Inside Hollywood Speaker Series

The Inside Hollywood Speaker Series welcomes John David Ware and Gary Zelasko to Riverside City College on Thursday, October 9, at 6 p.m. in the Digital Library Auditorium.

Ware and Zelasko will discuss the benefits of film festivals and screenwriting competitions and how they sharpen filmmakers’ skills, promote projects, and contribute to career advancement. 

 

Ware is the founder and director of the168 Film Project, a worldwide filmmaking and writing competition. Through the competition over 800 short films have been produced worldwide in 12 years. The competition has helped to launch 

several careers, including that of Elizabeth Jones (We Bought A Zoo). Ware has also written feature-length screenplays and is the writer/director of a short film spoof of Hollywood stereotypes entitled The Chronicles of Hernia. Originally from Ohio, Ware went to film school at Miami University and today is a highly sought-after conference speaker and media and film-festival consultant. 

Meanwhile, Zelasko is the director of marketing development for Greg Laurie’s Harvest Ministries, which
includes Laurie’s Harvest Christian Fellowship; its radio program, A New Beginning, with an estimated two million daily listeners; and Laurie’s Harvest Crusades, where an estimated four million people have attended in the past 24 years. He also leads the marketing and distribution effort for Harvest Films. Its biographical documentary film, Lost Boy: The Next Chapter, won eight international film festival awards, and its Hope For Hurting Hearts, featuring Greg and Cathe Laurie, Nick Vujicic, and Jeremy Camp, has been recognized 15 times as a category winner or official selection at several film festivals. Zelasko also contributes to the marketing effort for greglaurie.tv, Harvest’s weekly half-hour television program, and Harvest America. Prior to joining Harvest Ministries, Zelasko worked in broadcast television sales and management careers at Blair Television, Cox Communications, Hearst Broadcasting, and CBS Owned and Operated Stations.  

 

For more information regarding the Inside Hollywood Speaker Series, contact Susan St. Peters at susan.stpeters@rcc.edu or (951) 222-8269. Admission is free and children 12 and older are welcome.

Riverside Community College District is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation to all District programs and activities.  Accommodations for persons with disabilities may be requested by contacting the program/event organizer, Susan St. Peters, or the office of Diversity, Equity and Compliance at (951) 222-8039 by October 5.  Requests received after this date will be honored whenever possible.  ​