Maura Reilly
Producer
Shayna Connelly
Producer
Contributors and Collaborators
Shayna Connelly is a filmmaker and professor living in Chicago. Her video work has screened at numerous galleries and museums including The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. Her video short, 'Ladies In Search of Their Ecstasy', screened at galleries in Berlin, Paris and Vienna.
Over the years she has served as UPM or AD of many award-winning shorts; been a contributing writer for Time Out Chicago with a weekly column devoted to classic films on TV and juror for the After Dark competition at the 47th Annual Chicago International Film Festival.
In 2011- 2012 her music video 'Wait For Amateur' (post production by Sharon Mooney) played internationally at festivals, including at NxNW. She is in post-production on a feature length concert documentary on the WaxTrax Records Retrospectacle as well as a personal documentary entitled 'Blunt Force Trauma'. Her feature film, Leftover Voices, is a quiet coming-of-age ghost story and she is currently in hot pursuit of Chicago’s most notorious ghosts.
Though a lover of dark and twisted storytelling, her most recent movie-watching habits consist of re-watching Pixar films with her two small children. Shayna is an avid reader, record collector, and soapbox advocate for TV programming.
Contrarianism: Bacon-eating Vegetarian
Sharon A. Mooney is a Chicago-based video artist who hails from Richmond, Virginia. Her neo-realistic work in documentary portrait, narrative and animation has screened internationally in festivals and galleries. She received an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from The School of Visual Arts.
Wendy wanted me to write something whimsical about myself but I am contrarianing that request. www.sharonmooney.com
Contrarianism: Likes Sinbad standup comedy and hates whistling and The Mighty Boosh (which is weird, because she likes everything else those guys have made).
Charles has served as cinematographer on the feature films All the Best: Billy Sears, From Barbados With Love, Girl’s Best Friend, Contradictions of the Heart, This is Not a Test and Small, Beautifully Moving Parts, which screened at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), as well as at the Mill Valley, New Orleans (NOLA), Denver, Hamptons and the Atlanta film festivals. Small, Beautifully Moving Parts also earned the 2011 Sloan Award for most creative portrayal of technology in a film and debuted in theaters nationwide in May of 2012.
Swanson also photographed the award-winning short films Rain (aired on Showtime Network), and Tia and Marco, which screened at the 2010 South-by-Southwest Film Festival (SxSW). Other recent shorts include Montgomery and Nativity for Soldier produced by Rob Fried (Collateral) and SpiritClips.com. The music video Jaguar, which he photographed for Techno artist DJ Rolando, received wide play on MTV Europe. His work also aired nationally on both The Finer Living Channel’s show I-Design and the commercial spot Diabetes: Living Without Limits.
Swanson earned an MFA in film production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. He currently holds an associate professorship at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television, where he serves as Chair of the Production Department.
In his spare time he enjoys dreaming of a successful return to the Salsero life, playing one of the seven songs he has learned to play on the guitar and attaining the goal of eating at every “B” rated restaurant in Los Angeles County.
He has also been heard waxing poetic about hand-crafted cased meats, much to the chagrin of Wendy Roderweiss.
Contrarianism: Is grossed out by fruit. "It's all sweet meat." and truly has faith that hipsters are the salvation for a 20th century Rome.
A refugee from Buffalo, New York, Maura is firmly entrenched in West Los Angeles now and doesn’t mind not having snow for Christmas. A paralegal by trade, a singer at heart and a stand-in when needed she has produced Stage One and Stage Two for Contrarian Films. Basically, she takes care of the paperwork.
Maura blames Wendy for getting her mixed up in this mess and yet continues to bake her cookies when she is in town.
Contrarianism: Thought Bridesmaids was the worst movie of 2011 and can’t stomach sushi.
Charles Swanson
Cinematographer
Sharon Mooney
Producer, Editor
Josh Kurz
Editor and
Motion Graphics
Josh hasn't sent us a bio yet so we are going to make up stuff about him.
Josh loves cilantro and REALLY loves when people mispell things on websights and in yearbooks.
Mimi Snow
Editor
Mimi Snow received her film degree from Southern Methodist University and quickly fell in love with post production. She has 10 years broadcast level AVID editing experience. Some of her TV credits include “Cheaters” (CW), “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” (Bravo), “American Idol Rewind” , “One Born Every Minute” (Lifetime), most recently "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders" (CMT) and other shows for networks such as VH1, TLC, History, ScyFy, and GSN.
She has also worked on award winning documentaries, short films, live programming, promos and DVD special features. This year, she was submitted for Emmy consideration by BIO network for her biography on ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. www.mimisnow.com
Mimi was also the "First Princess" at Medieval times for not one, not two, but three years.
Contrarianism: Loves the Dallas Cowboys, but can't stand Tony Romo.
