June 2011 Contest

Stacey Sher is a partner at Double Feature Films with Michael Shamberg. Sher and Shamberg are currently in post-production on LOL, directed by Lisa Azuelos and staring Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore, and Contagion, which is the third film they have done with Steven Soderbergh including Academy Award-nominated films Erin Brockovich and Out of Sight. Their other credits include the 2010 medical drama Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, and the Academy Award Best Picture-nominated Pulp Fiction. Sher is reuniting with Tarantino to produce his newest film, Django Unchained.

In 2007, they produced Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese. Freedom Writers was chosen as the 2007 recipient of the Humanitas Prize. Their film World Trade Center, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Nicholas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, was chosen for the 2006 Christopher Award, presented to those who create films that affirm the highest values of the human spirit.

Sher and Shamberg’s other credits include the 2005 Independent Spirit Award-winning Garden State, as well as Reality Bites, Along Came Polly, Out of Sight, Get Shorty, Be Cool, Gattaca, Camp, Man on the Moon, Living Out Loud, Skeleton Key, Matilda, Drowning Mona, How High, Feeling Minnesota, and the Comedy Central series Reno 911, on which Sher and Shamberg served as Executive Producers for all six seasons.

Sher and Shamberg were honored by the ACLU for their commitment to films and television that are empowering, inspirational and thought-provoking. Sher is also the recipient of the 2002 Mary Pickford Award from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the 2000 Women in Film Independent Vision Award.

Ron Bass is an acclaimed screenwriter and film producer. A graduate of Stanford, Yale and the Harvard Law School, Mr. Bass began his career as an entertainment attorney, and spent 17 years practicing law, eventually becoming a partner at his law firm. However, he had a lifelong love of writing and eventually gave up the law to become a full-time screenwriter.

Mr. Bass won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for Rain Man in 1988. His other screenwriting credits include Amelia, Snow Falling On Cedars, Entrapment, Stepmom, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Waiting to Exhale, Dangerous Minds, When A Man Loves A Woman, The Joy Luck Club and Sleeping With The Enemy. He is known for successfully working in collaboration with other writers, including Amy Tan on The Joy Luck Club and Al Franken on When a Man Loves a Woman.

J. Michael Straczynski's produced screenplays include Changeling for director Clint Eastwood, Ninja Assassin for the Wachowski Brothers, Thor for Paramount (for which he co-wrote the story) and the production draft of Underworld 4, slated for release Fall 2011. He wrote the screenplay for World War Z, with Brad Pitt attached, and most recently sold an original spec, Voices of the Dead, to Dreamworks (for which he is also Executive Producer). He is simultaneously writing features -- Shattered Union and Vanishing Point -- for Bruckheimer/Disney.

For television, Straczynski created and produced the series Babylon 5, Crusade and Jeremiah, and has worked for such other shows as Murder She Wrote, the new Twilight Zone, and Walker, Texas Ranger. All in he has written over 200 produced episodes of television and half a dozen TV movies.

He has written over 300 published comics for Marvel and DC and Image, writing The Amazing Spider-Man for seven years, followed by Thor, The Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Superman, and others. His Superman: Earth One graphic novel was on the NY Times Graphic Novels Bestseller List for over six months.

In addition to being nominated for a British Academy Award for his screenplay for Changeling, he has received the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Lifetime Achievement Award, the Saturn Award, the Hugo award (twice), the Ray Bradbury Award, the Christopher Foundation Award, the Space Frontier Foundation Award and the E Pluribus Unum Award from the American Cinema Foundation, in addition to a dozen other awards, including two Emmys for Babylon 5.