Script to Screen: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Alan Burnett is a television writer-producer particularly associated with Warner Bros. Animation, Hanna-Barbera Productions, DC Comics and Walt Disney television animation. Over the course of his career, he has won five Emmys for his work in television as well as three Annie Awards, two Humanitas Awards, and an Animation Writer of the Year Award from the Writers Guild of America. He has had a hand in virtually every DC animated project since the waning years of the Super Friends (1973). Burnett’s contributions for Disney were largely a part of the 1990s Disney Afternoon, where he was attached to the Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985) and various projects set in the Scrooge McDuck universe. He has worked on many television shows, from The Smurfs (1981) to the DC special, Batman: The Animated Series

Since 2009, Burnett has been co-producing and supervising scripts for all the DTV productions from Warner Bros. Animation. He also wrote Green Lantern: First Flight (2010) and co-wrote Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011).

Michael Reaves is primarily known for his contributions as scriptwriter and story editor to a number of 1980s and 1990s animated television series, including Disney’s Gargoyles (1994) and Batman: The Animated Series (1992). He has also written media tie-in novels, children’s books, and original fiction. He often collaborates with Steve Perry and won a 1993 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program in his work on Batman: The Animated Series. Reaves has been working extensively with co-authors since 2004, and has written a multititude of novels in the past decade for the DC and Star Wars universes.

Matthew Ryan is Director of the Pollock Theater where he pioneered the Pollock Theater Internship, which professionalizes students by developing production skills with hands-on experience. Ryan created and hosts the Script to Screen series, which has welcomed prestigious guests like Oscar® winning screenwriter John Ridley for 12 Years a Slave and Oscar® winning screenwriter Alan Ball for American Beauty.

Matthew Ryan began his career as a video librarian at the legendary Kaufman Astoria Studios. He became Associate Producer for Fox Movietone Newsreels putting together video packages for news stories. As Events Manager at New York University’s Cantor Film Center, he produced a series of film programs that included evenings with Martin Scorsese, Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin. In 2008, he received an MFA in Screenwriting from Loyola Marymount University. His primary writing focus is science fiction and comedy.