Wild Horses tells the story of two generations of women who come face-to-face with the brutality common to the removal process of wild horses from public land in America. Mills, an up and coming celebrity photographer, has just returned to Nevada after her grandmother calls with news that the herd of horses that ran on land near their family’s home when Mills was a child faces government roundup.

In the course of an afternoon, cruelty, love and courage collide amid the chaos of the wild Nevada desert landscape, haunting helicopter blades, untamed hoof beats and a bold act of resistance.

Mills is exposed to a complex issue and follows hear heart, choosing to ignore the consequences. 

- A FICTIONAL STORY, A REAL LIFE ISSUE -

While our story is fictional, it is inspired by the harsh realities of wild horse management in America. At the turn of the century, two million horses – many, descents of the horses introduced to our country by the Spanish conquistadores, others, descents of escaped horses and horses turned loose during the industrial revolution - roamed free on public land. Despite a 1971 congressional act designed to secure their protection, The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)’s roundup protocols have lead the wild horse population to dwindle.  Today, it is estimated that 22,000-35,000 horses remain in the wild while over 50,000 horses live in captivity in government holding corrals, awaiting an uncertain future.

Under the auspices of herd protection against adverse conditions, roundup protocols often involve helicopter pursuit of herds that include foals for miles across unforgiving landscape and varying temperatures, from intense summer temperatures to freezing weather.

The humanity of BLM roundups is further complicated by the fact that the BLM is also charged with managing and granting permits to the cattle grazing  and the extractive industries, far more profitable interests that certainly expose an inherent conflict when determining the fitness of the horses to remain on public land.

Today, more wild horses live in government holding facilities than roam free, facing futures that may include auction, sale and slaughter.

Currently, the issue counts with an engaged wild horse advocacy community including Laura Leigh from Wild Horse Education (http://wildhorseeducation.org) and the organization Wild Horse Preservation (http://wildhorsepreservation.org) among many such organizations.  They endeavor to raise awareness and contribute to a more secure and humane future of these animals. 

Still, too few people are aware of the plight of the wild horse.  Without intervention and a complete overhaul of policy to secure their lasting protection, these icons of American heritage will be mismanaged to extinction. The issue also counts with a growing body of journalism which has focused this issue under a much needed critical lens , recent articles include:

Dave Philipps’: http://www.propublica.org/article/missing-what-happened-to-wild-horses-tom-davis-bought-from-the-govt

Kurt Brungardt’s: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/a-solution-for-americas-wild-horse-crisis

Andrew Cohen's: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/are-we-leading-our-wild-horses-to-slaughter/263948/

We wrote Wild Horses to use the power of dramatic storytelling and the magic of the movies to inspire advocacy and action around not only this issue, but any others close to the hearts of our audience.

A TURNING POINT - A REALITY CHECK

Just as Stephanie, Jessica & Tara embarked on pre-production, Stephanie learned that the BLM was about to embark on the Jackson Mountains round-up in Nevada, a month and a half before it was originally scheduled.  Overnight, in the span of 10 hours, Steph and Tara, found themselves on the road, witnessing and documenting the Jackson Mountains roundup in Nevada.  The experience, and in particular meeting advocate Laura Leigh of Wild Horse Education, solidified their resolve, transformed their insight and understanding and had tremendous influence on the look and feel and overall production of Wild Horses.  Their experience culminated with their participation in a Humane Care case mounted by Laura Leigh against the BLM, which temporarily halted the round up.

When they returned to LA, Stephanie and her team focused their efforts on fundraising and embarked on pre-production.  Their shooting date still unclear because Stephanie’s husband Bob, who had agreed to shoot Wild Horses, was still finishing up on Django Unchained.  Quickly however, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.

Melissa Farlow, whom Stephanie had called several months prior as she admired Melissa’s photography on the National Geographic article: Mustangs: Spirits of the Shrinking West, [http://olsonfarlow.com/] accepted to come board to take the still pictures that would later be edited into the film to represent Mills’s perspective of the roundup.

