Samantha Starr — Literary Manager

Samantha is a film and TV literary manager at Circle of Confusion Management, previously at Gotham Group and Columbia Pictures in development on films including 21 Jump Street and Moneyball. She transitioned to management at Principato-Young after a stint at One-Two Punch Productions.

Her clients have included TV writers Ester Lou Weithers (Pitch), Andrew Thomas (Henry Danger), Jeane Wong, Becca Rodriguez and Stan Wang; actress Elena Pavli; filmmaker Bennett Lasseter; and playwright James Wesley.

Circle of Confusion is a premiere management and production destination for actors, writers, directors, content creators, publishers and journalists. Circle is active in creating a broad spectrum of television series and feature films, and specializes in the discovery of original, unique and compelling voices, with offices in Los Angeles and New York.

Mitchell Galin — Screenwriter, Director and Producer

is a seasoned, multiple award-winning producer in the film, television and theater mediums. Through his over 30-year career he has developed and/or overseen the production of ten features, over 25 television movies and mini-series, three series, six documentaries and two theater productions.

Galin just completed production on the TV One television pilot Media. Concurrently he is producing his latest documentary on Kauai’s historic Lawai International Center, a non-denominational community project.

Galin serves on the board, and was the past president of FilmNashville, the Nashville Screenwriter’s Conference, and was appointed by Gov. Bredesen to the Film Production Advisory Committee, which completed the report that served as the basis for the ‘08 Tennessee State sponsored film incentive program. Galin has served on the boards of the Nashville Film Festival and as a consultant to the Independent Features Project, the largest association of independent filmmakers in the country.

Galin is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, Producers Guild and the Academy of Television Arts. His writing and editorial work has been published both in the United States and England. He has served as a guest lecturer at Columbia University, NYU, New School of Social Research, Vanderbilt, Belmont University as well as a panelist at various film festivals including Sundance, IFP, Cannes.

Bob Giordano — Screenwriter and Director

Bob Giordano is a principal of Uproar Pictures, based in Nashville, TN. He is the 2017 Grand Prize Winner of “The Poe Contest” for his script, The Odds, and the director of The Odds feature. He has been a quarterfinalist, a semifinalist, a finalist, and/or won several of Hollywood’s most prestigious screenplay contests, including The Southern California Screenplay Competition (The Odds), Nicholl Fellowship (Sicko), Fade-In (Uprise), The Writer’s Network contest (Resistance), the Hollywood Symposium (Grendel) and Script Open Door.

Over many years, Bob has worked on numerous short films and independent features as a writer, director, assistant director, camera operator, and editor. Since coming to Nashville in the1980s, he has continuously taught screenwriting and filmmaking to adults, teens and children, including his ongoing screenwriting courses at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film. He is also a past president and current officer of the Tennessee Screenwriting Association. As a prolific writer of dozens of completed scripts, he often says, “Daylight’s burning.”

Tom Steinmann — Screenwriter and Producer

Tom Steinmann is a principal of Uproar Pictures, returning to the entertainment business after many years in real estate. In the early 2000’s, Tom was a Producer’s Rep, selling television projects from music brands, such as “Western Beat” and “Country’s Family Reunion”, In the late 90’s, Tom was VP of Distribution for faith-based label, Big Doggie Records.

Tom has worked for over 25 yrs. in entertainment marketing and sales, across a wide spectrum of products and genres, from music to movies, and from 100M B.O. titles to genre pictures, classics films, music videos and cartoons.

James V. Hart — Screenwriter

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and shot for $40 million, Dracula was one of the biggest hits of 1992, grossing $82.5 million nationally and $215.8 million worldwide — the ninth-highest grossing film of that year – and it was written by Script-Com’s guest speaker James V. Hart.

.

Besides Dracula, Hart’s screenwriting credits include Hook (1991), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Contact (1997), Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story (2001), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider—The Cradle of Life (2003), Sahara (2005), August Rush (2007), Epic (2013), the 2014 TV series Crossbones, and 2019’s The Hot Zone min-series on National Geographic.