23 Blast marks Dylan Baker’s debut as a director, but he is no stranger to the camera. His varied career started with a small part in Ishtar in 1986, and from there he decided that no role was too small, too funny or too strange for him to try it on for size. John Candy’s films, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Delirious, set Dylan firmly in character actor land, a place he loves. His last film, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, offered him the chance to work with some of the funniest and most talented artists working today: Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Dave Koechner and the amazing Will Ferrell.

Born in Syracuse, NY, Dylan spent his childhood in Lynchburg, Virginia.  “Lynchburg was my bedrock; it started my love affair with small town values and the folks you get to know so well. Frank Capra movies and the play, Our Town, were my idea of great entertainment.” Upon graduation from Georgetown Prep School in Rockville, Maryland (“I played Varsity football, but only because Coach Jim Fagin was kind enough to let a senior on the team, a senior who was not very good!”), where he boarded for 3 years, Dylan attended The College of William and Mary, where his interest in the theater was born.  “My first day at W&M I wandered over to the theater and I auditioned for a play; I was hooked at the audition!” He earned his B.F.A. at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and his M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama.  While at Yale, he appeared onstage in such Yale Repertory productions as Rum and Coke, Tartuffe, About Face, and Richard III. “I was in heaven at YSD; I tell current students that when I dream, I go right back to my years at Yale. I don’t want to wake up!”

MFA in hand, Dylan moved to New York. “I sat looking out the window at the street for the first few weeks, a wide-eyed kid from Lynchburg, scared of everything!” Soon Dylan’s ties to the Williamstown Theater Festival got him cast in shows that ran Off-Broadway, and one earned him an Obie Award: Not About Heroes, a two-hander with Edward Herrmann.   Eventually Dylan earned Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for his role as ‘The Prince’ in the Broadway production of La Bete, and won a Theater World Award for his Broadway debut in Richard Greenberg’s Eastern Standard. “My love interest was Patty Clarkson, the director was Michael Engler, and they and the author, Rich Greenberg, were all in my class at Yale! That was special.” Dylan returned to Broadway with Bobby Cannavale and F. Murray Abraham in Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius, and with Jeff Daniels, Janet McTeer and Lucy Lui in God of Carnage. Other Off-Broadway productions include Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul, The Atlantic Theater Company’s The Sea of Tranquility and That Championship Season at the Second Stage Theatre.

Dylan’s additional film credits include Secretariat, Revolutionary Road with Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet, Trick ‘r Treat, Across the Universe, The Stone Angel, Fido, Dr. Connors in Spiderman 2 & 3, Kinsey, Hide & Seek with Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning, The Matador, Let’s Go To Prison, Head of State with Chris Rock, Changing Lanes, Road To Perdition with Tom Hanks, Thirteen Days, Along Came a Spider with Morgan Freeman, The Tailor of Panama, Celebrity, Random Hearts, Requiem For a Dream, Simply Irresistible, Happiness with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which earned Dylan an Independent Spirit Award nomination, The Stars Fell on Henrietta, Love Potion #9 with Sandra Bullock, The Wizard of Loneliness and The Long Walk Home with Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek.

Dylan’s portrayal of Colin Sweeney on “The Good Wife” has earned him 2 nominations for Emmys. His appearances on episodic television cover a wide range: “Chicago Fire & PD”, “Smash”, “Political Animals”, “White Collar”, all of season 4 of “Damages” with Glenn Close, Rose Byrne and John Goodman, “Burn Notice”, “House”, “Monk”, “Law & Order”, both “CI” and the mothership, “Kings”, “Drive”, “The Book of Daniel”, “Without a Trace”, “Third Watch”, “The West Wing”, “The Pitts”, “The Practice”, “Big Apple”, “Strangers With Candy”, “Oz”, “Feds” and “Murder One”. His TV movies include “Turks & Caicos”, “The Elizabeth Smart Story”, Tom Hanks’ HBO mini-series “From the Earth to the Moon”, “The Laramie Project”, “The Murder of Mary Phagan” with Jack Lemon and “Return to Lonesome Dove.”

