Producer / Director:
Marlo McKenzie grew up in Metro Detroit. She’s studied language in France, worked in theater in Germany, and co-founded a video production company that trains homeless youth in Australia. Since making San Francisco her home, she’s worked on several compelling media projects including a documentary called BUTTERFLY TOWN, USA and a four-part series called STANDING ON SACRED GROUND. More recently she is trying out the world of feature film at Parker Film Company. She believes that story can change the world, and to create a better world we must first be able to imagine it.
Hybrid (fiction) 2D Animated Story Co-writers:
Doreanna, Max and Maxine.
Producer:
Mike E. McKenzie is a talent with incredible organizational skills and a scientific and rational mind that helps to make productions run smoothly. He’s been collaborating with Marlo for years to help bring various projects to life.
Animators:
Lealie Hayek is an aspiring and passionate 2D animator. She has just completed a Bachelor of Media Arts at the University of South Australia, and is their youngest graduate at the age of 18. Lealie was nominated for Channel Nine’s Young Achiever Award in early 2016, and honored as one of the eight “Enterprising Faces” of the University’s alumni magazine’s 25th birthday edition.
Marlo McKenzie (see above)
Youwarkee is an artist and animator.
Minecraft Team | Lead Game Designer:
Laura Wigod is a a designer and film editor, with a background in PR and marketing, specializing in illustration, web design, photography, and film editing.
Minecraft Team | PBS POV Hackathon Game Designers:
Alexandra Jayeun Lee
Ali Heart
Minecraft Team | PBS POV Hackathon Mentor:
Michael Scherotter is the principal technical evangelist at Microsoft Corporation and career mentor and coach.
Post-Production Assistant:
Dobby the intrepid mini-greyhound is always there to provide laughter and perspective on what really matters.
Production Assistance:
Amy K. Senese
Additional Cinematography:
Timothy Allan
Javier Correa
Media Mentor:
Dorothy Fadiman lives in Menlo Park, CA, with her husband James Fadiman. They have two daughters, Renee and Maria. Dorothy moved to California to pursue graduate work in communication studies at Stanford University. In 1974, while she was trying to write a book about the light of Spirit, she was approached by a filmmaker, Michael Wiese, who suggested they make a film together. That collaboration became RADIANCE, her first production. Since then she has produced more than 20 films. Her book Producing with Passion: Making Films that Change the World, follows her career and offers specific suggestions for independent filmmakers to use in their work as they find their unique voices through filmmaking. Dorothy teaches, gives seminars, leads workshops, and trains interns in filmmaking.
Humanities Advisors:
Alberto Manguel has lived in France, England, Italy, and Tahiti, reviewing, translating, editing, and always reading. In 1980, Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi compiled The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, a comprehensive and celebratory catalogue of fantasy settings from world literature. The publication of the book marked the beginning of Manguel’s long association with publisher/editor Louise Dennys. In 1983, Manguel edited the groundbreaking anthology Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature. Manguel’s 1992 novel, News from a Foreign Country Came, won the McKitterick Prize. He directed the Maclean Hunter Arts Journalism Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts for five years and was appointed Distinguished Visiting Writer in the Markin-Flanagan Program at the University of Calgary. He has received many prizes, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and honorary doctorates from the universities of Liège, in Belgium and Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge, UK. He is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France).
Michele Root-Bernstein is an independent scholar and author of the new book, Inventing Imaginary Worlds, From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences, a multidisciplinary study of complex make-believe and its role in creative culture. She is also co-author (with husband and colleague Robert) of numerous articles and blog posts on imaginative thinking, art-science polymathy, and creative education as well as the 1999 book Sparks of Genius, The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People, still available in print and eBook format. She’s also a writer who explores the foundations of creative imagination and composes haiku. She received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 1981.
Marjorie Taylor is a developmental psychologist (Ph.D., Stanford University) who is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. Her research is on the development of imagination and creativity, including studies of children who invent pretend friends and adult fiction writers who develop relationships with the characters in their novels. Taylor is author of Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them (1999, Oxford University Press) and the editor of The Development of Imagination (2013, Oxford University Press). She is on the editorial boards of the journals Imagination, Cognition, and Personality and The American Journal of Play.
She is also an artist who creates fabric art using images from neuroscience. Her artwork has won awards at juried shows, has been exhibited in England, Quebec, Seattle, and Eugene. It hangs in two Neuroscience Institutes, as well as private collections.
Fiscal Sponsor:
Thank you to those who have helped with this production in EXTRA ways:
Jennie, Stan, John and Stan Bodzick – moral and financial support
Jennifer Huang and Erin Lee – moral support and story advice.
Funding has been made possible by:
