Officers, Owner-Managers, Filmmakers and Contractees

Mark Pickering: President

A graduate of Cambridge and Columbia Universities, Mark Pickering is a barrister and New York attorney. Mark has practiced in London and Paris in the international copyright and entertainment fields. Sometimes working out of Toronto (Canada), Mark is based in London, UK.

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In the 1980’s Mark was at the BBC as the music copyright adviser (budget £16 million p.a.), and subsequently promoted to manage international co-productions including BBC TV’s first foray with a Hollywood studio, Twentieth Century Fox, of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (Mary Steenburgen, John Heard) a BAFTA and Cable Ace nominated success which sold in 62 countries.

In the 1990s as an independent producer, he specialized in award winning music documentary series including The Art of Conducting (BBC/SFB/Teldec), Royal Philharmonic Society Prize; Gramophone Award (UK), Diapason d’Or (France) “…the most fascinating programme ever made about classical music…” (The Guardian); The Art of Singing (BBC/ARTE/Warner Music/Idéale Audience).

From 1999 as Head of Business Development for VIDEAL GmbH, a Hamburg based media investment fund, he was responsible for co-financing some 30 US independent films which included actors such as David Caruso, William Hurt, Ray Liotta, Malcolm McDowell, Natasha McElhone, James Spader and Kiefer Sutherland. From 2003 he acted independently for VIDEAL productions while continuing to advise producers in the film, television and music fields.

Mark was a producer of the critically acclaimed The Magic Flute, Mozart’s opera directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh with an English libretto by Stephen Fry, premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. It had its US theatrical release in 2013 (Emerging Pictures) also on DVD, Amazon and iTunes. (“Branagh's "Flute" is a joy. Visually, this "Flute" is exuberant…”) Los Angeles Times.

Mark is an Executive Producer of the Canada/Malta co-production Saul: The Journey to Damascus, first released Easter 2014 via eONE Entertainment. He is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

G. Philip Jackson: President, Development and Production

Philip Jackson has a critically acclaimed and commercially successful track record spanning 3 decades in in the entertainment business. He has twenty-two feature films, 6 TV series (3 scripted drama) and countless documentaries to his credit producing, writing and/or directing.

Philip’s recent projects include writing the sci-fi/psychological horror film Captain Reggie, which he will be producing with the features Rodax and Prison Moon IO, a co-production with Circles & Lines GmbH (Munich). He is in post-production on the Sci-fi drama-documentary hybrid Meltdown on the Ice Planet, a feature with Michael Ironside and narrated by Tanya Allen.

Co-Creator/Producer of the Starhunter TV series, he also directed the first production episode (of 44 so far), setting the creative template for the series. The first two seasons are to be revived in an all HD widescreen version. Industry buyers have asked Starfield Indie to deliver a season 3 (22 new episodes) of the series along with comic books and a video-game.

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For Philip it all began when at 17 when he sold his first short film to national broadcaster CBC, the film was shot with friends from high school. He then wrote and directed live action and animated short films which sold to CBC, TVO, PBS YLE and others. His 1977 short film Statistics premiered at the second Toronto Festival of Festivals (later TIFF). He was engaged as a writer for CBC TV’s top-rated national children’s program, Mr. Dressup and earned an Honors BA (Film) from York University (Toronto).

He subsequently produced art house features through the 1980’s, award-winning titles such as his Music of the Spheres a micro-budget first feature recognized by Gerald Perry (LA Times) and Variety and was awarded “Most Promising New Director” at the Atlantic Film Festival.

In 1993 Philip formed Producers Network Associates Inc. (PNA) with producers Daniel D’or and David McGuire. Mark Pickering joined the team in 2006 that would evolve through three profit making companies into Starfield Indie.

In this time Philip produced, often co-writing or directing, 21 feature films and 6 TV series (see archives link for filmography), including the Starhunter series (Michael Paré, Tanya Allen), the dramatic features Men of Means (Austin Pendleton, Ray Serra), The Pawn (Gregg Evigan, Tony LoBianco), comedy Wish You Were Dead (Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, Kerry Elwes, Lyne Shaye) and sci-fi cult classics such as Replikator, (Ned Beatty, Brigitte Bako) 2103 The Deadly Wake (Malcolm McDowell) and The Cusp among others.

Philip adds that his productions (even those involving action sequences, stunt work and pyrotechnics…) have never seen a serious injury nor a bank holding the bag. Philip is fluent in English and French and is a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema.

