Steve Alves, Producer/Director, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who graduated from the University of Southern California Film School. After working in Hollywood and New York City as a film editor for ten years, he moved to western Massachusetts and started his own documentary company Home Planet Pictures, formerly Hometown Productions. His company has developed a fast-moving signature style, accessible to many age groups. Since 1997, Alves has written, produced, and directed six films about New England and what it means to have a sense of place. His 2001 production, Together in Time won a CINE Golden Eagle, Best Short Documentary at the International Family Film Festival, and a Gold Award from WorldFest-Houston. Talking to the Wall: The Story of an American Bargain, won several environmental awards, was featured in over a dozen film festivals, and is used as an organizing tool in communities throughout the U.S and Canada. Steve is also Managing Director of Footage Farm, an historical motion picture service. For more information on Steve's work, please visit the Home Planet Pictures website.
Robert Hagelstein, Co-Producer, is a Umass-Amherst alum and a producer of independant films. In addition to working on Food For Change, he is making a documentary about the science behind Cold Fusion and Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. Rob is currently responsible for outreach and building relations with 300+ food cooperatives and cooperative distributors.
David J. Thompson, Consultant, of Thompson Consulting and co-principal of Neighborhood Partners, LLC, has worked for the national cooperative organizations of the United States, Britain and Japan as well as the United Nations and visited cooperatives in over 30 nations on five continents. David specializes in funding the capital needs of the cooperative development sector & nonprofit and cooperative housing. He was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame in Washington DC in May 2010. David has won a number of awards from the cooperative community.David began work with the US food cooperative sector in 1969. He was one of the founders of Co-opportunity, Santa Monica, California. David was a board member of the Davis Food Co-op where he led the growth of member capital and relocation to downtown Davis. A full biography is available on the Twin Pines Foundation website.
Alan Dater, Cinemetographer, has 35 years of experience as a Cinemetographer, Director and Producer . He has worked on many documentaries, both independant and for televison broadcast. He has directed a number of films, including the Ford Foundation funded Taking Roots: The Vision of the Wangari Maathai (2008). He was the cinemetographer on two Steve Alves' documentaries: Together in Time and Talking to the Wall: The Story of an American Bargain.
Dr. Anne Meis Knupfer, Professor - Purdue University, researches community education and activism. She is currently writing a book about the history of cooperatives. Her publications include three books of historical scholarship on women's activism and African-American urban communities.
Rawn Fulton, Director of Photography has produced films independently and for such major clients as: The National Wildlife Federation, The Peace Corps, PBS, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to his own film projects, he created and directed, with support from The Sopris Foundation of Aspen CO, The World Population Film/Video Festival which challenges students to create programs of their own by examining the most prominent issues of our time.
David Skillicorn, Director of Photography is a veteran Director of Photography, Videographer and Producer with more than 25 years experience in documentary filmmaking and broadcast television production. He has worked on video and film projects in more than thirty countries across five continents for most of the major broadcast and cable networks as well as a wide variety of non-broadcast clients. Skillicorn's work has been seen widely and has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards.
Jamie Elkin, Animator has been the proprietor of Zoestoes Animation Studio since 1989. Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, his animations have been seen in science museums courtrooms, textbooks, on PBS, DVDs, and the world wide web. Focusing primarily on educational animation, he is currently creating digital views of the human body for orthopedic patient education. Jamie has done numerous animation sequences for Hometown Productions including Beneath the River, Together in Time, and Talking to the Wall.
Dr. Christopher Sawyer-Laucanna, Consulting Writer, taught writing at MIT for nearly a quarter-century until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of more than a half-dozen books including biographies of Paul Bowles and E.E. Cummings. He is also well-known as a translator and poet. He has been involved in film since the 1970s, most recently serving as a script consultant for Clement Barkley’s Things Gone and Things Still Here, and for Regina Weinreich and Catherine Warnow’s The Complete Outsider
Peter Blanchette, Composer, whose music is heard in the trailer, has experience composing for film, television, Broadway, orchestras, and individual instruments. He is the co-designer of the arch guitar, a guitar with nine to eleven strings which lends itself particularly to, but is not limited to, baroque, renaissance, and modern classical music. Blanchette's work can be heard locally in the Pioneer Valley where he regularly plays as well as in such films as Steamboat Bill Jr., The Navigator, the PBS television show, Inside the Tuscan Hills, and Alexander "Xandy" Janko's original Broadway musical, Forbidden Love: the Musical.
STUDENT INTERNS
Sarah Geisler, Smith College -- Working on Food for Change was a perfect fit for me, with a film professor as a father and as a native of western Massachusetts with its many firm believers in co-ops and sustainable, communal solutions to modern life. I lived in a vegan co-op for a time while in college, and while a love affair with cheese and ice cream made veganism a non-viable option, I still believe that a sustainable, co-operative-driven approach is a far more healthy and civilized way to operate the various areas of human life. As a sociology major and a big-time history buff, the sociological and historical ramifications of the co-operative movement fascinated me. My work on Food for Change was varied, but my greatest enjoyment and a large portion of my focus went into historical and photographic/cinematic archival research. Not to mention a couple of Bob Dylan songs and participation in a rousing chorus of “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime."
Evan Sipher, University of Massachusetts – As an intern from the Public History graduate program at UMass, I researched the historical record on cooperatives, found archival materials, and helped develop the historical narrative of the film. I also advised in the editing process - in both historical and more general matters. I currently live in New Orleans where I plan to teach high school history and am working on a couple small film projects dealing with the communities and environs of my new home.
Hillary Smith, Smith College -- Food For Change fit right into my lifestyle. Growing up in Southern Vermont with the Happy Valley (Pioneer Valley) just next door, I've always been surrounded by ideas of sustainability and local economy. This is my first documentary film project and, although I'm not striving to be a documentary filmmaker, I appreciate the genre and would like to put my services to use with future documentaries. Most of my time is spent organizing the outreach and promotional aspect of the film, considerably more practical work than comes out of my chosen American Studies Major.
Jeremy Goldsher, Bucknell University--An aspiring writer, directer, and entrepreneur, working under Steve Alves on Food for Change as a student intern has been a great first fo ray into the documentary world. A fellow local coop member hailing from the hilltowns of Franklin County, Steve's vision parallels many of my own beliefs, and with his guidance I am constantly pushing my boundaries in the professional and social realms. I currently handle the proj
ect's pratical aspects of marketing and promotion, and plan to explore/advise the editing and filming process once we have reached our fundraising goals. This experience has reaffirmed my direction and focus, and although I am prone to global travelling, i plan on re-entering college this Fall to pursue my majors in Film and Business. For more information, please email me:
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