Kimerlee Curyl graciously allowed us to use her photographs in our website and publicity to spread the word about our project (www.kimerleecuryl.com). Her images eventually becoming the poster for our film.

Then, to the team’s surprise and elation, Mireille Enos, whom Stephanie knew from working on World War Z, accepted to portray Mills. Then Rex Peterson, who trained Black Beauty and worked on Horse Whisperer with Bob agreed to come on board along with Scott Perez, his horses, and some of the best horse wranglers in the business.  And whenever we felt like we were falling or failing, another friend came in and made us stronger. As each day passed, we knew we were making something magical, and we knew our story would get to the screen. 

We haven’t stopped feeling fortunate or incredibly grateful or amazed by our team and what they helped us make yet.

- WHAT YOUR DONATION WILL GO TOWARDS -

We have been incredibly fortunate in making Wild Horses. All of what we’ve raised to date has gone to pay for the production of Wild Horses.  Meaning, everything you see on-screen.  For instance,  for our horses, their expert training and care, fire safety, the helicopter and fuel used in filming, and the various costs of photography and production.  Everything else was donated, including the time and talents of our world class cast and crew.  We want to take a moment to thank everyone who has given time, talent, encouragement or money to bringing Wild Horses this far.

We now need to raise a final round of funding to cover:

Archival footage costs: $6000

DVD duplication for festivals so we can screen the film & raise awareness: $1500

DVD Packaging Design: $300

DVD Authoring: $200

Film Festival Submission Fees: $1500-$2000

Mailing costs: $2000

Press Kit Design: $300

Printing of Posters/Brochures (for Film Festival Usage): $1500

All funds raised, even if we exceed our goal, will go into bringing our story to the screen. We are so grateful for your support! 

- JOIN THE WILD HORSES TEAM -

If you can donate, we’re very grateful. And if you’re not able to, you can really help us spread the word about Wild Horses, and our final Indiegogo fundraising campaign, on any social media sites you use. We hope you’ll ‘like’ us on Facebook.

And please, don't judge us on our rewards scheme.  We want to ensure that all funds donated go towards spreading awareness and we are trying to keep our carbon footprint as minimal as possible by making our awards downloadable.  

Also, be sure to check our IMDB Page

- DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT -

My passion for horses began when my mother put me on a horse at two years and it has grown stronger with the passing years. I became aware of the plight of America’s wild horses about ten years ago. Like any citizen supportive of a cause, I struggled with how best to help. Signing petitions wasn’t enough. I wanted to do more. I needed to make an impact.  Wild Horses was born of this journey. 

A fortuitous turn of events that took place during this journey is that I found out I was pregnant with our daughter Madeleine Bridge, on the last day of our Wild Horses shoot. Going back and doing the math, I came to realize that Madeleine Bridge was with us from the very beginning of our journey at during the Jackson Mountains roundup. 

I took a break from editing in late November upon hearing that the BLM was planning yet another roundup in Owyhee, Nevada.  This time, I took to the road with my mother and my unborn daughter and documented the first week of the roundup alongside Laura Leigh.

Again, I was able to help my friend Laura and participated in writing a statement in support of another Humane Care case brought forth against the BLM.  On this particular trip, we unfortunately witnessed (among other atrocities) a band of horses being run into barbed wire fences by the BLM contractor, horses being run in freezing temperatures for hours on end and then loaded with hot prods onto trailers.   In this way, the unborn Madeleine participated in two roundups before even being born. 

I hope these experiences go onto shape her into a horse-loving woman, just like the generations before her and an adult who is willing to fight against injustice.  

This movie is dedicated not only to America’s wild horses, but to the women in my family, my Argentine grandmother, mother, my sister and my soon to be born daughter Madeleine Bridge whose fearless spirit have taught me to love and respect horses – and about the unbridled joy that comes from having them in our lives. 

