RICHIE ADAMS
Director / Writer / Producer
Richie Adams is an award-winning filmmaker who cut his teeth as a title designer (’Babel,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘Water for Elephants’) first under the mentorship of legendary title designer, Richard Greenberg (’Alien,’ ‘Untouchables,’ ‘The Matrix’), and for the past 12 years, under his own company banner, Louisiana-based RRC.
As a title designer, Adams has worked with many of the great players in the motion picture industry, including Alejandro González Iñárritu, as well as newcomers like Ryan Coogler, for whom Adams designed/produced the titles and special graphic sequences (cell phone sequences) for Coogler’s Sundance Grand Dramatic winning ‘Fruitvale,” and later Coogler’s follow up hit, ‘Creed.’
Richie’s recent feature film ‘Of Mind and Music,’ starring Joaquim De Almeida, Aunjanue Ellis and 2017 Oscar-Nominated Ruth Negga, played the 2014/2015 film festival circuit earning numerous audience and juried awards, as well as a nomination for the Best New Director Award for Adams at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
BART GAVIGAN
Writer
Bart Gavigan is a writer/filmmaker whose screenplay credits include ‘Luther’ starring Joe Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Alfred Molina and Sir Peter Ustinov (2003) and the award winning ‘End of the Spear’ (2006), which was shot entirely in Central America and opened in USA’s Top Ten.
Bart has served as an advisor to the Sundance Institute, and supported some of the most prominent filmmakers through his Screenwriting workshops in England.
“I just call him Yoda. Working with Bart and the team verges on being a ‘spiritual’ experience. To me it is where the creative demons find common ground with the storyteller’s soul.”
– James V. Hart, Writer (‘Epic,’ ‘Hook,’ ‘Contact,’ ‘Sahara,’ ‘Dracula’)
BRENT CABALLERO
Producer
Caballero has worked as a casting director on over 60 features, including ‘12 Years a Slave,’ and box office hits, ‘Pitch Perfect 1 & 2’, and ‘The Maze Runner,’ along the way working with award winning directors, such as William Friedkin (‘The Exorcist,’ ‘The French Connection’), Gary Ross (’Pleasantville,’ ‘Hunger Games’) and Jason Moore (Tony Winner)
As a producer, Caballero, made his independent feature debut with Cummings Farm, which premiered at Slamdance in 2009, teamed up with Richie Adams on his first feature, ‘Inventing Adam,’ which premiered at the Vail Film Festival.
Caballero and Adams teamed again on the award winning feature ‘Of Mind and Music,’ which opened its theatrical run in 2016 at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills and other art-house theaters across the U.S.
TOM LEMBCKE
Director of Photography
Tom Lembcke graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a film history degree in 1999, and has since trained alongside many leading cinematographers, including Haskell Wexler, Rodrigo Prieto and Franz Lustig. Building on his deep understanding of film history, Tom brings vision, passion and intelligence to the intensely collaborative work of filmmaking.
Lembcke recently completed his third feature film, ‘Of Mind and Music,’ which has garnered much recognition on the film festival circuit, including 5 audience awards and several juried awards, and in addition to his feature film work, Mr. Lembcke’s camera work has helped several successful marketing campaigns for clients including, Samsung, Ace Hardware, McDonalds and Audi.
KEN WHITNEY
Executive Producer
Ken Whitney’s interest in the arts and the game of golf spans decades, against a career in finance and investments, with 25 years as Senior Managing Director and Head of Blackstone’s Investor Relations and Business Development Group, and after his retirement in 2013, and until 2015, as Senior Advisor to Blackstone.
Since April 2013, Ken has managed a private family investment office focused on entertainment projects and startup businesses. He is the producer of Fun Home, which won the Tony Award for the Best New Musical in 2015, and is an Executive Producer for Tommy’s Honour, the true story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, which won the 2016 BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Feature Film.
In connection with the game of golf, Ken is a National Trustee for The First Tee, the PGA Tour youth-development organization that focuses on teaching life-skills to youth using the game of golf, and currently chairs the Board for The First Tee of Metropoli- tan New York, one of The First Tee’s largest chapters.
