Reality LA

Category: Writing

  • IKON | The Spiritual Imagination

    IKON | The Spiritual Imagination

    We are seeking nothing less than a miracle: a film with a few seconds of eternity in it.
    — Ron Austin    , “The Spiritual Frontiers of Film“

    We find a shared experience….We approach the essence of creation. Because to render the human face in generous light is an act of grace.
    — Scott Teems    , “Necessary Images“

    Writer-producer-directors Scott Teems and Ron Austin join IKON Director Caleb Monroe for a public conversation on the spiritual frontiers of cinematic storytelling followed by a time of Q&A.

    Ron Austin was born in Hollywood in 1934, acted for Charlie Chaplin and Viola Spolin as a teenager, may be the last living writer blacklisted by Hollywood in the fifties, and worked as a writer-producer in films and TV for over 40 years. He is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America. Ron’s other careers have included stints as a social worker, a prison chaplain, and a teacher of screenwriting and media arts at USC Cinema School and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkley.

    Scott Teems is currently in post-production on The Quarry, his second feature as writer-director. His debut feature, That Evening Sun, won the Audience Award and Special Jury Award at SXSW, won more than a dozen major awards at festivals across North America, and was nominated for two Film Independent Spirit Awards. He wrote, directed, and produced three seasons of the Peabody Award-winning SundanceTV drama Rectify and is currently a co-executive producer of the Netflix series Narcos. His documentary, Holbrook/Twain, was released November 19, 2019.

  • IKON | Creativity and the Arts Panel

    IKON | Creativity and the Arts Panel

    A pastor, a comic book writer, a mathematician, an actor, a musician, and a TV writer walk into a panel…. Pastor Adam Smith moderates a conversation with creatives from a variety of fields on some of the unique ways the Christian faith intersects creative fields and the arts.

    Caleb Monroe is a comic book writer (Batman, Peanuts) and screenwriter (The Mongolian Connection), as well as a deacon and staff member of Reality LA.

    Satyan Devadoss holds the Fletcher Jones Chair of Applied Math at the University of San Diego. Before that, he was a professor of mathematics at Williams College, with visiting positions at Ohio State, UC Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, Université Nice, and Stanford. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, recipient of two national teaching awards, and explores the intersection of math with origami, cartography, architecture, genetics, and design.

    Emily Rose is a passionate Seahawks fan, a Seattle native, and has been working as an actress for the past twelve years. She is best known for her work as Elena Fisher in Sony PlayStation’s Uncharted franchise and as Audrey Parker, the lead of Syfy’s show Haven. Emily received her BA in Theater from Vanguard University and her Masters in Acting from UCLA, where she also currently teaches.

    Natalie Nicoles is a musician, singer, songwriter, and dreamer born and raised in the foothills of Los Angeles. She does session work around town, and is also a member of the California band Branches.

    Gina Atwater hails from Atlanta, GA. She is an Emmy-Award-winning writer of film and TV, currently staffed on the HBO series Westworld.

    This is the third of a three-part forum.

  • IKON | Be Faithful to Your God

    IKON | Be Faithful to Your God

    Author and Pastor for Preaching & Vision Jeremy Treat shares some thoughts and a prayer on what it means to be faithful to God as a writer.

    This is the seventh of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | Writing Panel

    IKON | Writing Panel

    Caleb Monroe moderates a conversation with a TV writer, an Inklings scholar, a New York Times journalist, and a poet/novelist on some of the unique ways the Christian faith intersects the vocation of writing.

    Dean Batali is a TV writer and executive producer whose work includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, That 70’s Show, Puppy Dog Pals (head writer), and The Good Witch (showrunner). He co-authored the book Watching TV Religiously: Television and Theology in Dialogue.

    Diana Pavlac Glyer teaches English at Azusa Pacific University and is the author three books about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings (the most recent is called Bandersnatch). She is also the founder of Creative Artist’s Prayer Fellowship, a rag-tag group of local writers, painters, musicians, and scholars who gather twice a month for mutual encouragement and prayer.

    Ivan Penn is a national award-winning journalist whose 26 years in the newspaper business have included working for The Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, The St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay Times, The Los Angeles Times, and currently The New York Times. He also is co-founder and president of The Power of Song Inc., a non-profit organization that educates about social justice issues through song, theater and art.

    Paul J. Willis is a professor of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. He recently served as an artist-in-residence in North Cascades National Park in Washington State.

    Caleb is a comic book writer (Batman, Peanuts) and screenwriter (The Mongolian Connection) as well as a deacon and staff member of Reality LA.