- CAST & CREW BIOGRAPHIES -

CAST:

 Mireille Enos, Mills

With three feature films due out this year, and two due out in 2014, Mireille Enos has quickly risen to the top of a short list of sought after female actors. She received both a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her role as detective Sarah Linden on AMC’s “The Killing.” As the first female lead in an AMC drama, the press has praised her performance in what The Hollywood Reporter has called her “breakout role.” She will begin production on Season 3 in March.

Enos can currently be seen in the Warner Bros. crime drama “Gangster Squad,” for director Ruben Fleischer. The film, starring Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn and Emma Stone, follows a specially recruited team of LAPD officers dedicated to combating the influx of East Coast gangsters to Los Angeles in the 1940 and 50s. Enos garnered praise for the warmth and emotion she brings to the role. The Huffington Post proclaimed “some of the best work comes from Mireille Enos as Brolin’s wife...Enos has genuine chemistry with not just Brolin but with Gosling in their terrific scene together.”

In June, Enos will star as the female lead alongside Brad Pitt in the Marc Forster-directed blockbuster “World War Z” for Paramount Pictures. Based on the novel by Max Brooks, the film looks at the aftermath of a global zombie war 10 years after the conflict.

In addition, she recently wrapped production on two other films including “Ten,” directed by David Ayer starring Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and “Devil’s Knot,” directed by Atom Egoyan, starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. In “Devil’s Knot,” Enos plays Vicki Hutcheson, an important witness in the murder trial of the West Memphis 3.

Currently, Enos is filming the psychological thriller “Queen of the Night” for Egoyan, who was so impressed with her work in “Devil’s Knot,” he was determined to cast her in this emotionally charged role opposite Ryan Reynolds.

From 2007-2010, Enos starred in the HBO drama “Big Love.” Impressed by her range and versatility, producers gave Enos a double role to play as twins Jodean and Kathy Marquart. Critics have commended Enos on her finely nuanced performance, calling her “luminous” and heralding her as “the actress who best captured the out-of-time otherness of compound life.”

In 2009, Enos returned to the stage starring opposite Annette Bening, David Arquette and Julian Sands in Joanna Murray-Smith’s comedy The Female of the Species at the Geffen Playhouse. “Mireille Enos nearly steals the show as Bening’s wonderfully distraught daughter” touted the Hollywood Reporter.

In 2005, Enos won the role of Honey in the Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite industry veterans Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner. It opened to glowing reviews and earned her a Tony nomination for “Best Featured Actress in a Play.” Enos joined the original cast when the play was transferred to London’s West End in 2006.

Born to an American father and French mother, Enos was raised in Houston where she attended schools for the dramatic arts. While studying acting during her third year at Brigham Young University, she was invited to join a two-month project at the Classic Stage Company in New York City. She bought a one-way bus pass and the rest, as they say, is history.

Barbara Tarbuck, Becks

Trained on a Fulbright Grant to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Barbara’s New York theatre work began with Joseph Chaikin’s famed production of AMERICA HURRAH and includes the American premiere of Harold Pinter’s LANDSCAPE & SILENCE, David Mamet’s WATER ENGINE at the Public Theatre and on Broadway, Neil Simon’s BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS on Broadway,  the National Tour of BROADWAY  BOUND, and off Broadway AN EVENING WITH SYLVIA PLATH at the Sheridan Square and ENTER THE NIGHT by Marie Irene Fornes at the Signature ON 42ND STREET. Regional standouts are BECKY SHAW, SIDNEY BECHET KILLED A MAN, and BLUE WINDOW all at South Coast Repertory, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT at Dallas Theatre Center, SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR at Williamstown, DEATH OF A SALESMAN at San Diego Rep and THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAN at Geffen Playhouse. Film highlights are WALKING TALL, CURLEY SUE, and Peter Greenaway’s TULSE LUPER SUITCASES.  In the 2012-2013 season she stars as Jessica Lange’s Mother Superior in multiple episodes of AMERICAN HORROR STORY .  Other favorite TV roles include MAD MEN, GLEE, COLD CASE, ER, CSI, CSI: NY, a season on FALCON CREST playing Jane Wyman’s doctor, an earlier season on CAGNEY AND LACEY as Captain Samuels wife, but is most recognized by the public for fifteen years as Australian Jane Jax on GENERAL HOSPITAL. 