Richard Sniderman: Chief Financial Officer

Bio coming soon!

Dan D'or: Executive Producer (Starhunter)

Bio coming soon!

Lynda Cope: Principal

Lynda Cope is an independent producer of high quality features and top level consultant to European television. She is a graduate from Bristol University with a degree in European Literature.

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Lynda Cope worked in Brussels with the European Commission. She was headhunted to be Marketing Director of Samuelson’s and thus made the transition to broadcasting.

Lynda was recruited to head up the marketing for Sky Television when they launched in the UK in 1989. Subsequently, she moved to Paris as a consultant to long-established broadcast giant TF1 when they set up their pan-European channel, in order to spearhead their European development and marketing.

Upon relocating back to London, Lynda set up a consultancy, A&C Associates, specializing in the launch of television channels across Europe, as well as handling strategy, business development, distribution and negotiation for existing channels.

In 2001 Lynda founded Accolade Films, a production company specializing in the development and financing of feature films and television programs. Lynda has exemplary relationships with companies across Europe and in South Africa, Canada and the USA.

Accolade has been involved in a number of co-productions. Completed works include the France-Canada co-production C’est Pas Moi, Messages, Whaledreamers and The War on Democracy.

Lynda is working in association with Starfield Indie on new dramatic properties including Holy Moly, an Irish-Canadian co-production romantic comedy.

Lynda is a Producer on the feature Saul: The Journey to Damascus in which Starfield Indie is a part owner. Co-produced with Toronto’s Lifestyle Productions, the Canadian end is co-produced with Malta under the treaty. Saul: The Journey to Damascus was released in April 2014 through eONE Entertainment.

Lynda speaks fluent French and German, having attended universities in both countries, and also speaks Italian.

Demerise Lafleur: Business Affairs, Production & Development

Demerise Lafleur has managed and administered business affairs functions for independent production companies for two decades and is a producer on a dozen features.

Her specialization is the administration underlying financing, treaty authorities, and contractual compliance of integrated production and distribution. She primarily works with financing counsels on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Demerise began in the film industry in 1987 administering sales and acquisitions for producer/distributor Lightscape International Ltd and its 250 feature, documentary and art titles. Demerise oversaw the administration of new production in independent drama and documentary worlds, attending film markets, hands-on in promotional launches. In 1990, Lightscape’s catalogue was cleaved off to form the basis of Toronto’s Oasis Pictures (now merged into eONE Entertainment).

Demerise took a sabbatical from the film industry in 1991 to accept a four-year administrative position in the office of Marilyn Churley MPP, Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs (Ontario).

In 1995, Demerise was engaged by Starfield Indie precedent company Producers Network Associates Inc. She oversaw the administration of international co-production closings including Dreambreaker, 2103 The Deadly Wake, and The Cusp.

When PNA evolved into The Danforth Studios, Demerise became their EVP Business Affairs working with the Producers on feature films and the tri-partite co-productions including the Canada-France-UK treaty Starhunter and Starhunter 2300 scripted dramas. Demerise has joined the Starfield Indie business affairs team to assist with its new slate of titles.

James Mou: President, Production

Toronto/Hong-Kong based Producer James Mou is joining our team as a Producer, linking us to the growing and exporting production industry in China.

James has produced or co-produced and recently financed two Canada China pictures in the last two years and has produced or production managed some 38 pictures over the past 25 years.

As these Chinese or Canadian features and series were shot either in China or in North America, there is almost nobody as conversant with doing production business of financing in both territories and cultures as he.

James has just concluded the Chinese financing end of a Starfield Indie/CFA (China) sci-fi feature-series Delinquenauts for world-wide sales.

Chris Jones-Hansen & Noel Garland: Digital Ops

Starfield is amidst a curve to learn and actively participate in reaching audiences and finding new ones in the ever-changing and opportunity-rich digital and interactive universes.

Chris Jones-Hansen and Noel Garland are Starfield Indie's transmedia veterans. They are the guys charged with leading this transformative digital vision and were part of the seminal creative teams behind many early web-media success stories - most notably the famous (and infamous) THE NAKED NEWS - before joining Starhunter 2300's creative writing team in 2003.

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As the minds behind Digital Ops, Chris and Noel combine years of creative and technical savvy to bring to Starfield Indie branding interaction in all points of contact between fans and digital devices.

