About Us
Vanessa Alexander and producer Olivia Olley have been friends and colleagues for a decade and decided recently to develop a slate of projects that can be produced in Australia where they live.
Vanessa Alexander
Showrunner
Vanessa Alexander is an award-winning writer and producer best known for writing on The Great (Hulu) and Vikings: Valhalla (Netflix). For her work on the former, she was nominated for Best Comedy and Best New Series at the WGA Awards, for the latter she was made a Co-Executive Producer of season 2. In the past, she has also written for Tin Star and been nominated for an AWGIE for writing for her work on the Australian comedy/drama The Wrong Girl, where she also wrote on the acclaimed drama Love Child.
Prior to this, Vanessa worked extensively in New Zealand where she also won many awards. She was the lead director of the acclaimed series Outrageous Fortune, the first female director of the Power Rangers series, and the Executive Producer of Taika Waititi's Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night. Her New Zealand teen series, Being Eve, won a multitude of awards internationally and received an International Emmy nomination.
Outside of her screen work, Vanessa has a B.A. in English Literature, a P.G. Dip in Directing, a Masters in Film and Television Theory and a Ph.D in Creative Writing from University of New South Wales. With a British mother, and Kiwi father, five children, one foster son, two ex-husbands and a mid life crises at a clown school in Paris, Vanessa is rarely short of inspiration for a story.
Olivia Olley
Producer
Olivia’s focus is to develop stories with a strong commercial appeal, where underlying themes speak to major issues of our day. Nominated for a 2022 AACTA award, Olivia’s feature documentary EVERYBODY’S OMA, meets those objectives. A story about love, commitment, and Alzheimer’s, the film premiered at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival, followed by the Melbourne International Film Festival. The movie has received 4-star reviews from Australian national publications and came in the top ten of the Australian box office on opening night.
Olivia’s producing career began in advertising. For ten years, she produced content for major national and international brands, winning many awards for her work. In 2018, Olivia was recognized as a "One to Watch" producer by the Australian Screen Producers Association. More recently, she has partnered with US producers to develop a comedy feature and has worked with multi-Emmy-award-winning writers. Olivia has strong relationships with Screen Australia and Create NSW, receiving development and production investment from both screen agencies.
Team
Alissa Herbaly Coons | Researcher
Alissa Herbaly Coons holds a BA in Journalism, an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and a PhD in Creative Practice with a focus on biographical fiction. She has lived and worked across North America, Europe and Australia, and is ever interested in the dramatic possibilities present in real women’s lives and stories of migration. When Alissa was nine years old, her parents bribed her with the cable money to agree to give up television, sparking a life-long fascination with the medium.
Paige Hally | Development Assistant
Paige Hally is a writer/comedian/note-taker and Big Story Company’s resident problem solver. Thanks to a her bizarre work history she has experience as a video editor, ghost writer for a dog, think tank researcher and sunscreen salesperson.
