Rootclip

Jeremiah Birnbaum, San Francisco, CA

Jeremiah Birnbaum is the Co-Founder and CEO of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. A native New Yorker, Jeremiah has worked as a producer, editor, director and educator in film and video for over seventeen years. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Film and Philosophy from Wesleyan University and attended the filmmaking program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

As a filmmaker, Jeremiah was a founding partner of Detour Pictures, a music-video production company specializing in rap and R&B artists, and has collaborated with many accomplished filmmakers, including Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple. As an educator, he taught editing and media literacy to teenagers at the Urban League of Newark, and was Course Director of the Media Sound and Visual Program at Ex'pression College of Digital Arts, in Emeryville, CA. In addition to his duties as Course Director, Jeremiah was Director of Professional Services at Ex'pression and over the years has developed and taught many classes on the art and craft of filmmaking.

Jeremiah's recent credits include three diverse projects, two feature films and one documentary. He is executive producing "Presque Isle", an HD feature written and directed by Bay Area filmmaker Rob Nilsson and produced by the School of Digital Filmmaking. Jeremiah also directed and shot the feature-length digital film, "So Fresh, So Clean" which premiered at the 2003 San Francisco Black Film Festival and won Best Feature Film at the Motor City Film Festival. The film played at festivals, colleges and art house theaters all over the country before being released by Warner Bros. Home Video in 2005. As a documentarian, Jeremiah produced and directed "An Introduction to Multiple Sclerosis", a film for people newly diagnosed with MS. This doc was produced in collaboration with the Minneapolis Clinic of Neurology and has been distributed to hundreds of people across the country diagnosed with this complicated illness.


Rich Cline, London, UK

Rich Cline was born in Los Angeles, grew up in South America and has lived and worked in London since 1992. He covers film weekly for BBC Radio Five Live and the website Shadows on the Wall, among other outlets in print, broadcasting and online. He is a member of London Film Critics' Circle, Online Film Critics Society and Fipresci.


Karen Daniel, Knoxville, TN

Karen Daniel has a broad and diverse background in programming, including creating, writing, and producing news, sports, and lifestyle television and founding her own company, Pixel Pictures. Her 15 years of experience includes time at HGTV, The Food Network, HGTVPro.com, TNN, and most recently a seven-year stint at the DIY Network as director of programming.

Her programming skills are matched by her own do-it-yourself spirit, as she spends much of her spare time completing projects around her 1938 cottage and is an active volunteer with Champions for a Cause and Habitat for Humanity. From small towns to big cities, food specials to film festivals, Karen has a wealth of anecdotes about her life in television, which she is happy to share with anyone over a glass of Maker's.


Paul Izbicki, Knoxville, TN

A veteran Producer and Director with a technology background, starting with electronics training in the USAF. I started the video department at Fidelity Investments in 1986, and produced over 300 productions in Boston over the next 15 years before turning freelance producer/director/consultant dba as i 2 i Productions. It was a consultancy that brought me to Knoxville in 2001, which resulted in my employment as Director of Broadcast Production at Jewelry TV, where I served until 2006.

Today, I shoot, produce, and direct as the owner of i 2 i Productions. I also teach guerilla filmmaking as an Adjunct Professor at Pellissippi State Technical Community College, as I did during my Boston years at Endicott College in Mass. As a supporter of independent filmmaking, I'm delighted to contribute to the Rootclip community as a judge.


David Meyers, Orlando, FL

David Meyers has been a film instructor at Full Sail Real World Education for the last 14 years. During this time he developed the curriculum for and worked as the Course Director of both Full Sail's Film History and Pre-production Courses. He has also helped supervise over fifty 35mm and 16mm student film shoots. In addition, David has lectured on Cinematography and taught Avid editing.

David still finds time to work professionally as a Director of Photography. His credits include the feature film THE OASIS, and commercials for such clients as Platinum Creative, Intercontinental Teleflorists, Easter Seals, Fantastic Sam's, Fashion Square Mall, and Terror on Church Street.

David has been working in motion picture production since receiving his Bachelors Degree in Communication from Ohio University in 1987. He began his career on the feature film MONKEY SHINES which was directed by the legendary George Romero. Later, he worked as both camera assistant and electrician in the Pittsburgh area. Before relocating to Florida in 1989, he also worked on the feature films SIMPLE JUSTICE and THE LEFT HAND OF GOD.

David's experience in Florida includes working on the feature films SEALED WITH A KISS, and BLOOD, SWEAT AND BULLETS, as well as working a year at Panavision Florida.


Billy Miller, Knoxville, TN

Billy Miller is currently a Production Coordinator at Jupiter Entertainment. A Production Coordinator's job is mainly to make sure everything is coordinated, not like catching a football or doing yoga coordinated, but more like making sure the team is working as a solid unit coordinated. Billy graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2006 with a major in Broadcasting and a minor in Cinema Studies

Since working at Jupiter Entertainment he has worked on shows for The History Channel, A&E, fuse, Oxygen, and Jewelry Television. Billy is currently working on A&E Biography. This will be his 9th Biography for A&E. While Billy has won no awards so to speak his mother assures him that she thinks he is the best Producer ever. He believes her whole heartedly.


Michael Samstag, Knoxville, TN

Best known for his work directing and producing special features for the first three Harry Potter DVDs and the Van Helsing DVD, Samstags' work on Van Helsing was featured in an article by American Cinematographer Magazine and the making of WAR & TRUTH was featured in The American Prospect.

His documentary feature film, WAR & TRUTH, won Best Documentary at the Annapolis Film Festival in November 2005 and the Director's Choice Award at the Secret City Film Festival in 2007. In 2005, he directed 30 shows for the Telly Award winning Backyard Habitat series for Discovery Network's Animal Planet Channel. Samstags' second documentary, BOMBS OVER BEN HAI is currently in pre-production.

National clients include:

Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Discovery Networks, Fox Sports, MTV, VH1, The Academy of Science & Television, Animal Planet, Fine Living, Inside Edition, The United States ARMY, New Line Pictures, Castle Rock Entertainment, The Red Baron Museum, New Wave Entertainment, Mercury Marine, Jewelry Television, RARE Hospitality, Ruby Tuesday, Inc.


Ya'Ke Smith, Austin, TX

Widely regarded as one of this generation's next film directors to watch, Ya'Ke has made a name for himself as a filmmaker with a veracious style of storytelling that takes an unflinching look at issues facing today's society.

Ya'Ke made his first film at the age of 15, while a student at Sam Houston High School in his native San Antonio, TX and has yet to look back. His films have received world-wide acclaim, screening at The Cannes International Film Festival, The Pan African Film and Arts festival, The Sedicorto International Film Festival Forli and The Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival, to name a few.

His short Hope's War, was the recipient of the Director's Guild of America Student Film Award, was officially selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival as part of Kodak's Emerging Filmmaker Showcase, broadcast nationally on Showtime Television's Black Filmmaker Showcase and was a finalist of BETJ's The Best Shorts Film Competition. His latest film, The Second Coming, was nominated for a Student Academy Award and also won the HBO Short Film Award at the American Black Film Festival.

Ya'Ke graduated with his Master's of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin's film program, where he now lectures. He is currently fundraising for his debut feature, Stolen Dreams, which he plans to shoot in the fall of 2009.