Shane Winter
Editor, Photographer & Motion Graphics
Shane also didn't send a bio yet, so here is some stuff we made up about him: He went to boarding school in Madagascar and is the fastest well digger you will ever meet. He likes elevators and has a pet ferret named Sheila.
Joel Martin
Composor
Bill Connor
Sound
Bill Connor is a filmmaker and sound designer in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Icebox Post-Production and teaches at DePaul University's School of Computing and Digital Media. He is an avid moviegoer, a science nerd, and loves to purchase and neglect foreign language software. He has now attempted to be fluent in over 6 languages.
Contrarianism: Loves Steven Spielberg, hates Christopher Nolan.
Joel helms the avant-pop outfit from Los Angeles called The Running Jumps. He also operates ARC OF NOISE, his studio and label that releases his material.
To date, ARC OF NOISE has released music by
-the brave guitar/drum instrumental duo, The Big Believers
-the retro-pop power trio, BIMBO
-his jazz band, The Joel Martin Quintet, featuring Joel on 14-string pedal steel guitar
-an EP of maniacal Christmas music by BURNING YULE
and the debut single by The Running Jumps, "There Is Only Love". All of these are available on iTunes or through CDBABY.com.
His pedal steel guitar work is being called upon by artists both on stage and on record.
For many years, Joel was most visible as a guitarist getting hired by break-out artists in Los Angeles. He has a wide variety of performing experience, from The Tonight Show to Wembley Arena.
In 2009, he wrote and recorded the score for the award-winning feature film 'Neither Day Nor Night'. He followed that up with the soon-to-be-released, feature-length documentary 'Stopping For Death'.
Other career highlights include playing bass in a Guided By Voices tribute band, Bright Paper Werewolves, and fronting the bands Dead Language, Every Single Saturday & The Plus Side. He also leads a cover band that is gaining popularity in LA called FRÄKKUS, which specializes in 60's/70's guitar rock.
His most immediate influences are Salvador Dali, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, King Crimson, Ingmar Bergman, Bill Evans, Ian Mackaye and Noam Chomsky.
Joel desperately wishes that David Lynch would reboot the Batman franchise.
Contrarianism: LOVES funny cat videos/pictures. HATES being near cats.
CONTACT: joel@joelmartinmusic.com
Rob Steel
Sound, Composer
Robert Steel is a composer and sound designer for cinema, theatre and other media. Recent original music and sound design credits for theatre include Cymbeline, Twelfth Night and Hamlet at Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.
Recent cinema and other media credits include the films Undocumented, Blood on the Plain, Scott's Dead, and Good Hair and Other Dubious Distinctions, Scarlet, Father/Man, voiceover engineering and editing for the video game Zombie Yoga, voiceover engineering and re-recording mixing for Climate of Uncertainty, an installation for DePaul University’s Art Museum, DePaul CDM Podcasts and Lobster Stew for Soprano and Virtual Instruments. His multi-media opera, Frequency Response, in conjunction with Chicago Opera Vanguard, will premiere in the Winter of 2014.
He is on faculty at the School of Cinema and Interactive Media at DePaul University where he runs the DePaul Cinema and Interactive Media (CIM) Sound Design program and the CIM Sound Studios. He is currently piloting exchanges with two major universities in Mexico City, Universidad Iberoamericana and Tecnologico de Monterrey, where he taught advanced sound design courses in the Summer of 2011 and mentored students in the production of two short films in the Winter of 2012. He is a recipient of After Dark awards and awards from ASCAP and the Illinois Arts Council.
He is a rabid casual gamer who is seriously addicted to tower fortress games.
Contrarianism: Likes bone marrow and doesn't like steak.
Bob Sliga
Colorist
Bob Sliga, a professional colorist for 33 years, has held the title of Sr. Colorist for 3 different post production facilities. Specializing in
commercials for over 20 years, in the fall of 2001 he began getting more involved in short and long form films.
In 2005 he went freelance to pursue Digital Intermediate color correction with Silicon Color’s FinalTouch. In 2006 he became the Director of Training and Demo Artist for Silicon Color’s FinalTouch.
In December 2006 he was hired by Apple to be the lead QA for Color in Cupertino after Apple Purchased Silicon Color. He was instrumental in helping design the future Color application and created all of the Apple Color FX room Signature Looks.
In June 2009 he left Apple to return to freelance color grading using AppleColor. Bob is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia College and DePaul teaching color correction using DaVinci Resolve. He also is the creator of the Scene Looks™ for Apple Color. Spring 2012 he was co-presenter of Resolve Complete Training for Class On
Demand. Bob created the Pro Look Power Grades for DaVinci Resolve, also does Resolve training, consulting and freelance color grading.
He has never been a person who jumps on a bandwagon.
Contrarianism: He believes he will see the Cubs in the World Series before he dies. No matter what anyone says.