Steven DeGennaro (director, writer, producer)
Steven’s film First Date premiered at the Los Angeles Comedy Festival and went on to play numerous comedy, horror, and short film festivals, including SXSW. It won five “Best of Fest” Audience Awards, as well as a jury award for directing and a special commendation from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
A nine-year veteran of the industry, Steven has been the sound mixer, sound designer, supervising sound editor, and/or re-recording mixer on over 200 films, commercials, TV shows, and web series. He teaches sound design and mixing for the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin.
Steven also holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy and served as an astrophysics consultant for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and the upcoming Voyage of Time.
Kim Henkel (producer)
Kim co-wrote and produced The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974. One of the most well-known and influential horror films ever made, the film grossed $30 million in the U.S. and spawned a worldwide pop-culture empire comprising numerous sequels, remakes, prequels, comic books, video games, and licensed merchandise.
In the 40 years since, Kim has produced nine films that have grossed over $224 million at the worldwide box office.
Charles Mulford (producer)
Charles is an award-winning producer and production manager. His latest film, Two Step, premiered at SXSW in 2014 and was distributed by Traverse Media.
In 2010, Charles production-managed Scenes from the Suburbs, a collaboration between Academy Award-Nominated director Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are) and the Grammy-winning band Arcade Fire. Since then, he has production-managed/line-produced 6 feature films. These include Houston, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013; and Butcher Boys with Kim Henkel.
In 2016, a commercial Charles directed and produced for the non-profit ReWork Project won 2 National Addy awards and 6 Austin Addy awards, including Best of Show. In addition to commercials, he has made a recent foray into producing virtual reality content.
Scott Weinberg (co-producer) is a film critic with over 2,000 movie reviews under his belt. Today he’s perhaps best known as the lead critic for the late great FEARnet, though he’s written for dozens of sites including Playboy, Nerdist, Rotten Tomatoes, Movie Insider, Fandango, DVDTalk, and JoBlo.
Drew Daniels (director of photography) was named one of Variety’s “10 Cinematographers to Watch in 2016”. He has been the cinematographer on all of Steven’s films, including the award-winning short First Date. His other credits include Krisha—winner of the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award and the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at SXSW in 2015–and Thunder Road—winner of the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2016.
Jeff Schwan (stunt coordinator) has been doing stunts for almost 30 years. He has amassed a long list of credits, including The Final Destination, Friday the 13th (2009), Grindhouse, Friday Night Lights, and the Spy Kids franchise.
Everett Byrom III (special effects supervisor) has provided special effects for dozens of major films, including Jurassic Park III, Machete, Mud, and the Spy Kids franchise.
Pete Barnstrom (film editor) was an editor on the found footage film Exists by Blair Witch Project creator Eduardo Sánchez, which premiered at SXSW 2014.
Eric Zapata (special makeup effects artist) is a rising star in the world of makeup effects. He appeared on both the fourth and fifth seasons SyFy’s reality TV series Face-Off.