Ken is also the lead investor in Quick LLC, a company that has developed a new technology for testing glucose through saliva, and in Quiet Revolution, a company that focuses on unlocking the power of introverts through educational and other programs. He is also an investor in several other ventures, and a member of several other Boards.
ELIZABETH REIKO KUBOTA WHITNEY
Executive Producer
Elizabeth Reiko Kubota Whitney (Liz) is a former actress whose career focused initially on musical theater and whose resume includes roles in many popular television shows of the 1980s, such as MacGyver and T.J. Hooker. Liz was also a cast member of the acclaimed 1982 Mark Taper Forum production of August 6th, 1945, about the bombing of Hiroshima. She was also the ingénue in the #1 music video of 1984, John Waite’s “Missing You”.
A 1980 theater graduate of the former UCLA College of Fine Arts (now the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television), Liz has long been a champion of UCLA TFT. In 2010 she, in honor of her late sister Jeanne, established the Jeanne Michiko Kubota Fund. The endowed fund provides full four-year scholarships for deserving undergraduate theater students in need, covering tuition, room, board and other expenses. It is the first of its kind at UCLA TFT.
Liz moved from California to New York in 1987 to play the female lead opposite Jack Wagner in a new musical, “Butterfly”. She performed in several shows, including the revival of “Godspell” at The Lambs Theater.
She currently lives in Scarsdale, NY with her husband Ken and their Yorkie, Potter. She serves on the Executive Board of Trustees for UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television.
CARLOS JOSÉ ALVAREZ
Composer
With a lifelong passion for music and a deep love of cinema, Carlos José Alvarez was destined to compose music for the screen. As a child in a Cuban household, he was exposed to a spectrum of music, ranging from the Cuban masters to the great sympho- nies, and his formal musical training began at age twelve when he was accepted into a performing arts school where he studied symphonic percussion, music theory and piano.
He then continued his studies in percussion and composition at Florida State University, and was later awarded a scholarship to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Film Scoring. Before moving to Hollywood, he was honored with a year long fellowship to study conducting in Athens, Greece under maestro Michalis Economou (Athens Symphony Orchestra, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra).
His first composing break came in 2009 with his acclaimed score to the supernatural-thriller ‘Deadline,’ starring Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch. He has since scored director Richie Adams first feature ‘Inventing Adam’ and ‘Exposed’ (Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Mira Sorvino), as well as contributed music to the Oscar and Golden Globe Award-winning drama ‘Still Alice’ (Julianne Moore), ‘The Last of Robin Hood’ (Susan Sarandon, Kevin Kline), ‘Pedro’ (MTV Films) and collaborated on such notable films as ‘One for the Money’ (Lionsgate), ‘Fame‘ (MGM) and Tim Burton’s ‘9’ (Focus Features).
Alvarez and Adams teamed up again on ‘Of Mind and Music’ which earned multiple awards and accolades on the festival circuit, along with an Honorable Mention Award for his music at the 2017 Jerry Goldsmith Awards.
PETER CUMMINGS
Co-Producer
Peter Cummings is a Vancouver based film producer and one of Canada’s leading clearance and product placement experts. After studying creative writing in University, Peter worked as a floor trader on Vancouver’s venture capital stock exchange before moving to Vancouver Island to work on fish boats and write his first novel. His first novel became his first optioned screenplay and soon he was working as a story editor for William Vince (AIR BUD, CAPOTE). While assisting producers on numerous television series and feature films, his creative collaborations with fine arts filmmaker Stan Douglas led to three important artworks now in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, The Guggenheim and The Art Institute of Chicago.
As a writer/producer, his short film BAD BLOOD starring Alan Cumming, based on a story by Irvine Welsh premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win many awards.
Peter Cummings has worked as a (creative & legal) researcher, clearance and product placement consultant on over fifty major motion pictures. He is currently completing a double-feature for Universal Pictures, with projects like BIG EYES, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, CREED & RACE recently released or still in theatres - with BIRTH OF THE DRAGON just wrapped.
