John Lloyd MillerChair, Head of ScreenwritingLocation: Johnson Center 464View BioMiller has worked in virtually every aspect of the film and television business as a director, writer and producer.
Upon graduating from high school in his hometown of Westfield, New Jersey, Miller enlisted in the United States Navy. After leaving the armed forces, he attended Northeastern University in Boston, where he worked as an editor and director for the school's television station. Miller graduated with honors and left for California to attend the MFA program at the University of Southern California.
Miller began directing music videos while in graduate school, and has directed hundreds in all genres, including Garth Brooks', “The Dance”, The Smithereens, "A Girl Like You", Eazy E and NWA, "Easier Said than Dunn", The Goo Goo Dolls, "There You Are", The Fat Boys and Chubby Checker, "The Twist", Joe Cocker, "You Are So Beautiful" and Vince Gill, “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”
He also played tambourine on The Kentucky Headhunters, “Blue Moon of Kentucky” recording from their album, “Rave On.”
Miller is a 7 time CMA nominee, a CMA Video of the Year Award winner as well as winning countless Video of the Year awards from the ACM, Billboard Magazine, Cine Golden Eagle and many more.
In 1999 Miller collaborated with country music star Mark Collie to create the short film, “I Still Miss Someone,” the first film portrayal of Johnny Cash. The film won awards from festivals around the world and was the only short film shown in the Woodstock Festival's "30 Greatest Films of the Last 30 Years," alongside "Blue Velvet", "Easy Rider", and "Pulp Fiction."
Miller has directed TV shows for HBO, VH1, FX and many more.
He is the founder of The AV Squad, his production company in Tennessee, and a co-creator of Beacon Bay Creative, with offices in Los Angeles, Hilton Head and Nashville. Miller is the father of twin teenagers, an alumnus of Leadership Music, and a member of the WGAe.
Amy Bertram, Ph.D.Film HistoryPh.D., M.A., University of Tennessee - Knoxville, B.A., Davidson CollegeLocation: Johnson Center 468View BioA Tennessee native and Renaissance woman, Amy Bertram demonstrates the possibilities offered by academic study, travel, and experience. She is trilingual, well versed in art, literature, culture and film, and a scholar. Her approach to film history and filmmaking stems from her work as a graduate student in French at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. With a focus on French film and theater for her M.A., she completed her Ph.D. with a second concentration in Cinema Studies.
With a passion for cinema and teaching, Amy has over a decade of experience teaching at the college level. After recognizing that most film students respond best when film history is mixed with practical exercises, she has developed an approach that incorporates film production. In the classroom Amy is energetic and engaged as she strives to make film history exciting, informative, accessible, and meaningful. She cares about her students success beyond the classroom. Some of her former students have worked on the ABC series Nashville, while others have gone on to find jobs in Los Angeles.
Amy is actively involved with Nashville’s film and francophone communities. She and her students have volunteered with the Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) since 2010. She is a member of NaFF and the Belcourt Theatre, where she introduces French films as part of the Vanderbilt FLiCX program. She is a member of the Alliance Française, which promotes French culture, as well as Sister Cities Nashville, which links with Nashville’s sister city Caen, France. Amy is a rock climber and whitewater paddler.
Stephen HauserInstructor of Motion PicturesLocation: Johnson Center 469View BioStephen has been working in Hollywood for over 20 years. He moved from Los Angeles to Nashville four years ago to help produce the TV show “NASHVILLE” for ABC, CMT and Hulu. During his three-season stint on the show, Stephen began teaching Screenwriting Fundamentals at Belmont and now teaches Screenwriting and Production full time.
After growing up in St. Louis and graduating from Wheaton College outside Chicago, Stephen began his career in Hollywood reading scripts for Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Barry Levinson. He assisted Mr. Levinson on the NBC show “Homicide: Life on The Street” and the Warner Brothers films, DISCLOSURE (starring Michael Douglas) and SLEEPERS (starring Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Bacon).
During this time, Stephen adapted his first screenplay based on the Michael Crichton novel, SPHERE, for Warner Brothers, directed by Mr. Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson.
Over the last 15 years, Stephen has written and sold original screenplays and been hired to adapt books and doctor scripts on projects for Miramax, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, the Weinstein Company, Paramount Pictures, and financiers in the independent film world. He’s represented by the Paradigm Agency in L.A. and Writ-Large Management.
Stephen’s passion lies in helping students develop their creative process and hone their unique voice for the marketplace.
Jeff PhillipsScreenwritingLocation: Johnson Center 466View BioJeff’s journey as a writer is a winding narrative that stretching from coast to coast; a pilgrimage toward enlightenment–from his birthplace in Walt Whitman’s New Jersey, through his formative years growing up in a movie theater in Los Angeles, to his twenty plus years as a working writer-producer-director in film/TV. He is a twelve-time produced feature screenwriter, has written and developed several projects for television, worked with all of the Hollywood major studios and networks, and is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America. Think of it like Captain Willard’s quest up the Nùng River to find Kurtz, except not quite as dark and with considerably less bloodshed. After teaching screenwriting and production at Loyola Marymount and Chapman University, Jeff docked his figurative ship in Nashville. He looks forward to showing Belmont students how the emotional connection between the page and ones’ audience can lead to personal and professional success in this most collaborative of businesses.
Jeff, still ridiculously writing in the third person, believes in living a life to write about. Among other adventures, he has traveled to seventeen countries, most of the fifty states, kayaked the west coast, driven cattle across Wyoming, worked air and ground search and rescue, seen Baryshnikov perform “Giselle,” Sinatra sing “My Way,” and Clayton Kershaw pitch. When he’s not writing… scratch that. He’s always writing. He does, however, save most of his time for his greatest creation: his family whom he has in tow. Including his cat.
Favorite TV shows: Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Orphan Black
Favorite movie: 8 ½
Favorite book: War and Peace
Favorite band: Led Zeppelin
Favorite word: Omphaloskepsis
Publications
Houdini: The Man from Beyond
@urFRENZ The Shooting Script
Nancy Roche, Ph.D.Film HistoryPh.D., Middle Tennessee State University, M.F.A., Brown UniversityLocation: Johnson Center 460View BioNancy McGuire Roche grew up on a family farm in Western Kentucky and now lives in an historic house in East Nashville. Film is both her passion and her profession. She holds a Ph.D. in English with Concentrations in Film Studies and American Literature 1930-Present from Middle Tennessee
State University, as well as a B.S. degree from Vanderbilt University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Brown University. Her academic awards include The Arnstark and Rome Prizes for Poetry and the Feldman and Harris Awards for Fiction, while at Brown, and a Provost Writing Fellowship from MTSU. She has been a university professor for almost two decades and has taught film studies for twelve years.
Dr. Roche specializes in film genres, Women in Film, Cinemas of the 1960s, and American Independent Film, with an emphasis on culture studies, narrative, and gender and identity performance. Her recent publications include a chapter in Modern American Drama on Screen from Cambridge University Press and the book Conversations with Edmund White from
University Press of Mississippi. A chapter on Mike Nichols in The Other Hollywood Renaissance and her book Cinema in Revolt: Censorship Reform in 1960s British and American Film are both forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press. She also writes the column “Film Beat” for the East Nashvillian Magazine. Her passions include travel, gardening, yoga, and challenging herself to see how many movies she can view at the Belcourt Theatre in one week.