol (fox), Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (abc), House (fox), Shut Eye (hulu), Love (netflix), The Fosters (abc), Breaking Bad (amc), Castle (abc), Rizzoli & Isles (tnt), American Gods (starz), Californication (show), Once Upon a Time (abc), Weeds (show), Cold Case (cbs), Ugly Betty (abc), Saving Grace (tnt), Prison Break (fox), Friday Night Lights (nbc), Dancing With The Stars (abc), along with landing the theme song for the CW show, Life Unexpected.
Entertainment Law for Independent Filmmakers
with Industry Experts Robert Darwell & Justin Reid
Entertainment attorney and filmmaker Robert Darwell and his colleague Justin Reid lead a practical workshop on the key legal issues independent filmmakers encounter from development through distribution. Designed for both scripted and documentary filmmakers, the session will cover acquiring and clearing rights, development and financing, production agreements and legal issues, and licensing and distribution. Drawing on more than three decades representing filmmakers, producers, studios and financiers—as well as his own experience as a documentary filmmaker—they will focus on real-world issues and practical strategies that can help filmmakers protect their projects and avoid costly mistakes.
Robert Darwell is a partner at Sheppard and Head of the firm’s Global Media practice. For more than three decades, he has represented leading studios, streaming platforms, producers, financiers and other entertainment companies in film and television financing, production, distribution and major strategic transactions. His clients have ranged from independent filmmakers to some of the world’s largest media companies, including Amazon, which he represented in the launch of Amazon Studios and its acquisition of MGM. Darwell is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, giving him the unusual perspective of working on both the legal and creative sides of filmmaking. Over the course of his career, he has worked on hundreds of movies, including personal favorites such as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” and “Air.”
Justin Reid has worked with Darwell at Sheppard for almost 4 years, and prior to that spent more than eight years in-house as business and legal affairs counsel for leading production companies and studios, including Boat Rocker Studios, VICE Studios, and All3Media America.
"In Hollywood, the film isn’t the only product. You are.”
with Industry Expert Cupid Hayes
Talent matters. The work matters. But in an industry overflowing with both, neither is enough to distinguish you. Every pitch, project, meeting and opportunity is communicating something about the person behind the work, whether you intend it to or not.
Are You Ready for Your Close-up? Actor or Not. is an interactive look at the one part of an entertainment career too important to leave in someone else’s hands.
So, if you're the product, how well do you know what you’re selling?"
Cupid Hayes has been the talent, chosen the talent and helped take the talent to market.
A SAG-AFTRA actress and Telly Award-winning Hollywood casting director, Cupid later became a media distribution executive, helping launch seven AVOD, cable and OTT channels; leading brand strategy, partnerships and international expansion.
Today, she is Founder and CEO of Arrow Advising, a bespoke brand and strategy firm working with individuals, businesses and municipalities. Known as The Guardian Angel of Brand™, Cupid brings a perspective shaped not by theory, but by decades of seeing how people, projects and ideas are cast, packaged, positioned, sold and remembered.