SAMANTHA KURTZMAN-COUNTER as PRODUCER / DIRECTOR

Sam has been working primarily in documentary television and film as a Director, Producer and Director of Photography for the past 10 years.   Most recently, she was Director and Executive Producer for the one-hour TV documentary RAISING TEENS about teenagers raised by gay parents, which aired on LOGO in September, 2005.   Another version of the doc will air on MTV as part of their TRUE LIFE series.  

Sam also served as Supervising Producer for the VH1's YOU ROCK WITH, a 5-episode series where amateur musicians played one song live in concert with their favorite band, including artists such as Melissa Etheridge, Matchbox Twenty, and Rod Stewart.

Other career highlights include directing two docu-series for Disney Channel: TOTALLY IN TUNE, a 10-episode series which followed a semester-in-the-life of a diverse group of high school musicians, and TOTALLY HOOPS, a 16-episode series which followed a season-in-the-life of a 13 year-old girls' basketball team in Dayton, Ohio.

Sam also Co-Produced and shot I REMEMBER ME a feature-length documentary about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which garnered film festival awards, theatrical distribution in major U.S. cities, and aired on the Sundance Channel.

In addition, her student film, DELISH, enjoyed a healthy run in film festivals nationwide in 1996.  

Sam is now starting a production company, Pink Gorilla Productions, with Lara Spotts, the Producer / Writer of ONE SUNG HERO; they are currently in the midst of writing a romantic comedy feature with a saucy twist...
LARA SPOTTS as PRODUCER / WRITER

Lara's most recent credit was Creator / Producer of the VH1 pilot, DRUNKS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS.   Prior to that, she served as an Executive Producer on the RAISING TEENS episode of Logo's REAL MOMENTUM series.  

Previously, she was a Staff Writer on the second season of Showtime's THE 'L' WORD.   But her day job is producer / director of reality and documentary television.

Lara got in reality before it was "reality".   As a fresh-faced NYU graduate, Lara landed a job as a Casting Associate on REAL WORLD: LONDON then was responsible for dreaming up wacky missions and jobs for the first and third seasons of ROAD RULES.  

Lara worked her way up, story editing, directing and eventually producing shows for Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, MTV and VH1. Career highlights include: creating TOTALLY HOOPS for Disney Channel, interviewing friends and co-workers of Halle Berry for her episode of DRIVEN on VH1, and working with TV legend Norman Lear writing and producing a queue video for his Declaration of Independence Road Trip tour.

She has also served as a member of two development think tanks, for both ABC and VH1.

Lara is currently working on TV specs and a feature screenplay in collaboration with ONE SUNG HERO Director, Samantha Kurtzman-Counter.

RITA DOUMAR as CO-PRODUCER

Rita Doumar began her career in animation following film school in the mid nineties. She worked on numerous animated television series' for Columbia Tri-Star Children's Entertainment for Sony Television including EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS, JUMANJI and MEN IN BLACK.  

After leaving Sony, she began working at Saban Entertainment for Fox Family Worldwide.   Through her knowledge of 2D animation, she began working in 3D animation in the CGI department where she worked her way up to becoming the CGI Production Manager and oversaw projects such as NASCAR RACERS and POWER RANGERS.  

Rita independently produced a film entitled, CHESTNUT GROVE, which screened at the Academy Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in April of '99 and was awarded a grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Leaving animation for good, Rita began working in reality television at MTV on such series including BECOMING and THE WADE ROBSON PROJECT. As a Production Manager, Rita oversaw all production logistics on over 18 music videos. Because of her extensive knowledge of logistics shooting music videos, she was also brought on to production manage music videos for NEW LINE RECORDS.  

Other career highlights include production managing ABC Family's SWITCHED, TBS's THE MANSION, VH1's YOU ROCK WITH... and VH1's HOME JAMES.  

Most recently, Rita finished Line Producing THE ULTIMATE BLACKJACK TOUR, a 10-episode series following the most prestigious blackjack and poker players of our time.  

Rita is currently working on the second season of the documentary series 30 DAYS for F/X through Actual Reality Pictures.

