The Faculty

Garrett Bennett produced, directed and wrote "Farewell to Harry" which won the Hollywood foreign press award for Best Director, Best First Feature from Worldfest Houston, and Best Picture shooting in Seattle from Seattle International Film Festival among many, many awards. Garrett has an MFA in directing from the American Film Institute and was an original founding member of Seattle's Annex Theatre and is the founder and director of Hat Factory Film Studios, a motion picture company on Bainbridge Island.

Virginia Bogert has directed, written, and produced award-winning film and video for over 20 years, from commercials and corporate to documentaries and feature films. Her project “Pike Place Market: Soul of a City” garnered three NW Emmys. Recently she directed "The Delivery", a short film for the 2006 Fly Film Challenge. She launched her company Laughing Dog Pictures (www.laughingdogpictures.com) in 1993. Virginia is also vice president of Women in Film/Seattle.

Steven Bradford has been sounding out the edges of new media boundaries since graduating with a traditional degree in film production from the University of Southern California almost thirty years ago. In the mid 80s he produced touch screen video sequences for a pioneering e-commerce technology company and invented a system for mass producing personalized home videos starring a Mattel toy character. Since then he has produced videodiscs for NASA, filmed video game sequences for Northrop and Sierra Online, taped neurosurgery, the rock band KISS, and the Space Shuttle in 3D, shot one extremely low budget 35mm feature, along with way way too many talking heads and close-ups of computer screens. From 2004 to 2007 Steven was the director of the School of Film and Visual Effects at Collins College in Phoenix, Arizona. He currently spends his time forgetting obsolete technologies so he can learn newer, soon to be obsolete ones.

Christopher Julian is a freelance editor and cinematographer with primary focus in feature-length documentaries, including 101 Ways to Retire--or Not! and Saved by Deportation. He has had a broad range of experience with other short-format documentaries and works in educational, training, fund-raising and public service videos. Chris also directed and co-wrote the feature film Invisible Ink. Chris is a Cinema graduate of Binghamton University, and also has taught editing, audio and post-production at other institutions. Christopher Julian's website.

Alec Carlin recently wrote and directed "Outpatient" which has won numerous awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival as well as Best Picture awards at the Keywest IndieFest, the No Dance Film Festival and the International Festival of Festivals in Palm Springs. Alec was a finalist in the Nicholls Foundation Screenwriting Fellowship and his script, "Darkdrive" was produced in 1997.

David Culp has extensive experience as an animator, director, and producer of commercials, documentaries, corporate and educational films and television programs. David has worked as a film educator for 13 years and has worked in the Seattle film community for over 20 years.

James Eaton, founder and president of James Eaton Associates, has over 20 years of practical experience in all aspects of filmmaking including ads, documentaries, and features with an emphasis on creative development, execution and packaging of visual, audio and graphic information. His expertise extends to computer animation, visual effects, high-end post-production, digital compositing, special effects and CGI platforms.

Randy LaFollette has a strong background in film and video production including features, television, corporate videos and commercials. Among the many productins he has worked on, his credits include assistant director on such films as "Suspect Zero", "The Crow", and the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Randy presently works in the Seattle area as a first assistant director.

Christopher Mosio is a professional cinematographer who graduated from the USC School of Cinema/Television. In addition to commercials and documentaries, he has worked on nearly two dozen feature films-- both the micro-budgeted independent film and the Hollywood studio production. His work has appeared in theaters and television. Christopher also has filmed many live concerts and music videos, including those of Celine Dion, Reba McEntire, and K.D. Lang. During the last year he received an East Coast Emmy Award for his work on a PBS documentary about Thomas Jefferson, and was a cameraman for the feature film, "Akeelah and the Bee", released theatrically in 2006. He has also recently traveled around the world as the director of photography for a new Discovery Travel Channel series based on the book, "1000 Places to See Before You Die".

Krk Nordenstrom is a graduate of the Seattle Film Institute's 40 week Total Immersion Program. For the last eight years he has worked as a designer and production artist for print and web projects. Most recently he has produced, directed, and edited two music videos for the Seattle band Kultur Shock. He is also a strong presence in Seattlewood and Nimble Productions and is highly visible on many Seattle independent productions on the set and as an editor.

Lance Rhoades is a graduate instructor at the University of Washington Department of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies Program where he earned the 2003-04 Excellence in Teaching Award. He has taught summer courses on literature and film at MIT and Cal Tech. Lance has written articles on horror films and film music, and is currently editing a book on Federico Fellini.

Stephanie Shine is the Artistic Director for Seattle Shakespeare Company. She is a graduate of the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program and has performed at many of the theatres in Seattle as well as several regional theatres including Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, The Alley in Houston, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, NYC’s Theatre for a New Audience, Idaho Repertory Theatre, New Mexico Repertory Theatre, and Arizona Theatre Company. Stephanie has directed for Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Baja Shakespeare Company, Cornish College of the Arts, Book-It Repertory Theatre, and Bainbridge Performing Arts Center. As an actor she has appeared in episodic TV, Movies of the Week, Industrials, Commercials, and the feature films "Georgia" and "World Enough and Time". This summer she directed her first feature film, "Marilyn-Forever Blonde".

David Shulman has produced, directed, written and edited numerous PBS documentaries. He has worked as a story analyst for Columbia Pictures and worked on a wide range of feature films. He received his MFA in Cinema/Television from USC and taught film/video at the university level prior to founding the Seattle Film Institute in 1994. He recently completed "World Enough and Time", an independent 35mm feature film which he wrote, directed, and edited.

Kevin Tomlinson has been a producer, director, and cameraman for 20 years, working with broadcast (NBC News, ABC, CBS, FOX-TV, PBS, etc) and corporate clients to produce news magazines, documentaries, international travel series, marketing, electronic press kits for feature films, training, and corporate communications programming. Recent projects include 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II (CBS), Dateline NBC, 48 Hours (CBS), 20/20 (ABC), National Geographic TV, The Today Show (NBC), Good Morning America (ABC), Entertainment Tonight, The Disney Channel, Nicklelodeon, The Discovery channel, The Learning Channel, and The History Channel.

George Tramountanas has worked in several Hollywood offices, including those of Michael Phillips and Oliver Stone. He has a Masters in Film and TV Production from USC, where he made the award-winning short "SCREWED: A Hollywood Bedtime Story". In addition, he's worked as a film publicist, written several scripts, and directed a promotional video for Camp Agape NW (an organization for kids with cancer).

David Trees graduated with a four year degree in film production and has studied writing at the University of Washington. After scripting film documentaries, he did a two year stint writing for television. He then launched into a newspaper writing career as a reporter, editor and columnist. He left the news business to pursue his own creative writing and was awarded the national Writer’s Digest grand prize for his screenplay “Under High Woods.

Michael Welty is a freelance cinematographer with international experience shooting film and video. Michael has worked in South America, North America, Africa and the Middle East on a variety of narrative and documentary productions. Recent productions include "World Enough and Time" (a 35mm narrative feature produced by SFI Productions) and a documentary about life in the Democratic Republic of Congo which is currently in post-production.