SPIRIT CREEK PRODUCTIONS
The company plans to make WINTER COUNT, an independently financed feature film with elements of thriller, romance and fantasy spanning four generations of a Sioux Indian/Anglo family from legendary Wounded Knee. The film is designed to appeal to an audience of varied backgrounds, both domestic and foreign.
MANAGEMENT
Pamela Keith Ferguson, Executive Producer
Pamela Keith Ferguson is the President of Spirit Creek Productions, which she founded in 2004 to finance and produce independent films. Since then she has been developing several projects including her current film WINTER COUNT.
Before founding Spirit Creek, Ferguson produced the professional production of the play From the Life and Writings of Ernest Hemingway, based on the works of Ernest Hemingway. In addition to producing, she wrote, directed and acted in the play. She received a rare option from the Hemingway family to produce it as a film. In addition, she produced the multimedia theatre piece Winter Count, sponsored by the Experimental Intermedia Foundation of New York. She wrote, choreographed and performed in the production.
Her screenplay, WINTER COUNT, was a semi-finalist in the Sundance Feature Film Program. Ferguson was accepted into The Sundance Producers Conference. Subsequently, she Executive Produced the short film “An Exercise From Winter Count”. It was screened at a number of film festivals.
The WINTER COUNT project has gained interest from both talent and established entertainment industry producers.
Ferguson was trained as an actor by Lee Strasberg in his private classes at Carnegie Hall and at The Actors Studio as well as by Sanford Meisner. She received a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Actors’ Equity Association and is a working actress. In addition to her involvement with Spirit Creek, Ferguson was a co-founder of the not-for profit-organization The Indigenous Film and Television Institute, founded to develop and foster the talents of young Indigenous writers in the entertainment industry.
Louise Levison, Film Finance Consultant
Louise Levison has been primary financial consultant to Spirit Creek since its inception in 2004. Levison has over 25 years' experience in financing. As President of Business Strategies (
www.moviemoney.com), her consulting firm has specialized in providing strategic advisory services to independent filmmakers/companies and has created finance-winning business plans. She is the author of Filmmakers & Financing: Business Plans for Independents (Sixth Edition, October 2009, Focal Press) and publisher/editor of The Film Entrepreneur: A Newsletter for the Independent Filmmaker and Investors. Levison’s clients have raised money for low-budget films such as The Blair Witch Project, the most profitable independent film in history, and for film slates raising as much as $300 million. Among her corporate clients are Danny Glover’s Louverture Films (2008 nominee for Best Documentary Academy Award Trouble the Water, Toussaint); and his Louverture Film Fund I; The Pamplin Film Company; Majestic World Entertainment and Tokuma International Ltd (Shall We Dance, Princess Mononoke). Levison is an affiliate of the Berlin-based consulting company Peacefulfish (peacefulfish.com) and writes an industry blog for Baseline Intelligence (baselineintel.com), a division of Baseline Studio Systems. She also has presented seminars and been on film panels worldwide. Prior to working in the entertainment industry, Ms. Levison was Head of Corporate Planning for the City of Hope and Torrance Memorial Hospital. She began her career with the American Iron and Steel Institute and moved to California to work for Stanford Research Institute. She is a member of Film Independent (Los Angeles), Women in Film, the International Documentary Association and the U.S. Internet Industry Association. Her graduate education includes an M.A. in Asian Area Studies from New York University and an M.B.A. in Finance from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
The late Margaret Mehring worked as supervising script editor for the WINTER COUNT screenplay. She is the author of the book The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. She created and was Director of the Film Writing Program in The School of Cinema-Television at The University of Southern California. She ran Mehring Productions, where she was the writer, director and/or producer of over 100 films. Mehring received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1947 from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, her Master of Science in Education in 1972 from The University of Southern California, and her Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 from The University of Southern California, School of Communication, Department of Cinema.
Michael Donaldson, Legal Representative
Michael is Founder of Donaldson and Califf. A recipient of the International Documentary Association's Amicus Award, an honor bestowed upon only two others, Steven Spielberg and John Hendricks, he also serves as General Counsel to Film Independent.
Charles W. Stroud, Advisor
The late Charles Stroud served as advisor to Spirit Creek since its inception in 2004 until 2016. Stroud was the President of The Stroud Company LLC. He was an executive with various entertainment industry companies including ABC, NBC, United Artists Studios, and MGM/UA. He was a partner in Baker Street Productions (U.K.) and an independent Producer for Lorimar Studios (now Sony). Stroud attended Yale University, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
Timothy Harjo, Advisor
Timothy Harjo has served as advisor to Spirit Creek since 2008. In 2009, Harjo was a fellow at The Sundance Institute. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Arizona State University’s School of Law. In addition to his interest in Spirit Creek, Harjo was a co-founder and President of the not-for-profit organization, The Indigenous Film and Television Institute, founded to develop and foster the talents of young Indigenous writers in the entertainment industry.