Dylan has been married to actress Becky Ann Baker since 1987, and was overjoyed when she agreed to play the mobility coach, Patty Wheatley, in 23 Blast. “I knew that the role of Patty was tricky. In real life, Patty was tough on Travis, pushing him like no one else did. I knew Becky could play that, but that the audience would still love her. Her heart comes shining through.” Indeed, from the time he started directing plays in 1991, Dylan has worked with Becky several times: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Blithe Spirit, Our Town and The Torch-Bearers. “Marriage is tough, but directing your wife is easy; she is always right, period!” Dylan directed about a dozen plays before he tried directing a movie, and he has always loved working with actors. As a charter member of the Drama Department Theater Company, his direction of The Torch-Bearers won the Lucille Lortel award for the best revival of an Off-Broadway revival of a play.

A native of Illinois and graduate of Indiana University with an Applied Bachelors in Drama and Art, Gary Donatelli parlayed his education and his experiences as a college football player and captain of the IU wrestling team into an early career as a sports videographer. “My athletic scholarship quite literally opened the door to a career in entertainment,” Gary explained, “and I believe it was that combination of sports and narrative — what ABC called ‘the human drama of athletic competition’—that eventually led me to produce 23 Blast.”

He won four Emmy awards for his work on such esteemed broadcasts as ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Monday Night Football, the 1980 and ‘84 Summer and Winter Olympics, the Kentucky Derby, the Indianapolis 500, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and classic championship heavyweight boxing matches, including Ali versus Spinks and Duran versus Leonard. Gary also covered major news events for the network, such as presidential inaugurations and space shuttle launches and landings.

As his career progressed, Gary rose from shooter to technical director and, finally, to director, eventually making the shift from covering live sports and news events to directing daytime drama. “Directing the performances on soap operas, for me, was like a wonderful marriage of the live buzz of sports mixed with my real passion: dramatic storytelling. It seemed like a natural progression,” he said. His first taste of the genre was directing for ABC’s Loving, and then from 1994-98, he helmed Another World at NBC. Gary then returned to ABC for the next 13 years at One Life to Live, which garnered him seven Emmy nominations, including two wins for Best Directing Team in Daytime Drama between 2004 and 2012. He has also directed episodes of ABC’s General Hospital and CBS’ The Bold & The Beautiful, resulting in over 1,000 cumulative hours of broadcasted work in network daytime television.

Gary has a strong interest in issue-related projects, which have included a decade of directing the five-hour live entertainment broadcast of Variety Children’s Telethon, which raised more than $20 million annually for children’s charities. “The kids I met through the telethon introduced me to the everyday courage of the physically challenged,“ Gary stated, saying it also hearkened back to his early days filming of the Special Olympics for ABC.

Along those lines, in 2001, he produced and directed Lean on Me, a post-9/11 informational series for the FDNY Counseling Services Unit. He directed the music video for One Life, Many Voices, a Katrina Relief effort by the cast and crew of One Life to Live, and is currently serving as both a producer and director on Clearing Larry Floyd, a film documenting the story of a man wrongly convicted of murder seeking a Presidential Pardon. In addition, Gary has been an invited speaker at Humane Society events. “Growing up in a Midwest town impressed on me the importance of community, of coming together for a common cause,” Gary said. “That theme was one of the major attractions for me to 23 Blast.”

The other draw was the chance to work with director Dylan Baker.“Dylan and I have known each other for years,” he continued. “Our wives both were in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway; we have gone from being the boyfriends to the husbands to the dads together, and the film afforded us the opportunity to finally work together.” Dylan added, “I saw Gary’s experience in sports broadcasting, combined with years of working efficiently in daytime drama, as a huge asset in telling the story, and doing it on a budget.”