Brooke Shields, Herself

Brooke Shields began her accomplished professional career at only eleven months of age when she was selected as the Ivory Snow Baby, and by age 3 was a runway model. At age 9, Shields began her extensive film career when she won her first acting role in “Alice Sweet Alice” and rapidly gained fame after staring in Louis Males' “Pretty Baby,” the Palme D'or Award winner at the Cannes Film Festival, and the coming of age tales “Blue Lagoon” and “Endless Love.”  As a model, Brooke has graced the covers of hundreds of magazines, most notably Time Magazine as the “Face of the Eighties”. Today, Shields continues her prolific appearances in a broad range of worldwide publications, decades after it all began.
 
In addition to her film achievements, Shields has maintained a successful and critically acclaimed television career. Her work on The NBC hit “Suddenly Susan” garnered her a Golden Globe nomination, and she received an American Comedy Award nod for her guest role on “Friends”. Brooke is the recipient of five People's Choice Awards, and has guest starred on a wide range of hit shows including “That 70’s Show”, “Hannah Montana”, and “Two And A Half Men.” Her television work continued most recently starring on Candace Bushnell’s “Lipstick Jungle” on NBC.
Shields is the best selling author of several books, including "The Brooke Book," "On Your Own," and the highly publicized and critically acclaimed "Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression.” Brooke has recently tapped into her experiences as a mother, successfully branching out into the world of children’s books, penning "Welcome To Your World, Baby” and "It’s the Best Day Ever Dad" for Harper Collins.
While attending Princeton University, Brooke pursued her love of Theatre as a member of the Princeton Triangle Club. Shortly after graduating with honors, she made her Broadway debut as Rizzo in the hit musical “Grease”, for which she earned the Theatre World Award in 1994 for “Outstanding Debut on Broadway.”  Shields went on to star in "Chicago", "Wonderful Town", and "Cabaret", all of which earned her rave reviews. Last year, Brooke starred in a variety of on-stage productions. She assumed the iconic role of Morticia Addams alongside Roger Rees in the hit Broadway show, “The Addams Family.” Brooke appeared in the acclaimed ensemble “Girls Talk,” written and directed by Roger Kumble, starring alongside Andra Benewald, Leslie Bibb, and Constance Zimmer in a play about Brentwood’s elite, status-climbing mothers. Brooke also had her critically acclaimed nightclub debut at Feinstein’s at The Loews Regency, performing “In My Life”, a freewheeling music and stand-up romp through her life’s ups and downs. The show sold out its entire run.

In addition to her professional career, Brooke continues to be a strong advocate for children's rights and literacy, and is the happily married mother of 2 beautiful daughters.

Tuff, Phantom

Tuff aka KEEPIN CHARGE has starred in commercials, several television shows and films.   Among his credits, he has worked as one of the double horses on HIDALGO, performed extreme stunts on the boat on THE RING, doubled as FLICKA, was cast as Jeremy Irons’ horse on APPALOOSA and portrays Phantom, the lead horse on WILD HORSES.  He’s still a fairly young horse by movie standards and has a long ahead of him.  He has every potential of someday becoming as famous and celebrated as his father, Justin aka DOCS KEEPIN TIME, best known to thousands of horse lovers around the world as Black Beauty.

CREW:

We have been extremely fortunate to have the support of an incredibly talented team who are donating their time and talent to this film:

Stephanie Martin, Director, Co-Writer

The power of film to both entertain and educate and as a result, move people into action, is what drives Stephanie’s work.  Adding to a successful career as a Director of Photography, Stephanie recently completed the prestigious Directing Workshop for Women Program at the AFI where she directed her first short film, Wild Horses.  Stephanie is currently developing a feature length script based on the short about the plight of wild horses in the Western United States.
 
