RIC BEAIRSTO is an award-winning writer/director/producer who has been active in the Canadian independent film and television industry for nearly 30 years, working in both dramatic and documentary formats. He has contracted to write more than a dozen feature-length screenplays, and as a producer delivered completed works to all the major Canadian broadcasters, including CBC, Canwest Global, and CTV, as well as to numerous specialty and cable stations. He has worked extensively as a story consultant/script editor, and, on a part-time basis, has taught directing, producing and mostly screenwriting at a number of post secondary institutions in BC. He is the author of THE TYRANNY OF STORY: Audience Expectations and the Short Screenplay, a book about story form in general, and short screenplay form in particular, which has been used as a textbook in over a dozen North American film schools, including The American Film Institute and UCLA.