“As a first time feature directing-and-producing team, we did OK,” he continued. “We couldn’t afford to shoot our football scenes like a big-budget film, so I leaned on some of my old buddies from Monday Night Football to come and nail the game coverage for us, and they did.” He also put in a call into his soap opera allies for backup. “When I got to Corbin, Kentucky and met the real Mary Freeman, mother of Travis Freeman, the protagonist of our story, I could not think of anyone else more suited to play the role than Kim Zimmer. Kim obliged, and did a fantastic job.”

A testament to their collective efforts, 23 Blast has already won the Audience Choice Award at the 2013 Heartland Film Festival. Always looking forward, Gary is presently in development for the film Mayor Dog, a narrative about a Kentucky town called Rabbit Hash that—fed up with politicians—actually elected a black Labrador to its highest office.

Gary currently holds the office of Second Vice President of the Directors Guild of America, and has served as an adjunct professor for the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and on faculty at Primary Stages Theater Company. He is also a published author of The ABC Monday Night Football Cookbook & Restaurant Guide.

Graduating with a degree in physical education provided Toni with a stepping stone for a career in sports and coaching. Her first job found her coaching gymnastics, soccer, tennis and cheerleading. In 1995, a move to her husband’s hometown of Corbin, Kentucky encouraged her love of sports, especially football, offering her the opportunity to film local football games, eventually producing those sports videos with WYMT Hazard, Kentucky from 1996-2002. “When my children were in high school, the focus became all about the Corbin Redhounds,” Toni explained. “And when I say ‘red’, Corbin reaches new heights for promoting the color red. It’s an awesome display of town spirit. With my background in sports and my new arrival in town, I bullied my way onto the sidelines and announced I was making the highlight video. Luckily, no one stopped me.”

In a small town where everyone knows everyone, Toni soon became friends with the Freeman family. Son Travis was a young man who lost his eyesight to a disease that destroyed his optic nerve. What was most astounding about Travis was not that he played football in a town where football is revered, but that he did so blind. Filming on the sidelines, Toni watched through the lens of the camera. “I knew I was looking at something amazing. Standing still with your eyes closed is hard enough, but to be on a football field in total darkness, was beyond belief for me. I always felt it was a compelling story that needed to be told, but I actually had no idea how inspirational the story was until Bram and I started writing.”

Toni went on, “My move to Corbin was after Travis lost his eyesight and although I knew Travis well, I didn’t actually know all the events that led to his blindness. Anxious to learn the details, I questioned Mary Freeman first. She asked if I could guess who snuck into Travis’ hospital room, made him laugh again and helped him believe everything would be okay. She said the name Jerry Baker, a name I knew well. Jerry and Travis had long been friends and teammates, playing football together as far back as grade school. Jerry was a talented quarterback, but a kid who somehow never made good choices; trouble just seemed to follow him around. So to my surprise, this kid we all thought we knew, had a heart of gold. But then, maybe we didn’t really know him. I was inspired with a completely new viewpoint for the story, the powerful loyalty that bonded these two friends.”

The script become a reality as Bram and Toni started exchanging ideas and sending pages back and forth. “Writing as a team with my son was great fun for me, maybe not so much for him.” Toni only knew one actor besides her son, Bram: her friend from high school, Becky Ann Baker. “I wrote with Bram in mind for either character but always felt he was the perfect Jerry. I knew Becky would make the ideal Patty Wheatley”. A loyal friend, Becky offered to wear a wig and play several parts, but instead encouraged her husband and talented actor Dylan Baker to come on board. He in turn suggested his friend, director Gary Donatelli. “We like to say, we all crammed into this tiny little car and headed down the road to make this movie.” Dylan was soon committed to direct and his first order of business was to have Bram fly from LA to New York to audition. “As it turned out, he saw Bram in the same role as I did, casting him as Jerry Baker.” The second order of business was to mold the screenplay into a shooting script. “We worked as a team and got the best revisions from a collaboration of all our ideas.”