JASON BLOUNT as DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Born and raised in Australia, Jason started his career at a local television station in Adelaide.   At 23, he moved to London.   There he shot topics ranging from national sporting events and concerts to the Gulf War, working out of Baghdad.

Returning to Sydney in 1996, Jason worked as a Senior Cameraman for one of Australia's largest television networks.   He worked on various national and international assignments including three Olympic Games.

Since moving to Los Angeles five years ago, Jason has shot several independent films and graduated from the American Film Institute.   His thesis film was the only American student film to be accepted into competition at the prestigious Camerimage film festival in Poland.  

Jason recently was awarded Gold honors from the ACS (Australian Cinematographer Society) for his thesis film and has won several gold and silver ACS awards in the past.   He is a member of the International Cinematographer's Guild (local 600) and the Society of Camera Operators.

LAURA PADDOCK as PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Laura Paddock is an artist who was drawn into production design by Patti Podesta ( Memento, Nowhere ) while earning her MFA from Art Center College of Design.  She began art directing several thesis films for grad students at USC, AFI, and UCLA; many of which won honors in the Angeles Awards and Colgate competitions. 

Currently, Paddock has designed a dozen indie features, in HD to 16 and 35mm - ghost stories in ghost towns, zombie films, period pieces, art world spins, father / son stories on location in rural Texas, smart suburban dramas and a black & white jazz musical. 

Laura also had the honor of fabricating props on a number of major projects: including the featured paintings in Wim Wenders' Million Dollar Hotel , custom screen printing for Nowhere , and carving the elves (Sony '04) and unicorns (Bloomingdale's '05) for holiday windows. 

Originally from New York, Paddock also loves California and migrates coast to coast for work.

NATASHA CUBA as CASTING DIRECTOR

Natasha Cuba has been working in entertainment for the last ten years with projects in both film and television. After working for producer Danny DeVito, Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg on the films 'Erin Brockovich" and 'Man on the Moon", she went to HBO Films to work with the Vice President of Casting, Carrie Frazier, where she worked on the films 'Boycott" starring Jeffrey Wright and Terrence Howard, 'Dancing in September", 'Dinner with Friends", 'Disappearing Acts" and 'The Arturo Sandoval Story" starring Andy Garcia.

After HBO, she entered the world of freelance casting and has worked on such projects as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", 'Elizabethtown", 'Bully", MTV's 'Punk'd" and Sarah Silverman's Comedy Central show. She is currently working on Adam Sandler and Nick Swardson's Comedy Central show 'Gay Robot".

BRETT GREENSTEIN as CASTING DIRECTOR

Brett Greenstein, CSA, has been a casting director for over 7 years. He is co-owner of Greenstein/Daniel Casting. He and his business partner, Collin Daniel, are currently casting the NBC show, "JOEY". Some of Brett's previous credits include television shows, "Notorious", the new VH1 series starring Tori Spelling, "Miss Match", "Hawaii", and "The District." Brett was also the featured casting director on Sean Hayes' Bravo series, "Situation: Comedy", a Project-Greenlight style series that documented the behind-the-scenes makings of a television show. Other projects include the indie film, "Another Gay Movie", a featured film at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and "Jam", another indie film making the festival rounds. Before going off on his own as a casting director, Brett was a casting associate at Imagine Television, where he worked on such seminal series as "24", "Felicity" and "Sports Night". Before making the jump into casting, Brett was a production executive at the groundbreaking media company, Propaganda Films, where he worked on films such as "Nurse Betty", "Being John Malkovich", "The Game" and "Sleepers."

BILL MACOMBER as EDITOR

In 2002, Bill Macomber established Fancy Film Post Production, a boutique editing facility in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.  

While serving the independent film community with onlining and color-correction, Fancy Film has also focused on outsourcing Post Production for cable TV shows and independent features.

Their work on Conquest of America , a History Channel miniseries, was nominated for numerous Critics' awards.  Bill's recent work includes Lara Spotts' and Samantha Kurtzman-Counter's True Life: I Have Gay Parents for MTV (also shown in Logo's Real Momentum series as Raising Teens ). 

