Director/Producer Tom Walters is an award-winning director and producer with over 50 internationally distributed documentary and educational programs to his credit. A honors graduate of California Polytechnic State University, he received additional training at the Sony Institute and at the American Film Institute in Hollywood.
Walters is currently the president of Cinema House Films, Inc. in California. His latest inspirational film, BOTSO, has garnered three Audience Choice Awards and received a grant from the Pay It Forward Foundation.
Writer/Producer Hilary Roberts Grant has worked as a television producer for shows on NBC, CBS, Lifetime and the BIO Channel. She’s also a print and web journalist, with bylines in publications and sites that include People, Seventeen and Ms. magazines, as well as the PBS series This I Believe.
Grant has a journalism degree from San Jose State University, and is also an alumni of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Clown College. She is honored to be part of BOTSO, her first feature film credit.
Producer David Thayer has been producing, directing and designing theatre, television and motion pictures for the past 25 years. He received his MFA in Theater Design from the University of California, San Diego, and is Co-Founder and President of Aspect Studios, which has provided content for Animal Planet, MTV episodes, the United States Air Force and others. David also directed and produced the recent feature film, “More Than Stars”.
Cinematographer Simo Nylander was born in Finland, and graduated from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California.
As a freelance cinematographer, Nylander’s clients have included Animal Planet, E! Entertainment, Fox Family Network and the Travel Channel. He also co-founded Aspect Studios in 2001, and there, was a creative visual force producing high-end commercial projects for banks, financial institutions and government.
Editor Randi Barros is an award-winning film editor, screenwriter and teacher.
Barros’ credits include production and editing work for public television station WGBH in Boston, as well as editing documentary and educational projects for CNN, IFC and Harvard University. Her short film, Goodnight Elizabeth, screened at film festivals around the world and won Best Dramatic Short at the Philadelphia International Film Festival. Barros’ is currently editing Lives Well Lived, a documentary about aging.
Barros’ undergraduate degree is in Cinema Studies from Ithaca College, with her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in New York. She lives in Los Osos, California, with her husband and daughter.
Music Composer Martin Davich studied music and composition at the University of Southern California, and went on to have a professional career playing and conducting for various artists, including Anthony Newley and Burt Bacharach.
For the last 30 years, he has made his living as a composer, having written for many dramatic television series, including ER, for 15 years; Beverly Hills 90210, and Trinity. Davich has also written for several mini-series, television movies, cable movies, and motion pictures, the latter of which include Mad Money, Touching Home, and I Bring What I Love. Currently, Davich enjoys writing for many media, as well as continuing to grow as a composer.
Music Orchestrator Brad Dechter, a graduate of Yale College (BA in Music) and Yale University School of Music (MM in Saxophone Performance) is a seasoned arranger in Hollywood. He has enjoyed working with many great film and television composers, including James Newton Howard, John Debney, Marc Shaiman, Trevor Jones, David Newman, Jerry Goldsmith and Lee Holdridge.
Dechter is also one of the most sought after orchestrators in Hollywood, working on several major studio films each year. In addition, he arranges music for both the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards ceremonies.