What started out as a tale of a typical teenager pursuing his dream of playing football, went way beyond one young man’s desire to play sports. Travis’ blindness was anything but typical. “What drove him to walk on that football field and overcome what most of us would consider a tragedy, was a courage and strength that arose from a deep faith and commitment to God. Where some would find reason to lay blame, it was obvious that Travis, as well as his family, found no fault, yet looked at this heartbreak as a gift from God, one that would soon reveal a new path for him. No matter what your faith is, you can’t see this film and not be inspired.” Toni felt a personal responsibility to share the story. “No one was more inspired than Bram and I; we both lived the story and were witnesses to all of it. We were determined to make a heart-warming film that touched the soul, stirred the spirit, yet at the same time was entertaining. What makes a great movie? To us, it was leaving the theater and all your emotions have been awakened. We feel like we accomplished that with 23 Blast. Bram and I were truly honored to be the storytellers.”

Washington Redskins Owner

A self-made man and an entrepreneur at heart, Dan Snyder’s life has been consumed by an enduring passion for the people, the team and the community he loves.

Growing up in the D.C. area and attending Redskins games with his father, Gerald, his youth and young adulthood were shaped and inspired by his devotion to the Washington Redskins. Now in his second decade as owner, Snyder has put his passion into action. He has consistently led the franchise to new prominence in the community, the business world and the National Football League. Under his leadership, the team has raised millions of dollars for charitable efforts and maintained its place in the top tier of the world’s most valuable sports franchises.

Snyder, 49, continues to be one of the Washington area’s most prominent community leaders and philanthropists. Shortly after purchasing the franchise in 1999, one of Snyder’s first actions as owner was to create the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation (WRCF) in 2000 to utilize the assets of the Redskins and their corporate and community partners to make a positive and measurable impact on youth development in the greater Washington, D.C., region. The foundation focuses on the areas of education, community outreach, and health and wellness, and since its inception, Charitable Foundation programs have made an impact on millions of lives and given back well over $15 million to individuals, groups and organizations in the community.

Both current and former Redskins players also donate their time, talents and resources to WRCF by providing toys, coats, and clothes to children, inspiring young football players and making wishes come true for little fans battling big diseases. In addition, since 2003, Snyder, Redskins players, and other volunteers have also gifted more than 864,100 pounds of packaged and fresh food and 385,500 pounds of turkey to area families in need at the team’s annual Harvest Feast. In 2013, the Redskins gifted more than 103,000 pounds of packaged and fresh food and 42,000 pounds of turkey at the annual event at FedExField.

In addition to his efforts with WRCF, Snyder has provided significant support to Washington’s Children’s Hospital and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). His support enabled construction of the Snyder Family Emergency Medicine and Trauma Center at Children’s Hospital. He is a member of the Children’s Hospital Foundation Board of Directors. He also funded construction of the Daniel M. Snyder and Family Communication Center at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Each day the Center handles hundreds of calls from around the nation from law enforcement organizations, parents of missing children, runaways seeking help, and people responding to the Center’s well-known awareness campaigns on behalf of missing children. In May 2014, Snyder and his wife, Tanya, were honored with the Charles B. Wang International Children’s Award at the NCMEC annual Hope Awards Dinner.

During the 2014 offseason, Snyder and the Washington Redskins launched the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. In an open letter, Snyder detailed that the organization’s intent was to provide genuine opportunities for Tribal communities, saying that, “With open arms and determined minds, we will work as partners to begin to tackle the troubling realities facing so many tribes across our country. Our efforts will address the urgent challenges plaguing Indian country based on what Tribal leaders tell us they need most. We may have created this new organization, but the direction of the Foundation is truly theirs.” Prior to the Foundation’s formal inception, the group distributed more than 3,000 cold-weather coats to tribes and assisted in the purchase of a new backhoe for the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska.

