E51 - Indie Panel: Starting Your Own Production Company

Our Indie Panel: Starting Your Own Production Company with Sofia Monroe, David Schatanoff, Jr. and Zeke Thomas.

 

Zeke Rodrigues Thomas is an award winning filmmaker and on-camera talent with over a decade of experience in the entertainment industry. You may recognize this face/voice from ad campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and viral videos that top over 100 MM views. He's also worked with some of the top companies in media including: Skybound Entertainment, Legendary Pictures, DEFY Media, and Viacom Digital Studios (VDS). As Executive Producer at Mindjam Media he produced 'Don't Go Alone', a scripted anthology Halloween series for Nickelodeon as well as serving as showrunner on Super League Gaming's Minecraft City Champs also Nickelodeon. Most recently he's also served in a creative development capacity on 'Annie vs. Hayley: LeBake Off', Throw Back with Nickelodeon, and many other VDS projects."

 

David Schatanoff, Jr. is among the new breed of producers. Not only can he navigate the worlds of film and television, but also the growing need for quality new media programs. David began his career in 1998 working in post-production for the major studios. Reliably working with high profile clientele landed him a position supervising post-production operations at 20th Century Fox and later servicing multi-million dollar deals at Sony Pictures. Becoming more involved with script development and production, he made the transition to creative producing and has never looked back. His current projects include the popular second season of the digital series L.A. Macabre, and the feature film Playing With Beethoven. He is also developing a holiday film for release in 2021 and a television series based on U.S. Special Forces. David is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (The Emmys), and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammys).

 

Sofia Monroe is a producer, director and artist who launched Daymaker Productions in 2016. Her company's purpose is a hybrid of Stories, Marketing, Philanthropy and Art to create quality content for social and community impact, commercial and entertainment purposes. In addition to content production, the company works to help people help more people. Sofia has been on production teams with production companies, award shows, development and casting teams for over 10 years and is an active board member of various organizations nationwide.Her experience includes producing projects for Pepsi, Caesars Palace, original content with companies such as Lionsgate's LOL Network, Defy Media, international brands, a Community Action Agency and others.

 

Thank you to the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences, WDSE-WRPT Duluth, The Wrap, and the WGA-East for supporting Storieroad.