As a Cinematographer, Stephanie has hung from a helicopter over the nighttime waters of Puerto Rico to document the rescue of 90 passengers on a Yola, hovered over the Canadian Rockies in below freezing weather only to find her safety belt became unhooked mid-flight; hung from a crane in Malta over hundreds blood-thirsty zombies; followed illegal aliens on horseback in the Arizona desert, Latin American rock stars in L.A. and sex-crimes detectives in Florida; shot a supernatural thriller in the deserts of Morocco, a Bollywood musical in Mumbai and a love story in Mexico. Adventure and cross-cultural experiences have marked Stephanie Martin’s career in film from the get-go.
 
Born in Sao Paulo and raised mostly in Buenos Aires, Stephanie discovered her passion for film while at Wellesley College where she studied French and Political Science. Following graduation, Stephanie moved New York where she began as a set lighting technician in independent films before attending the American Film Institute to earn her Master of Fine Arts degree in Cinematography. She has worked on features, shorts, documentaries and commercials all over the world, amongst them Daniel Myrick’s The Objective and most recently as operator Ryan Murphy’s Eat Pray Love and on Marc Forster’s World War Z.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Robert Richardson, ASC, Cinematographer

Robert Richardson is a three-time Academy Award winner for Best Cinematography for his work on Oliver Stone's historic tapestry JFK, Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR, and most recently for Scorsese's HUGO.

HUGO marked Richardson's seventh collaboration with Martin Scorsese, having previously worked on CASINO, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, SHUTTER ISLAND and the documentary GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD. Richardson also lensed and supervised an all-star group of cinematographers on the Rolling Stones concert film SHINE A LIGHT.

Richardson has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with director Oliver Stone. Their work together includes NATURAL BORN KILLERS, DOORS, NIXON, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY and PLATOON, the latter two of which Richardson garnered Academy Award nominations.

Richardson's other credits include SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, THE HORSE WHISPERER, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, EIGHT MEN OUT, A FEW GOOD MEN, and the upcoming WORLD WAR Z, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt. Richardson has photographed several documentaries with Errol Morris, including FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL, MR. DEATH, and the unflinching Abu Ghraib documentary STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE.
Richardson most recently lensed DJANGO UNCHAINED, his fourth film collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, having worked on KILL BILL: Volumes 1 and 2, and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, which garnered eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Cinematography.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Jessica Walsh, Producer

Jessica has spent the past decade as a communications and patient advocacy consultant, working for clients in the public and private sector on both sides of the Atlantic, specializing in the healthcare sector. The focus of Jessica’s work is on raising awareness and using communications, advocacy and social networks to contribute to better health outcomes. Throughout her career, Jessica has created communications tools across a range of media, focusing on developing compelling narratives that drive behavior change, so somehow filmmaking doesn’t feel as foreign as it probably should. She is delighted to be working alongside Wellesley classmate, friend and riding companion Stephanie Martin on her first project in narrative film. Jessica lives in London.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Tara Tucker, Producer

Tara, a graduate from the American Film Institute, fell upon her passion during her senior year of undergaduate, in which she was studying fine art and graphic design, was asked to compete in a commercial design competition for the Ford Motor Company. She co-wrote and co-produced the winning commercial, GREEN REVOLUTION, that aired on select networks in Southern California. It was this experience that opened her eyes to filmmaking. Following graduation, she went on to work as a creative assistant at Twentieth Century Fox for the Consumer Products/ Global Creative Division. During her career at Fox, she got her hands wet on some of the company’s major projects including GLEE, THE SIMPSONS and AVATAR.