Beyond his charitable efforts, Snyder is prominent in the affairs of the NFL, where his expertise in the fields of marketing and media has been recognized with appointments to the Broadcast Committee, the Business Ventures Committee, the Digital Media Committee, the Hall of Fame Committee (which oversees the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio), and, separately, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Redskins, who continue to be ranked among the world’s most valuable sports franchises on Forbes magazine’s annual list, remain at the forefront of NFL marketing and business organizations. Since buying the team, Snyder has launched a highly successful retail arm, with several Official Redskins Stores in Virginia and Maryland, as well as mobile units for use at home games and other events.

In the summer of 2013, Snyder the Redskins moved their annual Training Camp to Richmond, Va., hosting the team’s training sessions at the brand new Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Center. During the team’s inaugural three-week stay in the capital, more than 165,000 attended walkthroughs and practices. In addition, the Redskins’ outreach in the community included more than 5,000 kids impacted by the Charitable Foundation’s Play 60 programs and cheerleading programs, as well as 200 high school coaches invited to a concussion clinic held by the Redskins.

In June 2012, Snyder and the Redskins reaffirmed the team’s commitment to the Commonwealth of Virginia, announcing that team will retain its corporate headquarters by improving Redskins Park, its Loudoun County training facility. In the 2013 offseason, Snyder and the Redskins began improvements to Redskins Park, including upgrades to the weight room, athletic training facility, locker room, hydrotherapy stations, media availability areas, in-house cafeteria and more.

During Snyder’s 15 seasons as owner of the team, 24 different Redskins have earned a total of 40 Pro Bowl appearances, nine different Redskins have been named All-Pro, and 12 Redskins draft picks have been selected to the All-Rookie Team. In addition, three players from his tenure as owner, Darrell Green, Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders, have gone on to induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

FedExField, the team’s wholly-owned stadium in Landover, Md., boasts seating capacity for 85,000 people. Tickets to Redskins games have been sold out for more than 40 years. Since he purchased the team, Snyder has invested more than $100 million in improvements to the facility, including high-speed escalators to the upper deck, updated signage, more than 1,000 flat-screen TVs in concourses and other areas, as well as the League standard-setting Owner’s Club East and Owner’s Club West private luxury suites. In 2010, the Redskins installed two new video boards – 30 feet high and 100 feet wide – in each of the end zones at FedExField. The screens feature state-of-the-art high definition LED displays and tripled the size of the previous end zone video displays. The team also enhanced the fans’ gameday experience with all-new game clocks, play clocks, other in-stadium video displays and Party Deck Platforms.

The club’s media ventures include Redskins Nation, produced by the Redskins Broadcast Network, which is the league’s only year-round, daily 30-minute television show. The team also produces television and radio broadcasts via Redskins.com, a robust editorial and social media staff, and Extremeskins.com, the team’s fan forum. The team also produces a variety of other television programs, broadcast independently as well as in partnership with local television outlets.

Snyder was Founder, Chairman and CEO of Snyder Communications, Inc. and was the youngest CEO of a New York Stock Exchange company at the time. From its launch in 1985, the company grew to a global organization of 12,000 employees, with 77 offices in 17 countries, and more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The company’s client base included 200 of the Fortune 500, to which it provided targeted marketing solutions, including advertising and marketing services. In March 2000, the company was acquired by the French marketing firm Havas for more than $2.3 billion, at the time the largest such merger in the history of the advertising/marketing industry.

Snyder is founder and Chairman Emeritus of inVentiv Health (NASDAQ: VTIV). Additionally, Snyder is founder and Managing Member of the Board of Red Zebra Broadcasting, LLC, which operates radio stations in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia airing Redskins broadcasts, popular national radio shows and locally generated programming. Snyder is active in a variety of other private business ventures, both as an investor and as an advisor to management. He is a frequent invitee to share his experiences and views with business organizations nationwide, and he is enshrined in the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2010, Snyder was honored by Beacon House, a nonsectarian, neighborhood-based organization that supports at-risk youth and families of the Edgewood Terrace community in Washington, D.C., during a community celebration to dedicate the football field at Edgewood Department of Parks and Recreation Center. The Charitable Foundation assisted in renovating the center with a newly resurfaced field, bleachers, and an electronic scoreboard. In April 2014, Snyder and WRCF announced a partnership to fund a brand new, synthetic, multi-sport field at Park View High School in Sterling, Va., one of 37 fields the foundation has helped provide since its inception.

