Writing Alumni Racking Up Achievements After Graduation: Guest Blog By Adam Till
As always, I’d like to start the term by giving you the latest news from the Writing For Film & Television Diploma program.
Soon-to-be-Writing For Film & Television-grad Nicole Mattiuzzo and 2013 our program alumnus Vince Masson have continued the tradition of Writing For Film & Television students receiving internships at Chessler Perlmutter Productions – both will be working in development, doing coverage on incoming scripts to start. Masson also recently won the Wildsound First Scene Contest, for the best first scene in an original screenplay. As part of his prize, the first scene of his feature film Kabul was table-read by local actors in an event produced by Wildsound. Congratulations to both Vince and Nicole on their impressive achievements.
2016 valedictorian Dan Bingham has just been hired in a permanent position as a scriptwriter for Ubisoft. Writing video game scripts is a dream-come-true for Bingham, who has also had a successful career as a stand-up comedian. Bingham will be moving to Quebec City to work at Ubisoft’s studio, but promises to visit as often as possible with stories and swag.
2016 grad Andrew Step refuses to go a term without a new achievement. Step’s internship at Ravenbanner has now turned into a paid position, and Step couldn’t be more thrilled to be working for his former instructor Michael Paszt, writing web content among other duties. Step has also written a play with ACT grad Cydney Cochrane entitled Locked, that will be featured at Placebo Place on October 22nd. Cochrane directs and stars in the show, which features a number of other Toronto Film School Acting for Film, Television & the Theatre graduates.
2013 grad Genevieve Heineman has written a play entitled Earl Call Jimmer, about Urban Hosers living in East End Toronto. Jimmer ran at Tranzac Club earlier this year, with Heineman directing. Heineman is now in development on a feature film version of the project, and hopes to shoot a proof-of-concept in the coming months using TFS students as her crew.
And 2013 valedictorian Brad Vermunt has hit an amazing milestone after coming off of season 5 of The Next Step, produced by Boat Rocker Media. After several seasons in the writing room for Temple Street/Family Channel’s The Next Step and Lost And Found Music Studios, Vermunt has now been a staff writer on more than 100 episodes of television! We congratulate Brad on this amazing achievement, just three years out of school.
Writing for Film & Television instructor Matthew Miller’s prodco Zapruder Films has started a new program to support female writers. The program, called Women First, selects top treatments from female applicants, then pays those selected for script development moving forward. The first winner was announced September 30th. In other Zapruder news, series Nirvanna The Band The Show will debut on Vice’s Viceland channel September 29th, and feature film Operation Avalanche is currently screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox, on the heels of its impressive debut at Sundance earlier this year. Avalanche will go into wider release in Canada and the US next month.
And finally, on a personal note, my pilot Meds, in development at 20th Century Fox/Fox Television, continues to move forward. We’ve now closed our deal and have spent the last few months looking for talent to attach – I’ll keep you posted as things develop.
Adam Till is the Coordinator of the Writing For Film & Television Diploma at Toronto Film School as well as a producer and writer, known for Billable Hours (2006), Perfect Sisters (2014) and Too Late to Say Goodbye (2009).
