Ken Murphy combines extensive experience as a senior corporate executive with a growing creative resume that encompasses screenwriting, directing and producing. Creatively, Ken’s feature-length screenplay "Fire On The Beach" was awarded Faculty Honors at the 2012 Columbia University Film Festival, one of just eleven scripts receiving that recognition. His short "Reaching Home" has screened at over twenty festivals, winning several awards. Ken also produced the award-winning short "First Match," which premiered at the 2011 New York Film Festival and won Best Student Film at the 2012 Aspen Shortsfest. Ken was awarded the 2010 HBO Films Young Producer’s Development Award, also for "First Match." Corporately, Ken last played the role of Senior Vice President for Human Resources with the Altria Group, ranked then as #11 within the Fortune 500. Ken has received a B.S. in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University, and an MFA in Film from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He is a former Board Member of the Roundabout Theatre Company, and currently serves on the Board of Overseers of the USS Constitution Museum in Boston and the Human Resources Board Committee of Mystic Seaport Museum.
Rachel Brenna began her career in radio writing commercials and performing voiceovers in Princeton, NJ. She obtained her BFA in Acting from USC and spent over ten years in LA as an actor in theater, TV and film. Back in New York City since 2009, she has produced or worked in production on a dozen short films including "Equal Means Equal," "Vivienne Again," "Ladybug," "The Starlight," and many others. Rachel also produced the co-produced "Irene and Marie," starring Olympia Dukakis, and is now producing two features to be filmed in NYC this summer. Rachel serves on the reading committee for the Nantucket Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and in the fall of 2013, she received her MFA in Creative Producing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
Team
Michael McMenomy is a sound designer for feature film, documentary and television. He graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelors Degree in Ethnomusicology in 1999, and received a Masters Degree in Film Sound from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 2003. Since then he has worked extensively as a sound editor, recording engineer and re-recording mixer, in Australia, Europe, North and South America.
Originally from Texas, Zachary Halberd has been taking photographs since he was a teen. He travelled for a bit with the Air Force, eventually started shooting films in the UK and worked his way up through the camera department. Zachary spent a couple years as a grip and electric in NYC and decided that the urge to shoot was too strong to resist. He now works solely as a cinematographer and colorist in NYC and Los Angeles shooting narrative as well as episodic web series, pilots, documentary features, and documentary television.
Danya Abt is a Brooklyn-based editor and documentary filmmaker whose films have shown at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Museum of Modern Art and have been distributed nationally. Her work has taken her around the world but she still finds the greatest inspiration in the dark theater of an editing room. Danya is currently cutting a feature documentary about the music/art group Fischerspooner.
Jennifer Gerber grew up in Arkansas but she built her film career in Chicago before attending graduate school at Columbia University. Jennifer served as Senior Producer for Manning Productions as well as a 1st Assistant Director on numerous film and commercial productions including Sound and they Fury with James Franco and Ex-Girlfriends with Jennifer Carpenter to name a few.
She has served as an adjunct film instructor at Columbia College Chicago, and is the Creative Director at the School of Creative and Performing Arts in New York. Jennifer's directing awards include: Regional Finalist for Student Academy Awards, Princess Grace Honorarium, 2 Telly awards, VGIK Best Student Program Award, Tropfest NY 2013 finalist and she received recognition for Indie Soul at the Boston International Film Festival.
Brette Goldstein has cast over 40 independent films, 100 commercials, 100 plays, several television and new media projects and was the resident casting director at Washington, DC’s Folger Elizabethan Theatre for ten seasons. Films Brette has cast have won awards and been official selections at most of the major film festivals, including Sundance, Tribeca and Cannes. Brette is the former Co-Producing Director of Washington Jewish Theatre, Production Manager at Washington Shakespeare Co., and Associate Producer of the Washington Theatre Festival. Brette teaches audition technique at various NYC studios and several universities and has done some serious damage at the craft services table in brief stints as on-set coach.
Minji Kang is a visual artist working in Cinema. She received BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she focused on Film Art and Aesthetics. She continued her artistic development at Columbia University, MFA Graduate Film Directing program where she is currently enrolled. (She is expected to graduate in May of 2014) The Cinematic art form has been a delightful canvas, a virtual playground where her boundless imagination, sensual melodies and candy-colored hopes and dreams collide to fashion gripping narrative, even if they sometimes play in a minor key.
Jennifer Tchiapke was born in Paris, and at 15 spent a year as an exchange student in Kentucky, where she attended high school and learned to speak English fluently. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Film Studies in Paris at the University of Saint Denis/Versailles. Living in New York City since 2004, Jennifer has been studying theater at HB Studio and Atlantic Acting School among other training such as Suzuki/Viewpoints workshops with Siti Company, and other classes. She’s been a member of Samurai Sword Soul (a Japanese Sword Fighting Company) since 2006. Jennifer is now the co-founder of a production and management company - tRIBa - along with her two long time friends Namisata Soumahoro and Rachida Naceur. Jennifer has dozens of credits as an actor and costume designer.
Pianist and composer Fabian Almazan, a native of Cuba now residing in New York City, found his musical roots as a child in his homeland of Havana where he first became involved in the classical piano tradition. Fabian now lives in New York City, where in 2009 he received a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music, selected as a recipient of the Michael W. Greene Scholarship.
Fabian received the Cintas Foundation 2010/11 Brandon Fradd Award in Music Composition, and was also selected as one of six composers to participate in the Sundance Composers’ Lab 2011. "Personalities," Fabian’s debut album, was released October 2011. For the past four years Fabian has been the pianist for the Terence Blanchard Group and has toured North and South America, Asia and Europe extensively.
RACHEL BRENNA
Producer
Writer/Director
KEN MURPHY
DANYA ABT
Editor
Director of Photography
ZACHARY HALBERD
Assistant Director
JENNIFER GERBER
Production Designer
MINJI KANG
JENNIFER TCHIAPKE
Costume Designer
BRETTE GOLDSTEIN
Casting Director
Composer
FABIAN ALMAZAN
MICHAEL McMENOMY
Sound Designer