Tara made the real commitment to be behind the camera in 2010 when she applied to AFI in order to devote herself to creative producing. She recently wrapped her thesis film, FIRST IN FLIGHT, which will tour the film festival circuit in 2012-’13. She is inspired every day to be working with the medium that in her mind bridges all mediums of art upon one canvas. She feels that as a filmmaker, you carry a huge responsibility of what messages you send out to the world, which is why she was attracted to U.M.F. A horse- lover herself, she is energized to work on a film that has purpose and the potential to send people to action.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Justin Dalzell, Co-Producer

Justin loves making movies; they are his hard working devotion and passion in life. He has been so fortunate to have worked closely with an inspiring group of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Alan Ball, Robert Richardson, Janusz Kaminski, Mauro Fiore, Gregg Fienberg, and many others who have helped shape his creative and business aesthetic as a producer. Justin’s experience thus far has made him realize the importance of carrying on this impeccable standard of filmmaking to future generations. He is a lover of cinema history and holds a strong value for the study of master filmmakers that came before him. Like these artists, Justin aims to produce movies with robust meaning that maintain their potency over time as a piece of total entertainment.

Justin’s work has been recognized in worldwide film festivals and publications including Locarno International, Clermont-Ferrand, and Panavision’s New Filmmaker Program. His recent films include collaborations with The Getty Foundation, Cliff Dweller Media, and directors Stephanie Martin, Oliver Bernsen, Cathy Martino, David Raboy, Jonathan Siebel, & Miguel Angelo Pate.

For more information on his work please visit: www.cliffdwellermedia.com

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Page Buckner, Production Designer

Page has always been passionate about design. Early in high school, he had an internship at an architectural firm that set him on a path to becoming an architect. Until a last minute visit to Los Angeles opened him up to a different path into a different design arena, and he has never looked back since. He has Art Directed such films as Transformers 1&2, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, The Amazing Spiderman and more recently, Django Unchained. He has also designed award winning commercials and music videos, along with several short films that have won festivals and awards around the world.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Courtney Hoffman, Costume Designer

As a Costume Designer Courtney loves to explore the visual possibilities in story telling and character. Her most recent film, an 1870s Western, DEAD MAN’S BURDEN premiered as part of Los Angeles Film Festival and the costumes were noted as having “careful attention to period detail” by the Hollywood Reporter.

Most recently she’s worked on the set of Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED and was a Costume Buyer for DARK SHADOWS and SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN under Costume Designer Colleen Atwood.

After studying Costume Design from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Courtney is thrilled by the challenges each new project brings; be it learning the precise details or a new period or mastering the details of a character with an actor.

Courtney’s first experience with wild horses was on Terence Malick’s film TO THE WONDER and her love and fascination grew from there. She was an avid rider as a child and has been lucky to have continuous exposure with horses through film.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Mark Ulano, Sound Mixer

Mark Ulano has been recording sound for film professionally since 1976. He has frequently been a guest speaker at sound symposiums internationally, including The Directors Guild of America, the Rycote World Sound Symposium, The Norwegian Bjoksjo Sound Symposium, The Bejing Film Academy, Digital Video Expo, AES and CAS. His work on TITANIC won him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing as well as the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound mixing for a Feature Film, and he was recently nominated for an Oscar for his work on INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, as well as another CAS nomination for sound mixing on IRON MAN.  He has received two Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Academy) nominations, for KILL BILL VOL. 1 and TITANIC. He also received two Golden Reel Awards from the Motion Picture Sound Editors for his mixing work as well as a golden Satellite Award nomination for TERMINATOR: SALVATION.

Films Mark has mixed in release this year include, SUPER 8, COWBOYS & ALIENS and THE TOURIST. Coming out in 2012, LAY THE FAVORITE, THE MASTER, and DJANGO UNCHAINED. He has well over a hundred film and television credits as a Production Sound Mixer, including, DISTURBIA, GRINDHOUSE, TALLEDEGA NIGHTS, KILL BILL 1 & 2, WEDDING CRASHERS, SPY KIDS, ROCKY BALBOA, EMPIRE FALLS, STUART LITTLE, AUSTIN POWERS, JACKIE BROWN, DESPARADO, BLUE CRUSH, IRON MAN, and STATE OF PLAY.  Mr. Ulano was recently re-elected to his 3rd term as President of IATSE Local 695 (the film sound union) and is on the executive committee of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Sound Branch, has sat seven terms as a board member for the Cinema Audio Society and also writes a column for Pro Audio Review magazine and contributes to the CAS Journal. Ulano, also a documentarian, his most recent feature documentary: I LOVE WHAT I DO. He is also in the final stages of completing a comprehensive text on the work of Production Sound Mixing.