Past projects include Deep Sea Detectives , Food Network's  Into the Fire and the feature Gumball Rally 2004 .  

He studied film production and theory at Wesleyan University.

ERIC BEETNER as EDITOR

Eric is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston and has been editing professionally for ten years.   Working mostly in the non-fiction television world his credits include shows for The Disney Channel, The Learning Channel, Fox TV, ABC, MTV, VH1 and has been the Senior editor since the first season of NBC's FEAR FACTOR.

He has edited several shorts as well as writing and directing his own award-winning movie TAKING YOUR LIFE.   Eric is also a screenwriter.

COMPLETE CREW LIST

Director:
Samantha Kurtzman-Counter

Writer:
Lara Spotts

Producers:
Samantha Kurtzman-Counter
Lara Spotts

Co-Producer:
Rita Doumar

Director Of Photography:
Jason Blount

Production Designer:
Laura Paddock

Editors:
William B. Macomber
Eric Beetner

Casting Directors:
Natasha Cuba
Brett Greenstein

Associate Producers:
Seth Altschull
Mev Blount
Chelsie Foster
Will Fraser
Zak Grausam

2nd AD:
Chelsie Foster

2nd 2nd ADs:
JP Shields
Debbie Levin

Production Coordinators:
Jason Watters
Jimmy Wiser

Casting Associate:
Joanne Bloom

Technical Supervisor:
Steve Canas

Camera Operator:
Sean Hayes

Steadicam Operator:
Chelsea Low

Key Camera Assistant:
Herbert Weatherford

Camera Assistants:
Chris Carter
Emma Pantall

Gaffer:
Jared Hoy

Key Grip:
Vincent Pogoda

Audio Supervisor:
Robert Hoehn

Audio Mixer:
Erika Gieschen

Script Supervisor:
Katie Esposito

Set Dresser:
Rickie Gustillo

Art Assistant:
Shannon Roche

Costume Designer:
Elizabeth Meredith

Wardrobe Assistant:
Taylor Bork

Hair/Make-Up:
Fiona Distefano

Hair/Make-Up Assistants:
Ami Murray
Sarah Contreras
Melanie Vasquez

Stills Photographer:
Laura Martorella

Production Assistants:
Marni Thies
Matthew Cowan
Andrew Lee
Adam Littke
Mike Mohr
Seth Kenlon
Arayna Thomas

Asst. Editor:
Justin Barham

Studio Teacher:
Kevin Moll

Music Supervisor:
Kier Lehman

Music Consultants:
John Goldman, Saturday Music Group
Sam Music, Saturday Music Group
Zak Schaffer

Post Production Sound:
Robert Hoehn
David Knauer

Equipment Provided By:
VER

Production Services Provided By:
Evolution Film And Tape, Inc.

Post Production Services Provided By:
Fancy Film
Victory Studios, LA
Digital Film Tree

Special Thanks:
Alex Kurtzman-Counter
The Kurtzmans, Counters And Gabberts
Miguel Arteta
Jamie Babbit
Melissa Blake
Rick Carpenito
Stacy Codikow
Josh Cooper
Izzy Diaz
Kathleen French
Matthew Greenfield
Goff-Kellam
Jenni Konner
Mark Landsman
Ed Lee
Stefan Leikin
Steve Luke
Dean Minerd
Judy Minor
Mark Moran
Karen Murphy
Chris Nee
Bob Orci
Peter Parker
Chris Roach
Dar Rollins
Doug Ross
Vicki Serianni
Lindsay Sloane
Andrea Sperling
Greg Stewart
Pam Thomas
Tom Turner
Josh Welsh
Corbin Bowl
Radio Shack
R Bar & Grill

Karaoke Music Provided By:
Soundchoice

Karaoke Equipment Provided By:
Vocopro

Check out Steve Luke and Lion's Den Entertainment's state-of-the-art karaoke system, the "Media Library Pro"
 
     
 


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