I buy stories the way people buy antiques. I’m not just interested in the thing itself — I want to know where it came from, who made it, what it cost them, why it survived.
Because that’s where the value is.
It’s the story behind the antique that makes it expensive. It’s the filmmaker’s story that makes the movie good. It’s the narrative an executive carries — and knows how to tell — that makes their leadership worth following.
I’ve spent nearly three decades making things. Films, television, journalism, a memoir. A lot of stuff, across a lot of formats, for a lot of different rooms. And what has always compelled me is not the product. It’s the person behind it. The thing they’re trying to say. The gap between what they’re making and what they mean.
That’s what Story Axis is. It’s the work I’ve always done, finally named.
It’s the person behind it. The thing they’re trying to say. The gap between what they’re making and what they mean.
Because that’s where the value is.
Liz Levine is a producer and writer whose nearly three decades of creative contributions span platforms and genres. A natural born storyteller, Liz uses storytelling not only for the product she delivers to the screen and the page but also as a core competency of her leadership style.
Levine started in the business in Toronto with Moses Znaimer’s CITY-TV/MuchMusic. Since then she has worked domestically and internationally as a writer, journalist, development executive, VP Television, and producer. She is experienced with all stages of film and television from creative development and finance to production and post production.
Levine is a creative facilitator who constantly innovates to problem solve in ways that enhance both the process and the final creative deliverable. As a consultant she has a reputation for results-driven process that effectively integrates storytelling skills into problem spaces in film and television as well as into corporate c-suites and senior leadership.
Liz’s produced films include Kyra Sedgwick’s directorial debut Story of a Girl starring Kevin Bacon (DGA nominated), Jason Banker’s critically acclaimed Toad Road, and Across My Land (Palmé d’Or nominated, Cannes). She recently finished filming the Christopher Walken feature Back in Black. On the television front Levine recently executive produced two seasons of the internationally acclaimed Hudson & Rex (CityTV/BETA) and the award-winning YA series Ruby and the Well (BYUTV). Prior to that Levine executive produced seasons 2 and 3 of the multi-award-winning anthology series Two Sentence Horror Stories (CW/Netflix). She has developed and/or produced television for CBS, CW, Disney Channel, CBC, A&E;, Sony Pictures Entertainment and beyond.
She holds a Master of Journalism degree from the University of British Columbia and has written for the National Post, The Walrus, Playback, and The Vancouver Sun. Her memoir Nobody Ever Talks About Anything But the End (Simon & Schuster, 2020) received critical acclaim, made the must-read lists of the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Quill & Quire, and CBC, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize.
Why Story Axis?
After twenty-five years of making things, I kept noticing the same problem. The most talented people in the room — the best writers, the sharpest directors, the most visionary executives — would lose the room the moment they had to talk about their own work. Not because they didn’t know what they were making. Because they hadn’t found the language for why it mattered.
That gap — between what you’re making and why you’re the person to make it — is a story problem. And story problems have a through line.
Story Axis exists to find it.
After twenty-five years on the West Coast, Liz has recently returned to Toronto where she lives with her wife Robyn and her two dogs — The Roosevelts: Franklin and Eleanor.