Please Click Here For IMDB Page

Chris Kursel, Editor

Chris Kursel was born in Milwaukee, WI. He graduated from Boston University's College of Communication with a degree in Film/TV. As an editor, he began at top advertising agencies Modernista! (Boston) and Evolution Bureau (San Francisco) on award winning campaigns. He currently works under Hank Corwin at renowned edit house Lost Planet (Los Angeles), where he cuts films, commercials, music videos and other longform content. His work as a writer/director/editor has appeared in Creativity, Adweek, FuseTV, numerous literary magazines and the Cannes Film Festival. His most recent film work includes a feature documentary on infamous Brooklyn Dodger Ralph Branca and 1951 pennant race.

Hauschka, Composer

Hauschka is the alias of German pianist / composer Volker Bertelmann, who currently resides in Dusseldorf, Germany. He studied classical piano for ten years, but his work as Hauschka is based upon a playful exploration of the possibilities of the 'prepared' piano — a playfully disruptive intervention into the preconceived idea of the piano as a pure-toned, perfected instrument waiting for a gifted virtuoso to play on it. With the aid of his interventions, the piano becomes as much a machine for generating rhythms as it does for melody. 

In addition to album and performance collaborations with celebrated violinist Hilary Hahn, drummer Samuli Kosminen (Iceland's Mum) and Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino, Hauschka has continued to work on numerous other projects, most notably in the fields of film, theatre, dance and art. He's contributed to various film soundtracks (one for winner of the 2007 Akira Kurosawa Short Film Award, Blotsky, (in which he also starred,) and four film scores - including Doris Dorrie's, Gluck, nominated for Best Film Score at the German Film Prize in 2012. His stage work includes 2006's remix of Wagner's Parcifal (in collaboration with Stefan Schneider) for Berlin's Hebbel Theatre and in 2011 he composed an 18 minute overture for Rittberger's Puppen, part of the 2011/12 theatrical season at Dusseldorf's Schauspielhaus.

Always unpredicable, HAUSCHKA continues to offer only one certainty; that the next step he takes will no doubt be as unexpected as the direction from which he has come.

Melissa Farlow, Stills Photographer

Melissa Farlow dreamed about horses when she was young girl and wrote a heart-felt letter to Roy Rogers asking him to send her Trigger. The following year her parents gave her a docile, one-eyed, old cow pony that chewed tobacco and ate watermelon rinds whom she adored.

Farlow has worked extensively in the American West for the National Geographic Society driving 20,000 miles to photograph public lands and a project on mustangs where she encountered wild horse herds in Nevada, California, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Besides 15 projects for National Geographic magazine, Farlow photographed for two books -- Wild Lands of the West and The Long Road South.

Farlow won a Pulitzer Prize with photo staff of the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, and her portfolio was awarded honors while she worked at the Pittsburgh Press. She moved to freelance where besides Geographic, she is published in Smithsonian, GEO, LIFE, Sierra and National Geographic Traveler magazines and more than 40 books by various publishers. In addition, she has photographed projects for the Heinz Endowments and the Ford Foundation. Her images are recognized in multiple national and international competitions, and she was recently named into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. 

Farlow received journalism degrees from the University of Missouri where she taught photojournalism classes, and from Indiana University where in 2012 she received a Distinguished Alumni Award. She and her husband, Randy Olson, also a longtime National Geographic contributing photographer have traveled to over 50 countries in the past 20 years on assignments. In addition, they lecture, teach workshops and are on the faculty of the Missouri Photo Workshop.

Their website address is www.olsfarlow.com