Annetta
Marion (Director)
Paul Samuel Epstein (Screenwriter)
Michael
Whalen (Composer)
Anton Salaks (Editor)
Annetta
Marion (Director)
 Award-winning
filmmaker Annetta Marion originally hails from a small
Pennsylvania coal-mining town, and currently lives and
works in New York City. Her body of work as a filmmaker
and director includes over ten short documentary and
narrative films. The narrative A Wise Decision won a
national award for outstanding communication from the
American Federation of Teachers, and was distributed
across the
country by the AFL/CIO.
Marion's body of work as an artist also includes video installations, and ultra-short
and primarily experimental films and public service announcement-type expressions
(exploring the interplay between structure and content ala Canadian artist
Stan Douglas' work). Marion's ultra-short horror film The
Doll Collector was shown in part on American Movie Channel and was
picked up for distribution after a world-wide festival run.
Marion
is currently in post production on super 16mm short Donut
Heaven,
shot July 2004 in Florida, and short Jitters, produced by Stonestreet
Studios, NYC in association with the Tisch School of the Arts at New York
University.
Marion's
professional producing work includes the award-winning
feature films Pants
on Fire (Associate Producer, Best Screenplay at the 1998 Los Angeles
Independent Film Festival) and The
Dream Catcher (Line
Producer, Best Director at the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival),
and Eric Schaeffer's Never
Again (Line Producer) with Jill Clayburgh and Jeffrey Tambor (released
in 2001 by USA Films).
Marion
has served on the boards of non-profit media and activist
organizations, has been invited to speak at numerous
schools and conferences, has worked as a film critic
and film judge, and has been
a frequent guest on WCPN, an affiliate of National Public Radio. For
her work, Marion has been nominated for the Northern
Ohio Live Awards of Achievement in Film/Radio/TV and
the Working Woman Entrepreneurial Excellence Award.
|
Paul
Samuel Epstein (Screenwriter)
Paul
Epstein has been working as both a screenwriter and Assistant
Director
in the New York independent film industry
since 1998.
A
graduate of the University of Maryland (College Park), Paul
has since earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in
Creative
Writing
from The New School University in New York City.
His
professional screenwriting experience includes co-writing a
feature film,
Directing Eddie, produced by Kaldor Productions
in 2000, which subsequently won the Audience Choice Award
at the New York International Independent Film & Video Market;
adapting the novel The 20th Wife as a four-part mini-series
for Gaia Entertainment, Inc.; and developing an original screenplay,
The A-List, with producer & director Robert Orlando and
his production company Coppola Pictures, Inc.
Paul
also works as an Assistant Director, with credits including
Undertow,
directed by David Gordon Green (All
the Real Girls,
George Washington), Never Again, directed by Eric Schaeffer
(If Lucy
Fell, My Life's in Turnaround) and Jake Kornbluth’s
The Best Thief in the World. In addition, Paul has
also worked as the First Assistant Director on over 20
other
feature
films, as well as working as a Field Producer on the hit
TV series, The
Apprentice, Season 2.
Michael
Whalen (Composer)  Emmy
award-winner Michael Whalen is one of the most sought
after composers in the United States.
A veteran of 400 TV and film scores, thousands of ads,
numerous TV themes and corporate identity pieces, his music
has been heard by literally hundreds of millions of people
around the world. His most recent scoring credits include
music for Martha Stewart's new syndicated show Martha! and
the landmark 4-hour documentary series Slavery
and the Making of America and work for CBS, Disney,
Hallmark, Turner, Discovery, The History Channel, A&E
and many others. Michael is also a prolific recording artist
who writes and produces pop songs, ambient, new age, classical,
and jazz music for a variety of recording labels. Michael
performed his fourth iteration of his innovative "Music
in the Dark" concerts in April 2006 in New York City
improvising scores for 8 new silent films in front of a
packed audience.
Anton
Salaks (Editor)
Anton Salaks has worked as an editor for over eighteen
years. Primarily a narrative editor, he has ten feature
films and twenty-five short films to his credit. Proving
his versatility, Anton has explored a variety of mediums
from television and advertising to music videos and documentaries.
Over the years, he has worked with a diverse range of talents
including Spike Lee (on the feature film Home Invaders),
David Byrne (on a documentary short about Brazilian singer
Tom Ze), and Nancy Cartwright (on the current web-based
animated series The Kellys).
A graduate of
New York University's Tisch School
of the Arts, Anton had been based in New York City until
2003, when he moved to Los Angeles, where he now resides
with his son and wife, the costume designer Mirena Rada.
Mirena and Anton are also partners in their company, RSthetic,
which combines their other talents (Mirena is a painter
and illustrator, Anton is a sculptor and metalworker) to
develop and create a variety of work based in functional
design (furniture and lighting fixtures) and visual storytelling
(a graphic novel and a modern re-interpretation of the
Tarot deck).
|
|