As Starhunter goes into its just-revived third season, Noel and Chris are designing the mandates, writing and overseeing production of the Starhunter video-game (in addition to their work on the series and its webisode spin-offs). Similarly they will be building the Ice Planet videogame to follow the release of the 4-part feature Meltdown on the Ice Planet, starring Michael Ironside (voice of the mega successful Splinter Cell videogames).

New stories are told; new universes need to be explored on digital and trans-media. Chris and Noel will be expanding and monetizing Starfield Indie’s reach in increasingly important and changing platforms where-ever our audience is also e-wandering.

Nelu Ghiran: Co-Executive Producer, Writer

Nelu Ghiran has developed features and dramatic TV series with Philip Jackson and Peter Horton over the last two decades. He is also an advisor on third party properties submitted to Starfield Indie.

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Nelu was engaged in 2004 as Executive Story Editor on the sci-fi series Skylan, produced by Vincent Commisso. He was also a writer on Mutant X and (Under The Cloak Of War) produced by Adam Haight and Karen Wookey.

Nelu is working with James Mou’s Han Films and Philip Jackson as co-creator of the feature film series Delinquenauts, (a Starfield Indie/Han Films Canada-China treaty co-production). He is co-writer on Captain Reggie and writer of Rodax, both are features in Starfield Indie’s current three film sci-fi package. Also on Starfield Indie’s slate is the sci-fi TV series, FatMan at Lightspeed, co-created by Nelu and Philip and on which Nelu is a Co-Executive Producer.

In his early days, Nelu directed and produced films including the NFB’s Bush Pilot, the Best Independent Video Casby Award’s Adult Now and The Star Turn, (Silver Award, Drama winner) at the Houston Film Festival.

Nelu authored the first script commissioned for the Starhunter series - produced by Philip and Daniel D’or. He was also Executive Story Editor on the first season (22x1hr) and he authored five episodes. Nelu was also a writer for Starhunter 2300. He is working with John and Philip on the Season III bible for Starhunter.

In 2006 with Philip Nelu wrote the first six episodes of the Canada-UK-Germany sci-fi series Ice Planet. From that, he co-authored the dramatic fiction / documentary Meltdown on the Ice Planet - currently in post-production. Nelu’s association with Philip and Starfield Indie began when he submitted his script Shepherd which Starfield predecessor Danforth Studios produced along with the sequel Shepherd II, released as a mini-series on Showtime.

Peter Horton: Consulting Producer, Development/Writer

Peter Horton is a writer/producer with over a decade and a half of experience in TV and film.

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Peter wrote multiple episodes of Starhunter and served as Head Writer for the follow-on series, Starhunter 2300. He also worked in long-form, writing scripts for movies such as The Cusp, an award-winning profitable feature of ours. More recently Peter wrote the shooting drafts of Life on the Line - with John Travolta and Kate Bosworth - and is the lead writer on Rio Heat with Harvey Keitel.

In unscripted work, Peter wrote or story edited multiple episodes of Intervention Canada, Forensic Factor (A&E Biography), Crimes of Passion (truTV, W Network), Masterminds (truTV, History Canada, Global) and the science series Inventions That Shook the World (Discovery Canada). Peter has also worked as a producer and writer on a number of documentary productions. Peter recently co-wrote the pilot and bible for the period series The Knights of Malta (Berkshire Axis Media, Grigal). His sci-fi feature script Prison Moon Io is under option with Starfield Indie.

Henry Lam: Executive Consultant, Finance (Asia)

Henry Lam is based out of Hong Kong. His involvement in the finance sector began in 1995 when he joined Asia Securities Group. He cut his teeth under the personal mentorship of respected trader Peter Mou.

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In late 1998, Henry Lam established his own Hong Kong-based private investment consultancy for select clientele.

This move meshed well with Henry’s personal knowledge of North America, and his long standing knowledge of international film and TV dealings.

Henry’s focus is on developing Western/Asian co-investment and co-production opportunities. He was in the past a consultant for diverse film companies including Toronto-based SpaceWorks Entertainment and FAST Motion Media.

Henry advised with respect to Pacific Rim equity finance in production and pre-buys for the Starhunter series. Henry represents Starfield on VC, co-production and brand placement opportunities in the region and represents Starfield’s broader interests in important regional markets such as the Hong Kong Film Market and MIP Asia.

Conor: Producers' Executive Assistant - Toronto

Bio coming soon!

Cheryl: Staff Accountant

Bio coming soon!

The gang at work...

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