Joanna Ke is an award-winning actor, writer, producer - and sword fighter. As an actor, Joanna has had the honor of working with director Cameron Crowe, and as a writer, she studied the craft of screenwriting with the late, great Syd Field.
With nearly a decade of experience as a professional script reader working in both development and acquisitions, Joanna’s skills as a producer are strong on the development side. She has read hundreds of screenplays for studios, producers, literary management, sales agents, and screenwriters. Her experience as an actor helps her have a keen eye for character and dialogue, while her own experience as a writer helps her understand the creative process when developing a script.
Joanna was a monthly contributor to Ms. In the Biz and serves as an events producer for the non-profit The Chimaera Project, empowering women behind the camera. She also runs the Twitter account @femcharacters, highlighting the unfortunate way women are often portrayed on screen. From her professional and personal experience, Joanna firmly believes that the world needs to see more diverse stories with well-rounded female characters in leading roles, as well as a different portrayal of masculinity.
Joanna produces and writes under her Saint Joan Productions banner, championing diverse women in front of and behind the camera. She's part of the producing team for fantasy action "Man of Fire," starring Lance Reddick. Two award-winning shorts she produced, starring and directed by women, are "A Period Piece" and "Soledad."
She is in development of several projects with female leads, including the fantasy action feature “Protectress.” She wrote, produced, and stars in the proof of concept for “Protectress,” an award-winning short film with a wildly successful festival run - over 20 selections and 11 awards, including Best Performance, Best Fantasy, Best Action, and Inspiring Woman in Film for Joanna.
Joanna is a trained sword fighter, most recently portraying a sword-fighting were-cat in a post-apocalyptic fantasy action film, which earned her a Best Villain award. Wielding her broadsword is a favorite - both on and off camera.
Michael Jason Allen landed his first professional acting gig as a day player in the Columbia Pictures movie "What Planet Are You From" starring John Goodman, Annette Bening, Greg Kinnear, and Ben Kingsley (1999). Going on to star in national television commercials for Cox Comm., Yosh Fragrances, HGTV and the California Board of Tourism among others, he's continued in films, television commercials and various television shows on FOX and the W Network. In 2008, he began writing, directing, producing, and starring in his own feature films. His feature films "References" (2008), "The Coldest Kiss" (2014), "Stealing Sunrise" (2015), "An Idle Mind Is the Devil's Playground" (2016), "Stealing Sunrise 2: Malibu Trail" (2017), "Hello, Are You There?" (2018), & "EMULATOR" (2019) have received positive reviews from renowned indie and major film critics as well as prominent media outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Arizona Republic, and featured news stories on FOX & CBS tv affiliates. Since his debut film, he has subsequently gone on to write, direct, produce and star in 8 award winning or nominated independent feature films while performing the cinematography in 5 of them. He is the lead vocalist, songwriter, and instrumentalist for his electro-rock band "Official Version" and has performed live around the U.S. sharing the bill with popular music artists of the '80s & '90s. He also has a 1980's era alter ego named Adrian Star in which he has released several pop albums with many music videos.