An artistic phenomenon. Or perhaps more accurately…. a bizarre frightening mutant artistic freak.
-Jamie Ciocco, presenting the David McCord Prize for Excellence in the Arts
Adam Spielberg is the founder of Filament Productions. His most ichecent feature, FAN GIRL, a feature comedy starring Kiernan Shipka and Meg Ryan, premiered on ABC Family. Filament’s new short STRYKA (starrring Rupert Friend and Aimee Mullins) from director Emily Carmichael is set to premiere soon on a major online platform. Filament’s first feature, ARCADIA, starring John Hawkes, won the Crystal Bear at the ‘12 Berlinale. Filament’s first doc, Jamie Meltzer’s INFORMANT, won best doc at DocNYC, and was the #1 doc on iTunes. Filament’s doc LAST SEASON produced with Josh Penn and directed by Sara Dosa, was nominated for an Indie Spirit award. In addition to two docs currently in production, Filament is developing a host of genre content including features, sci-fi web series, and several stop motion projects. Before founding Filament, Adam was an executive for six years with Gigantic Pictures, where he produced Ramin Bahrani’s PLASTIC BAG starring Werner Herzog (Opening night short Venice ‘10), Co-Produced NIGHT CATCHES US starring Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington (Sundance ’10), and was associate producer on Adam Salky’s DARE (Sundance ‘09). He also worked on Comedy Central’s iconic Chapelle’s Show. Adam teaches producing in the US program of the French film school ESRA.
Krista began her film career at Jonathan Demme and Ed Saxon’s former company where she worked on Adaptation from development through release and developed material with artists such as Robert Schenkkan, Doug Wright and Neil LaBute. Her producing credits include Alexis Gambis’ feature The Fly Room; Emily Carmichael’s sci-fi short STRYKA, starring Aimee Mullins and Rupert Friend; and Tribeca Film Institute grantee Our Life Will Be Ours, Charles Birns’ feature debut in post-production. She is Co- Executive Producer on Rob Meyer’s debut feature A Birder’s Guide to Everything, starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Kingsley, which Screen Media and Focus World distributed in 2013, and Associate Producer on Charles Ferguson’s Time to Choose, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2015 and will be in theaters this June.
She is currently an artist in Time Warner’s incubator for series development,150, and developing narrative projects with Carmichael and DGA nominee Sasie Sealy, and a co-producer on Julian Rubinstein’s documentary The Holly in post-production. This summer she will be in production on Josephine Decker’s third feature, Movie No. 1, and a related virtual reality piece “Happy,” which is a selection of the 2016 Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab.
A member of Kid Can Drive’s next generation, Miranda Hoyt has won numerous writing and production awards for her funny, inventive work about teenagers, orcs, Shakespeare, secret agents, dashing thieves and dating norms. She is gearing up to shoot a fantasy-comedy-musical and maintains a Vine with a FUNKO Pop! Tyrion Lannister.
Dan Romer is an award-winning music producer, songwriter and film composer based in Los Angeles.
He has produced music for numerous acclaimed artists including A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, whose single “Say Something,” topped charts around the world, sold over 6 million copies and won a 2015 Grammy.
An accomplished film composer, Romer’s scores include four-time Oscar-nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Digging For Fire,” “Finders Keepers,” “Gleason,” “Jim: The James Foley Story,” and the Netflix feature film “Beasts of No Nation.”
He is the composer of Kid Can Drive’s short film STRYKA.
Ben Richardson is best known for his work on the Oscar-nominated BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, which garnered him Best Cinematography prizes at both the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards; and the 2014 summer hit THE FAULT IN OUR STARS based on John Green’s best-selling novel, and starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.
His previous work includes GLORY AT SEA (with Beasts director Benh Zeitlin), THE HUNTER AND THE SWAN DISCUSS THEIR MEETING (with director Emily Carmichael), and SEED, an immaculately realized stop-motion film that claimed Best Animated Short at Slamdance 2010.
Josh Hetzler produced Tim Blake Nelson’s film Anesthesia, starring Kristen Stewart, Sam Waterston and Glenn Close, distributed by IFC Films. His HBO animated film from directors Liz Swados, David Wachtenheim, and Robert Marianetti, with producer Roz Lichter, features the voices of Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, and Fred Armisen. Josh Produced Hollidaysburg, from executive producers Chris Moore, Josh Shader, Neal Dodson and Zachary Quinto. The making of Hollidaysburg was documented for the television series The Chair that premiered on Starz in the Fall of 2014. His series Dog CEO for Adult Swim from director Victor Quinaz, with producers Kristie Lutz and Nick Gallo, premiered in 2014. His films have screened at Cannes, Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, Tribeca, IFC, and hundreds of other festivals and theaters around the world. His 2011 film THE HUNTER AND THE SWAN DISCUSS THEIR MEETING premiered at Sundance, was awarded the National Board of Review Prize at his alma mater the NYU Graduate Film Program, and is currently showing nationally on PBS. SEED, his 2010 collaboration with Sundance-winning cinematographer Ben Richardson, took the top prize at Slamdance.
Composer Chris Thomas is a film composer based in Los Angeles. He is also the resident composer for the upcoming Evermore Adventure Park, and THE VOID (4D video game). You can also find his concert works published by FJH Music.
Lately, Chris has been in demand with the theme park industry. In addition to writing for Evermore, he has been writing haunted attractions music for Knott’s Berry Farm, Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, Killers NYC, Screamland (Dreamland) in the UK.
Chris’s beautiful music can be heard in Kid Can Drive productions THE ADVENTURES OF LEDO AND IX, RPG OKC and the PBS Version of THE HUNTER AND THE SWAN DISCUSS THEIR MEETING.
A native Utica New Yorker, Laura grew up playing violin and piano in orchestras and rock bands. After her undergraduate years, she caught the travel bug and worked as an English language teacher in Taiwan, a dance instructor in Havana, Cuba, a figure skater in France and Germany, and owned a small business in Denver, CO. She moved to New York City in 2005, immersing herself in the world of sound and technology via NYU. In 2009, Laura opened Chrystie Street Sound with then partner Scott Anderson. Her location sound recording and post-production sound work has been featured in Sundance, Tribeca, South by Southwest, Slamdance Film Festivals, VH1, PBS, Comedy Central and more. She taught sound at the Tisch Graduate Film School for three years, was faculty at NYU’s Steinhardt Graduate Music Technology program for four, and worked at lean and mean companies Blastwave FX and Pro Sound Effects for five. She holds a master’s degree in Music Technology from NYU, at that time focusing on computer music controller design.
Allison Twardziak is the casting director of STRYKA . She recently cast the SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner Fort Tilden, The Berlinale, New Directors/New Films feature, She’s Lost Control, the Sundance features Appropriate Behavior, and My Best Day, The Slamdance feature Faith Love and Whiskey, The Woodstock feature Bastards of Young, OutFest’s Lyle starring Gaby Hoffman, the web series F to 7th, The Impossibilities and Be Here Nowish as well as the feature Black Dog Red Dog starring James Franco, Chloe Sevigny, Whoopi Goldberg, Logan Marshall-Green and Olivia Wilde. She has cast over 30 shorts which have premiered at Cannes, Sundance, SXSW and The Clermont Film Festival. She also cast Oculus Story Studios 2nd VR film Henry. In addition to her film projects Allison works with House Casting, a bicoastal commercial sector of MILK studios and independently casting on camera, VO and real people for commercials. Her recent clients include Samsung, Coca Cola, FILA and Maybelline. She cast the award winning play, I Was Tom Cruise and holds a B.F.A. from New York University, studying with The Atlantic Theater Company.