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BRUCE | The Team
Phebe
Szatmari, Director of BRUCE, is a Hungarian-American filmmaker based in New York City. After
receiving a full scholarship to study at Stony Brook Southampton with Christine Vachon of Killer Films in
the 20/20/20 Digital Filmmaking program, Phebe was placed on a house digital
filmmaking team at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre as Director, Director
of Photography, and Producer. Phebe is currently directing, shooting, and/or starring in several web series and
numerous shorts. Her work has appeared on UCBComedy, IFC, College Humor, Funny or
Die, Right This Minute, Sports Illustrated, BuzzFeed, and has been written up
on Time, Fast Company, Huffington Post, Bustle, Nylon, Cosmopolitan, The Daily
Dot, Mashable, among others. Her videos have reached more than 1 million
viewers. When she’s not making comedy films, she’s performing improv all over
New York City on her Queens Secret house team, TALON, her improv, sketch, and video team,
Scott Baio Wolf, and her indie team, HUNS. She dreams of one day pursuing
off-road racing.
Chris Bayon, Co-Writer, Lead Actor, Producer of BRUCE, is a New York City based Producer/Actor/Writer/Director who has been working steadily on short films, off-broadway plays, feature films and commercials since his move to NYC in summer of 2009. He is a graduate of the prestigious and intense William Esper Studios in NYC (Larry David, Timothy Olyphant and Sam Rockwell) and also received a business degree from Gettysburg College. Chris has written, starred in and produced several short films and has appeared in several national commercials. Chris is an avid musician (trumpet) and soccer player.
Jess Clark, Co-Writer and Associate Producer of BRUCE, is an New York City based comedian, writer and a featured player at The People's Improv Theater. This is her first feature film, and she feels incredibly grateful to be working with, and learning from such accomplished professionals.
Alex Parada, Associate Producer of BRUCE, is a filmmaker, writer, and producer based in Long Island, New York. He has produced, directed and written several short films and his first feature length film entitled The Tale on Emerald Trail is in post-production. He enjoys arts and crafts and long walks on the beach. Preferably with his crafts.
Mike Greene, Co-Production Designer of BRUCE, is a designer and filmmaker based in New York City. After receiving his undergraduate degree in journalism from Rutgers University, Mike completed his masters in architecture and design from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has done art direction for many filmmakers from the UCB and comedy community at large, including one play. During the day, Mike works as a User Experience Designer at the award winning media agency, Isobar. When he’s not working he can be seen around town, performing with his video/sketch/improv team Scott Baio Wolf, and improv teams Rascals and Humphrey. He has no fear of heights and would love to start jumping out of planes!
Samantha Gurewitz, Co-Production Designer/Costume Designer/Makeup Artist of BRUCE, began doing costume design at PBCC in Florida back in 2003, where she was nominated for a Kennedy Center American Theater Award for her costume and makeup design work on Murder in the Cathedral. After moving to New York City in 2006, she was a costume designer at the 13th st. rep. Theater and the Impact Theater, where her work on Ahmalia earned great reviews. She has been a makeup artist for the past 3 years, doing work for numerous productions featured on Netflix, Above Average, UCBComedy, IFC.com and College Humor. Recently she stepped up her tour of the Art Department becoming the Art Director for video series' on UCBComedy and IFC.com. She is an actress with numerous straight and comedy credits, and performs regularly with her indie improv teams HUNS, M and Risky Brisket. She also writes and performs original music with her band Danger Pin, and is obsessed with finding the perfect pair of pants.
Kate Payne, Digital Strategist for BRUCE, is a digital media specialist and someone who loves fancy words. Kate has been working in social media and web branding since 2010 when she graduated from Hamilton College and moved to New York to start work at TCG Agency, a digital branding agency specializing in fashion brands. From there Kate moved on within TCG to work in business development and pitching clients the perfect website and social media campaign to fit their needs. Following work at TCG, Kate took a break from marketing to travel the world (mostly in Asia) for a year, starting in Japan and literally landing, then leaving, places like Kabul, Afghanistan and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2014 Kate began working for VisualMax, the creative agency behind many of the award-winning online advertising campaigns which Yelp has used to help position itself as a cornerstone of new media. At VisualMax, Kate acted as a producer and marketing manager, ensuring that every advertising campaign, whether for Ford or Mastercard, fit the clients needs, functioned as needed and made the world of online advertising a more interesting, interactive place. Now Kate freelances and uses her skills for good to help smaller brands broaden their online presence, whether that means building a new website, designing a newsletter chain or managing the infrastructure of a social media campaign. In her free time (when she has it) Kate trains at UCB, is a tech intern at the PIT and performs and produces original videos with her video team.
BRUCE | The Message
BRUCE is close to our hearts because we believe that if you work hard at something you love and are passionate about, you can't go wrong--and this is the message of our film.
BRUCE is a story about a frustrated artist, Charlie, who is dragging himself through his days at a desk job he hates. Just as Charlie is at his breaking point, he meets the incredibly free-spirited and constantly inappropriate Bruce. Bruce takes Charlie under his wing and through a series of misadventures, graffiti, and bizarre pep-talks, reconnects him with his sense of humor and his passion. There’s an issue though, Bruce doesn’t exist. Charlie is the only person who can see and hear him.
Whether behind the scenes or on screen, the cast and crew of BRUCE are all working professionals at their craft, and they are contributing their time and effort pro-bono for love of the project, the script, and the message of the importance of integrating all the parts of oneself into pursuing one's life goals.
Having previous working relationships with everyone on the cast and crew makes this process much smoother. We have earned each other's trust, and this provides a more comfortable set environment for all involved and that is when the magic happens!
Contributors will not only be helping us make BRUCE, but you will help build a team that will continue to create awesome content for the rest of our careers. And if you'd like to be on our team, now is the time to let us know. Join us! It is our goal to maintain the same core team and experience success together. A rising tide lifts all boats.
