The Crew
Phoebe Owens: Producer
Phoebe Owens has returned to Portland (where she grew up) after living and working in Olympia, WA. She won the Women In Film/Seattle award for her short documentary film Stitch in 1998, shortly after graduating from the Evergreen State College where she studied fine arts, experimental documentary film and optical printing techniques. After spending months traveling and working in Europe- mostly Estonia, she returned to Olympia to form her own production company and took on the role of Producer for a number of commercial, educational, and industrial productions. She enjoyed shooting and later managing the distribution of the experimental feature film Group directed by Marilyn Freeman & Anne de Marcken, as the experience proved invaluable when she embarked upon writing, directing and producing the feature film Tammytown. She also earned a Master of Library & Information Science from the University of Washington—out of “pure curiosity.” She shoots Super-8 film for fun, has random gear in her basement, but loves Producing above everything else. She is also currently working on a small series of experimental music videos with local director Sarah Shapiro.
Erin Donovan: Producer
Erin Donovan received her degree in Political Economics from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. In 2000 she co-founded and was a lead organizer of the Ladyfest arts festival. As project coordinator for Kill Rock Stars records, she put together retrospective albums for punk luminaries Essential Logic and the Delta 5.
She spent an alternately very cold and very hot year in New England cutting her teeth on documentary film at the Media Education Foundation before going back to the west coast to work with independent film producers as an investment researcher.
Erin is now the founder of A Million Movies a Minute, an independent documentary distributor specializing in short films whose inaugural release After the War: Life post-Yugoslavia featured 9 short documentaries from 5 award-winning, international film-makers including Jasmila Žbanić, winner of the Golden Bear award at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival. In the Fall of 2009 AMMAM will release a compilation of animated documentaries that cover a wide spectrum of subject matter and a feature-length documentary entitled Radical Act about the role women played in the 1990’s NYC punk rock music scene.
She edits and hosts a weekly podcast for Steady Diet of Film and is a contributing writer for Greencine, LinkTV and go2 media.
James Strayer: Producer
The day jobs that James Strayer he has held to fuel his filmmaking endeavours are screenwriter for Smith Group, antiques appraiser, record label mogul and personal assistant to Gus Van Sant. Over the past several years he has produced and directed a series of narrative shorts, music videos and theatre production films including Too Much Coffee Man: The Opera and Thom Paine: Based on Nothing by Will Eno. Not content to be anything but ridiculously busy, in addition to The Adults in the Room, autumn of 2009 will see him indulging in his love of children’s horror stories with the film, Widow’s Walk Lake.
Anna Farrell: Director of Photography (Documentary Portion)
Anna Farrell graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts in May 2007 with an emphasis in cinematorgraphy and documentary film. Her recent works have begun to blend documentary and narrative forms, and have taken her to Cuba, the Czech Rebublic, Puerto Rico, and across the United States. In May 2007 Anna was awarded the Nestor Alemendros Award for Excellence in Cinematography at the NYC First Run Film Festival for her work on the film “This Light Rains”. Anna’s first feature documentary, Twelve Ways To Sunday, has been selected as part of IFP’s Documentary Independent Film Lab for 2009. She is currently the Education Director for Northwest Documentary Arts and Media in Portland, Oregon.
Jon Beanlands: Director of Photography (Narrative Portion)
Jon Beanlands is a director of photography who has recently completed the film Earth with director Leif Peterson and is also shooting the film Widow’s Walk Lake with James Strayer. He worked as a crew member at the 2009 Sundance Director’s Lab and despite popular belief does not have his home states motto “Live Free or Die” tattooed on his chest. On that other coast Jon toured playing music and earned a degree in Philosophy. He is currently working on a documentary about clouds.
Martha Early: Intern
Martha Early became interested in film at the age of twelve and immediately began creating her own short films. In 2007, Martha graduated from the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics and is currently pursuing her Bachelors of Arts in Film at Portland State University while working as an Education Program Assistant at the NW Film Center School of Film in Portland, Oregon. Her favorite films include The Virgin Spring, Children of Men and Rashomon.
Joaquin Lizarraga: Intern
Joaquin Lizarraga has been interested in film since making his first film at age 10 – a gripping epic using Lego Studio Movie Maker. While in high school at Pacific Crest Community School Joaquin also took courses at the Northwest Film Center’s Young Filmmakers Program. For his senior dissertation project Joaquin wrote, shot, edited, and directed the film Limp Zombie, Limp. Since graduating from Pacific Crest Joaquin has enrolled in the Northwest Film Center’s School of Film is working on several independent projects.