In April 2012, Snyder was presented Youth For Tomorrow’s Distinguished Leader Award in recognition of his years of support for the organization’s private, residential school and counseling center in Bristow, Va., which has provided year-round care for more than 900 homeless and at-risk children ages 11-17 from Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia. The honor is periodically awarded to individuals who have demonstrated long and generous support to Youth For Tomorrow. In announcing the award at YFT’s annual Burgundy and Gold Banquet, Hall of Fame Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs, who is also Founder and Chairman of Youth For Tomorrow, said, “Dan Snyder began his support of the kids at Youth For Tomorrow long before I ever considered returning to coach the team in 2004.”

Snyder and his wife, Tanya, have three children and live in Potomac, Md.

Misook Doolittle has spent her life producing, so when the opportunity to take on the role of Executive Producer of 23 Blast presented itself, it was a natural fit. Born in Seoul, Korea, Misook came to the United States in 1974 to attend what is now the University of Southern Indiana, where she earned a degree in Fine Art. A gifted painter, her work began selling while she was still a student.

Upon graduating, Misook moved to Johannesburg, South Africa to join her future husband, who had relocated there for his job. They married and Misook entered the business world as a restaurant manager and by leading tourist expeditions. During this busy time, she found that she needed attire that was comfortable and flattering, but easy to travel with and care for, and she began knitting clothes for herself. Everywhere she went, women inquired about her wardrobe, and she discovered that she had inadvertently secured a unique niche within the fashion industry. In 1985, now back stateside, Exclusively Misook was born. The brand went on to enormous success, and is carried in high-end stores such as Nordstrom’s and Dillard’s. In 2004, Misook sold the company, staying on in an official capacity until 2011.

Retirement from fashion did not mark the end of her productive years, however. Misook serves as a managing director on the board of the Metropolitan Opera, and chaired its celebrated Gala in 2013. Through the charitable organization she and her husband established, the Harry and Misook Doolittle Foundation, she is able to act as benefactor to nearly every area of the community, from arts organizations to City Harvest to a planned Wongaksa Buddhist Temple Meditation Center.

Misook has had a lifelong love of movies, so two years ago when a mutual friend introduced her to producer Gary Donatelli, she was immediately fascinated by the process of filmmaking and the storytelling, and was eager to become involved. While 23 Blast represents her first venture into film producing, it is new territory she is excited to explore.

Brent Ryan Green is an American film director and producer. Green founded Toy Gun Films and has since produced the short film En Tus Manos in Colombia, and produced and directed short films Paper Flower in Japan, Half Good Killer in South Africa, and Running Deer in Oklahoma, which stars Boo Boo Stewart (X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Twilight Saga film series) and Q’orianka Kilcher (The New World).

Green is the producer of the three-year production of The Lumo Project, a four-part film series portraying the retelling of 100AD. The series is narrated by Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity, Troy) and David Harewood (Homeland, Blood Diamond). Green is also an Executive Producer on Dylan Baker’s directorial debut, 23 Blast. The Audience Award-winning film (2013 Heartland Film Festival) stars Alexa Vega (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Spy Kids).

Additionally, Green produced his feature film directorial debut, The Veil, which tells the story of a warrior who turns on his own empire and rises to the defense of an oppressed civilization in a final war for a dying world. The Veil stars William Levy (Dancing with the Stars), William Moseley (The Chronicles of Narnia film series) and Serinda Swan (Tron: Legacy, USA’s Graceland).