    This is the sixth of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | Switching Genres

    IKON | Switching Genres

    Paul J. Willis traces his path through different writing genres to poetry and looks at the examples of well-known writers who also ended up writing different material than they set out to write, including C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, and Robert Browning.

    Paul is a professor of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. He recently served as an artist-in-residence in North Cascades National Park in Washington State.

    This is the fifth of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Green Great Dragon

    IKON | C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Green Great Dragon

    Diana Pavlac Glyer extrapolates lessons from C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s lasting, influential literary circle, The Inklings, for any writer seeking to grow their work through the powerful opportunities that can only be generated within creative community.

    Diana teaches English at Azusa Pacific University and is the author three books about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings (the most recent is called Bandersnatch). She is also the founder of Creative Artist’s Prayer Fellowship, a rag-tag group of local writers, painters, musicians, and scholars who gather twice a month for mutual encouragement and prayer.

    This is the fourth of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | Not Truth, but Accountability

    IKON | Not Truth, but Accountability

    Ivan Penn shares both the strength and vulnerability of speaking truth to power. What does it mean to use the truth to hold people publically accountable in a world that seems to have lost its taste for both truth and accountability?

    Ivan is a national award-winning journalist whose 26 years in the newspaper business have included working for The Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, The St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay Times, The Los Angeles Times, and currently The New York Times. He also is co-founder and president of The Power of Song Inc., a non-profit organization that educates about social justice issues through song, theater and art.

    This is the third of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | Re-embracing Compromise

    IKON | Re-embracing Compromise

    Dean Batali uses the book of Daniel to talk about being a preserving presence in culture, why we should compromise more, the difference between ambition and selfish ambition, the importance of Christian community, and reframing failure and success.

    Dean is a TV writer and executive producer whose work includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, That 70’s Show, Puppy Dog Pals (head writer), and The Good Witch (showrunner). He co-authored the book Watching TV Religiously: Television and Theology in Dialogue.

    This is the second of a seven-part evening.

  • IKON | Convocation

    IKON | Convocation

    Caleb Monroe explores what it means that we don’t just have individual callings on our life, but are called into our field of work with others, and what this has to do with the practicalities of encouragement.

    Caleb is a comic book writer (Batman, Peanuts) and screenwriter (The Mongolian Connection) as well as a deacon and staff member of Reality LA.

    This is the first of a seven-part evening.

  • RESOURCE | The Spiritual Frontiers of Film

    Like the deepest art, the essay has layers that reveal themselves over time. At first it seemed primarily theoretical, but upon multiple readings its practical applications were uncovered, idea by valuable idea. The ancient principle of unity of form and content is the bedrock of the essay, and it receives new life through Austin’s explication; he transforms it from concept to tool.

    Austin not only opened my eyes to a trove of spiritually minded films and filmmakers I had yet to encounter, he gave me a new way of thinking about how I might make films of my own. Making spiritually seeking films is no easy endeavor, and he offers no formats or quick fixes. What we are trying for, he says, is “nothing less than a miracle: a film with a few seconds of eternity in it.”

    —Scott Teems, from his introduction

    Ron Austin was born in 1934, and was raised in Hollywood. At age 12 he became a child actor, initially working under the direction of Charlie Chaplin and noted teacher Viola Spolin. A graduate of the UCLA film school in 1956, he is a veteran writer and producer in the Hollywood industry, with over a hundred credits in film and television. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild, and has won two life-time achievement awards from the Writers Guild of America for his service to writers and the Hollywood community.

    Read the essay ➜

  • IKON | The Importance of Fairy Tales

    IKON | The Importance of Fairy Tales

    Bobette Buster discusses the power of fairy tales to reframe our expectations and form resilience to hardship.

    Bobette is a world-renowned lecturer on story, cinema, and Hollywood economics; adjunct professor at USC’s Peter Stark Program; consultant for Pixar, Disney Animation, Sony Animation, and Twentieth Century Fox; and the author of Do Story: How to Tell Your Story so the World Listens.

  • IKON | Fully Alive or Living Dead

    IKON | Fully Alive or Living Dead

    Bobette Buster considers the two meta-themes behind every story and the two ultimate outcomes to every story’s choices.

    Bobette is a world-renowned lecturer on story, cinema, and Hollywood economics; adjunct professor at USC’s Peter Stark Program; consultant for Pixar, Disney Animation, Sony Animation, and Twentieth Century Fox; and the author of Do Story: How to Tell Your Story so the World Listens.