ELIZABETH KARR
Producer
Elizabeth Karr is a producer of the feature film adaptation of Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report) novel, Radio Free Albemuth, starring Alanis Morissette, Shea Whigham, Katheryn Winnick and Scott Wilson, directed by John Alan Simon. She has also produced a Disney Channel TV pilot, Virtually Casey and several short films and PSAs. She is John Alan Simon’s producing partner at Discovery Films, currently in development on several television shows and features. Her foray into producing was theatre—numerous critically acclaimed shows in LA, including a 12 week sold-out run of Uncle Vanya starring Orson Bean. She brings a well-rounded background to producing on sets as an actor (House, ER, West Wing, Sleeper Cell, Shiloh Season, etc.), director, acting coach and teacher (LA Music Center, LA’s Best).
BERNADETTE WEGENSTEIN
Writer, Director
Austrian-born Bernadette Wegenstein is a Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, where she directs the Center for Advanced Media Studies at. She produced the documentary Made Over in America (Icarusfilms, 2007), exploring the culture of extreme makeover shows. She is currently in pre-production with a documentary on the history and culture of breast cancer.
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Bernadette has also produced and directed the documentaries Made Over in America (55 min Icarusfilms, 2008) and co-directed See You Soon Again (65 min The Cinema Guild, 2012), which was theatrically released in Austria and aired on PBS and on Austrian and German national television in 2013. She is also a programmer for the Austrian Human Rights Film Festival thishumanworld.
JON REISS
Producer
Named one of “10 Digital Directors of Watch” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss is a critically acclaimed filmmaker whose experience releasing his documentary feature, Bomb It with a hybrid strategy was the inspiration for writing Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era, the first step-by-step guide for filmmakers to distribute and market their films. He co-wrote Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul and Selling Your Film in Europe.
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As a media strategist, Reiss has helped numerous filmmakers and companies navigate the new distribution and marketing landscape. He has worked with IFP, Paramount Studios, Screen Australia, Film Independent, Creative Scotland, and The South Australian Film Corporation. He has conducted his TOTBO Master Classes over four continents and is the year-round distribution and marketing lab leader at the IFP Filmmaker Labs. He also teaches at the Film Directing Program and Cal Arts and contributes to Filmmaker Magazine, The Huffington Post, Indiewire, Screen Daily, Moviemaker magazine, and other publications.
REBECCA MESSNER
Writer, Director
Rebecca Messner's first film, Olmsted and America's Urban Parks, about the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, features the voices of Kevin Kline and Kerry Washington, and was broadcast nationally in 2011 via American Public Television—it is currently being distributed on PBS DVD. Prior to working on The Good Breast, Messner was commissioned by Johns Hopkins University, where she graduated with a degree in Writing Seminars in 2008, to direct a film about the Baltimore Scholars Program, which gives free tuition to graduates of Baltimore City Public Schools. In 2012, she served as executive editor of Urbanite, a Baltimore-based monthly magazine with a circulation of 120,000 that addressed the issues that affect urban citizens. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Johns Hopkins Magazine, Time Out New York, Grist, and The Baltimore Sun.
VICTOR LIVINGSTON
Editor
Victor Livingston is a documentary film editor. Raised in Claremont, California he attended Cornell University, majoring in English. At Cornell he found his passion for films and filmmaking. He went to graduate school at San Francisco State University, studying film, and began to focus on his fascination with editing. He began working professionally in the film editing community that grew up around American Zoetrope, Lucasfilm, and Fantasy Films. When he was hired to edit the documentary “Crumb” he found his true calling in the editing world. Since “Crumb” he has focused primarily on incisive character studies such as “Bukowski: Born Into This,” “Shakespeare Behind Bars” and “The Queen of Versailles.” He also has worked on several TV series including “Craft In America,” “The Real World,” and “David Blaine: Street Magic.”
JEFF BEAL
Composer
Jeff Beal is an American composer of music for film, media, and the concert hall. Beal’s commissioned works have been performed by many leading orchestras and conductors, including the St. Louis (Marin Alsop), Rochester, Pacific (Carl St. Clair), Frankfurt, Munich, and Detroit (Neeme Jaarvi) symphony orchestras. Steven Schneider for the New York Times wrote of "the richness of Beal's musical thinking [...] his compositions often capture the liveliness and unpredictability of the best improvisation.” Beal’s seven solo CDs, including Three Graces, Contemplations (Triloka) Red Shift (Koch Jazz), and Liberation (Island Records) established him as a respected recording artist and composer.
Beal has received thirteen prime time Emmy nominations for his music, and has won three statues. His score and theme for Netflix drama, House of Cards, has received three prime time Emmy Award nominations. His other notable films have included Blackfish, The Queen of Versailles, Pollock, Last Call at the Oasis, In the Realms of the Unreal. Other scores of note include his dramatic music for HBO’s acclaimed series Carnivale and Rome, as well as his comedic score and theme for the detective series, Monk. Beal composes, orchestrates, conducts, records and mixes his own scores, which gives his music a very personal, distinctive touch.
He also mentors and encourages young composers as a participant in the Sundance Film Composer seminars and as a guest lecturer at conservatories and universities.
ALLEN MOORE
Director of photography
Allen Moore, a graduate of Harvard University, has been producing, directing, photographing and editing his own documentaries for more than 30 years. Moore has served as a director of photography for numerous of Ken Burns’ films winning an Emmy for Baseball for cinematography, nominated for New York, and helping The National Parks: America’s Best Idea earn an Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. He also collaborated with Burns on The Civil War; Thomas Jefferson; Lewis and Clark and The War. Moore’s own independent films include: The Shepherds of Berneray; Black Water; A Sheepherder’s Homecoming and Albert Alcalay: Self Portraits. Among the honors awarded to Moore are several state artist fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Filmmaking. He is on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) where he was awarded a Trustee Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching Award.