Jay Silver graduated from the University of Kansas has been working as a cinematographer for the past 13 years. In 2007, he shot the award winning documentary, War Against the Weak. More recently, in 2010, he shot the feature film, The Last Rights of Joe May starring Dennis Farina directed by Joe Maggio.

2012 was a busy year for Jay as he finished shooting 23 Blast starring Stephen Lang and Alexa Vega and directed by Dylan Baker.  Jay and Dylan had worked together years before in a short film, when Jay helmed the camera and Dylan took the lead actor’s role.   “As soon as Jay walked in the door to interview for 23 Blast, I remembered what a great time we had had on the short film,” Baker mentioned.  “I knew that Jay would be able to deliver in all the tough situations we would be in on 23 Blast: late night football,  no time, cold night weather.  Jay did a fantastic job.”  In the fall Jay shot the feature film The Middle starring Will. I. Am. from the Black Eyed Peas. Currently, Jay is in pre-production for the feature film, Reparation which is scheduled to shoot in June and July in Indianapolis, IN.He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two small boys.

Adri Siriwatt is a versatile production designer who resides in Los Angeles, California. She began her career in Chicago after finishing Columbia College Chicago, majoring in film. Since then she was worked all over the U.S, and also in Asia. She was awarded Best Production Design for a film called One Small Hitch at the Hollywood Independent Film Festival. She was also nominated for an Emmy for Best Production Design for the ESPN Draft 2011 Commercial. Recently, she was the art director of Dhoom3, the highest grossing Bollywood film to come out of India starring Aamir Khan.

Adri had the honor of working with acclaimed actor, Dylan Baker, directing his first feature, the inspiring and heartfelt drama, 23 Blast. Shooting on location in the small town of Corbin, Kentucky, she will never forget the amazing memories that came out of this film; turning thrift stores into temporary prop houses and becoming part of this wonderful community. “Adri didn’t know much about football,” Baker pointed out, “But she knows a lot about people. She made every location work, and she found a way to get the best work out of volunteers, to make this low budget film look like a major studio feature.” The town’s people were very generous, lending furniture or picture vehicles, all to support this fantastic film; together, we made a dream become a reality.

In her spare time, while she’s not working on movies, Adri loves to travel to exotic places and try new things. As of now, she is planning to write a fiction novel and possibly start a new venture in sculpture or photography. Her favorite food is pizza, eggs benedict, and sushi. She hopes to learn surfing one day and eventually own a motorcycle.

Michael Hill supervises music for cable television and independent films. He currently works on the Showtime series “Nurse Jackie”, the Sundance Channel drama “The Red Road” and the Starz Network’s forthcoming “Flesh & Bone”. He also did all three seasons of the HBO comedy “Bored To Death”. Among the notable indie film directors he has collaborated with are Ramin Bahrani, John Cameron Mitchell, Todd Solondz, Lynne Shelton — and now Dylan Baker.

Michael began a career in music supervision after 15 years doing A&R at Warner Bros. Records, where he worked with such artists as the Replacements, Luka Bloom and Soul Coughing. He also frequently writes about music, contributing liner notes to CD boxed sets of the work of Sam Cooke, Lou Reed, and Simon & Garfunkel, among many others. He most recently contributed a program notes essay to the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the esteemed Nonesuch Records label at the the Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Barbican Centre in London.

Matt Mayer’s most recent films are Dylan Baker’s 23 BLAST and Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones, both of which will be released in October 2014.  He has had the good fortune to work with a diverse array of filmmakers, including Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, The Garage Tapes), Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain), Curtis Hanson (8 Mile), and John Turturro (Illuminata).  “When we met with Matt to interview him, the subject of football came up,” Dylan pointed out.  “Besides the fact that his work was excellent, and he seemed like a guy you wanted to have on your team, Matt was a center on his high school football team.  We were very excited to have an editor who knew football, who knew what challenges Travis faced playing center in high school football.”  Matt is a graduate of Wesleyan University and lives with his wife in New York City.