Directing for Television

Justin Marks is the creator and showrunner of the Starz series “COUNTERPART” starring JK Simmons, which recently wrapped its final season. In features, he is the writer of Disney’s “THE JUNGLE BOOK” (2016) directed by Jon Favreau. He also wrote the upcoming “TOP GUN: MAVERICK” for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount, with Tom Cruise set to reprise his iconic role. Previous to that, he wrote the unheralded masterpiece “STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI”, which was honored by Rotten Tomatoes as the Worst Movie of 2009. Justin is presently writing JUNGLE BOOK 2 for Disney, as well as an animated musical for Netflix based on the life of Wyclef Jean.

Kat Candler’s award-winning feature Hellion starring Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis, played in competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Candler’s work in television includes directing seven episodes of Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar, an episode of 12 Monkeys, and two episodes of 13 Reasons Why. She oversaw Season 2 of Queen Sugar as the producing director, Season 3 as the Showrunner, and Season 3 of 13 Reasons Why as the Consulting Producer. She most recently directed two episodes of the upcoming Apple + show Home Before Dark starring Brooklynn Prince and Jim Sturgess. She’s writing and developing a new horror film for Fox Searchlight and a TV series set in Texas.

Melinda Hsu Taylor is the showrunner and Executive Producer of Nancy Drew, coming to the CW this fall on Wednesdays at 9 PM. She is a lifelong genre geek. She started writing at age 9, when she authored a Star Trek fan fiction novella series on a stack of spiral notebooks in her childhood bedroom in Bangor, Maine. Her TV writer-producer credits include Lost, The Vampire Diaries, The Gifted, Falling Skies, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Medium, and one-hour pilots for Netflix, NBC and Lifetime. She was nominated for an Emmy and a Writers’ Guild Award for her work on Lost. She is an alum of the Warner Bros. TV Drama Writers’ Workshop as well as the WGA Showrunner Training Program. She also serves on the Board of the Sarah Jones Film Foundation, which fosters set safety through awareness and accountability.

Hanelle M. Culpepper is an energetic and unflappable award-winning director whose television credits range from superhero action adventures to thrillers and genre films to character-driven dramas. In 2019, she was chosen to direct the pilot for Star Trek: Picard, making her the first woman to launch a new Star Trek series in its 53-year history. Hanelle earned her B.A. from Lake Forest College and her M.A. from USC’s Annenberg School. Her AFI DWW short A Single Rose won numerous awards and screened at film festivals worldwide, including the 2004 ICG Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. Hanelle’s first independent feature, the supernatural thriller Within, starring Mia Ford, Sammi Hanratty, Sam Jaeger, Lori Heuring, Brent Sexton, and featuring Aisha Hinds, won Outstanding Feature Film at the Big Bear Horror Film Festival and had its television premiere on Lifetime. Over the next several years, Hanelle helmed multiple independent thrillers, including Murder on the 13th Floor starring a young Tessa Thompson. Hanelle’s television career took off after participating in NBC Universal’s Directing Initiative which led to an episodic directing role for Parenthood. Since then, her television work includes such shows as Counterpart, Mayans M.C., Criminal Minds, Grimm, American Crime, The Flash, Gotham, and recently, the upcoming AMC series, NOS4A2. Hanelle is represented by Verve and Metamorphic Entertainment.