Education

Date: Saturday, April 20

Time: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Location: Rita Blitt Gallery in the Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn University

Allan Holzman has proven himself a skilled filmmaking chameleon. His work as the director-editor of Steven Spielberg's "Survivors of the Holocaust" won Holzman two Emmy Awards and a Peabody. His feature documentaries "Old Man River" and "Sounds Of Memphis" earned a combined eight best documentary film awards.

Lillian Meyer, daughter of a Michael Meyer and Kimberly Gentry, was born October 2009, and has been raised in Mound City, Kansas. Meyer’s passions include running and climbing, something she’s engaged in since she was young. She also ardently enjoys writing, and for the past two years, has been writing a storyline for a movie based off of a fever dream she had during her childhood. After years of writing, the desire to become a screenplay writer and movie director have become increasingly more significant in pursuit of a lifelong career of writing. Meyer will make her debut film in 2024.

Jess Seidel is the Content Director for the Department of Mass Media at Washburn University. She organizes the judging and film schedule for the WIFI Film Festival

Seidel is screenwriter, having written the short film Until It’s Gone. She also co-wrote the short film For the Sins of Midnight. She is currently the writer and director for the 2024 short film, The Getaway, which is being produced in the Advanced Film Production class at Washburn.

Seidel will graduate in May 2024 with her Bachelor of Art degree in mass media, with a concentration in film and video and a minor in anthropology. She will be attending the University of Southern California next year to pursue an MFA in Writing for Screen and Television.

After graduating from Pittsburgh State University with a Master of Arts in Communication, KD Laporte was hired as a producer for the Heartland Films, Inc. podcast, "The Wizard of One." During 12 months of work, she oversaw the production of 13 podcast interviews at the Real Media production studios. One such interview was with Dee Wallace, which Laporte conducted herself. 

Laporte's next crew position was as wardrobe coordinator and Covid compliance coordinator on the film set "The Last Butterflies," which is currently on the film festival circuit and will screen at the Kansas City International Film Festival in April, 2024. Laporte also has a film project planned for fall of 2024 which she is excited to start. She sees everyday as an opportunity to learn and spread kindness.

Sapphíre Skyíe has been trained through the Industry Network, and in just nine months of autodidactically studying, has written and directed five short scenes along with nine competitions in Hollywood, California. This past January, she aimed to get onto Netflix and the Disney channel and won two first-place awards and four honorable mentions. 

Skyíe has a high level of proficiency in script analysis, character development, ethics, punctuality, and adaptability, along with collaboration and ensemble work. Skyíe has been coached on audition techniques by Larry Van Burren, Jr., along with agency audition basics through Gloria Morakinyo and had a five-week bootcamp with Polina Frantsena while also being privately tutored by Steve Ducey. She has also been awarded the Spirit award for being the most outgoing out of 80 contestants in the 2014 Miss Missouri USA pageant. According to recent studies, only two percent of actors make it in the Industry and the other 98 percent struggle to make a living; Skyíe is here in the two percent.

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 10 a.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in the Anton Room, and on Facebook Live.

Andrew Farkas is the author of Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?: Stories, The Great Indoorsman: Essays, The Big Red Herring (a novel), Sunsphere (stories), and Self-Titled Debut (stories). His Movies Are Fine for a Bright Boy Like You was a finalist for the University of North Texas Press's Katherine Anne Porter Prize and for Missouri State University's Moon City Press Short Fiction Prize. He is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Washburn University and an editor for Always Crashing.

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 10 a.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in the Menninger Room, and on Facebook Live.

Lolo Loren is a writer, director, cinematographer, actor, and co-founder of IX Film Productions along with her partner Patrick Poe. She is one of the hosts of the movie trivia podcast "First Timers Movie Club", and a curator of the Bird Watching Film Festival at The Bird Comedy Theatre in the Crossroads. With her company IX Film Productions, she has produced music videos, 6 feature films, over 30 short films, and dozens of standup comedy specials. IX was runner up in Pitch Magazine in 2022 for Best YouTuber and Best Videographer/Filmmaker and Lolo and her partner won "Best Filmmaker: Artistic" in 2023. IX Film Productions' newest award winning feature film "Almost Sorta Maybe", is now available on streaming, and their newest short film Vegan Apocalypse won Best Kansas Film at Tallgrass Film Festival 2022 and has since been an official selection at a dozen more festivals nationally and internationally.

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 1 p.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in the Menninger Room, and on Facebook Live.

Ivy Sunderji is a writer and producer (credited as Ivy Mariel Pruss), screenwriting professor, and evidential psychic medium. Her credits include eight produced episodes of television on two OWN series, Delilah, a critically acclaimed legal drama, and Greenleaf, the network's NAACP Image Award-winning flagship series. Prior to her work in TV, Ivy was a feature writing fellow at Universal Pictures. A graduate of Dartmouth College, she earned an MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC's School of Cinematic Arts, where she now teaches courses in TV drama and feature-writing. She lives in Marina del Rey, CA with her Goldendoodle, Zooey, whose nickname is "The Ambassador of Joy."

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 1 p.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in the Anton Room, and on Facebook Live.

Pamela Schmidt, Ph.D., MA, MBA, MS, is a graduate of the Northwestern University School of Communications with a master of arts degree in film and television. She received this film degree concurrent with her studies for her MBA degree at Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. 

While in Chicago, Schmidt was a production assistant with Kartemquin Films, a noted film company that produced Hoop Dreams and numerous other award-winning documentary films. In Chicago, she interned at WTTW, the PBS affiliate in Chicago, Illinois, as a production assistant for Sneak Previews, a long-running syndicated movie review program. At WTTW, she also worked on productions about the architectural history of downtown Chicago and the Chicago school system.

During her film studies, Schmidt received the Best Student Narrative Film award at the Chicago Student Film Festival for her 16MM film on workplace harassment. For four years, she served as a film judge in the documentary film category for the Chicago International Film Festival. 

Schmidt has taught multimedia development and video production at the University of Arkansas and also video production at DuPage County Community College. While in Arkansas, she helped revive a regional film festival as the co-chair of the Fayetteville Film Festival, which continues on as a regional film hub to this day. She has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she also sat in on numerous film history and film criticism lectures. Schmidt is currently a professor of Data Analytics and Accounting Information Systems at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 11 a.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted in the Anton Room at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library and on Facebook Live.

Allan Holzman is a well-known filmmaker and editor who has worked extensively in Hollywood with some of the most iconic filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Roger Corman. He’s very skilled in his field, often challenging himself to an array of different projects, and using his skill to help others turn their works into accomplished pieces.

Date: Saturday, April 20 at 11 a.m.

Location: The workshop will be hosted at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in the Menninger Room, and on Facebook Live.

Reverend Christian Watkins specializes in Constructive Theologies and community-based social change. She is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. Her ministry focuses on fostering alternative faith communities, anti-racist and LGBTQ+ inclusive practices, mentorship, environmental sustainability, and inter-belief solidarity. She is a social science researcher, educator, speaker, writer, actor, musician, and the Executive Director of a faith-rooted 501(c)3 at Kansas State University. Born and raised in rural Southeast Kansas, she is passionate about storytelling that uses nuanced pastoral narratives to lead us towards more dynamic community. As an Associate Producer, Christian specializes in Fundraising and Strategic Development for the project and acts as the religious consultant.