Meet the Mentors

Thomas DeWolfe

Thomas DeWolfe is a retired producer of mainstream television movies and independent films. Since retiring to Greenport in 2001 he has been associated with several theater projects including three seasons with Shakespeare in the Park. He is chairperson of the Greenport Music Festival, a program bringing classical music to the Greenport School.

Michael Edelson

Michael Edelson functions with equal ease within a variety of media and art: film, photography, journalism and education. He was a Professor of the Art Department at Stony Brook University where he created and directed the photography program while art courses and film studies. He received the 1997 President’s Award for designing a new digital curriculum. He has conducted master classes in photography and film studies in both the United States and Europe. He was the initial Associate Director of New York’s International Center of Photography and served on the Board of the Hamptons International Film Festival that he helped create. Additionally, he spent a year as “Special Projects Editor” at Magnum Photos in the New York office Presently he is working as Director and Writer on the documentary film The Vermeer Man about Han Van Meegeren, the greatest art forger of the 20th Century.

Tara Evans

Tara Evans has been an actress for nearly 10 years, beginning as a child here on Long Island. She is an alumnae of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, and has studied with some of New York’s best. She has performed on stage and in film, recently completing a short film on Long Island slated for upcoming festivals.

Lora Fox Gamble

Lora Fox Gamble has worked in film and television for more than twenty years. A Stanford graduate, she worked with veteran producer Freddie Fields in script development at MGM. She acquired films for television libraries and theatrical release for the Samuel Goldwyn Company. In 1991, she was named Executive Director of the International Documentary Association. She produced and wrote the documentary, “The View from the Cage,” purchased by The Discovery Channel. This led to three years of participating in underwater films both in front of and behind the camera, including “Dive Aruba” which she co-hosted with Christopher Reeve. She served as Director of International Co-productions for Oregon Public Broadcasting, and was part of the Executive Producing team for a PBS series. She helped launch the British Independent Film Awards, where she served as a founding board member and juror. In 2005 ,she was appointed to the Suffolk County Film Commission. Recently, she has worked as an independent television producer and a production finance consultant.

Ellen Nora Goldstein

Ellen Nora Goldstein has been a leading stop-motion animator for almost 20 years, working on hundreds of television commercials and also on the MTV series, “Celebrity Deathmatch” where she and a partner animated exclusively the announcer characters of Nick and Johnny. She is also a sculptor and puppet builder. In addition, she has produced student film projects which include live action and animation. Her animation work can be viewed at ellenora.com

Gil Goldstein

Gil Goldstein is an arranger, producer of music, jazz pianist and accordionist. He has worked with most of the leading jazz musicians including David Sanborn, Michael and Randy Brecker, Chris Botti, Gil Evans and Miles Davis. He has also scored 20 films and orchestrated film music for Ryuichi Sakamoto and Pat Metheny. He also teaches composition at New York University.

Ingrid Helfrich

After 19 years as a computer programmer, Ingrid utilized her knowledge of films and analytical skills as a scriptwriter and story consultant. She is currently the associate producer and co-writer on The Vermeer Man; a major documentary about the greatest art forger of the 20th century, Han Van Meegeren.

Lance Jensen

Lance Jensen, Co-founder and Executive Creative Director of Modernista!. An ad agency based in Boston, Detroit and Amsterdam. Founded in January of 2000, M! is the fastest growing independent ad agency in the world. Lance has worked on killer ad campaigns for Volkswagen, Gap, MTV, Hummer, Animal Planet, The Travel Channel, Cadillac, Converse and countless other brands. He has won every major award you can think of and his work is also in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In high school, all he liked to do was doodle, play keyboards and write stories. To his delight and surprise, he found out that he could actually make a living doing just that. And so can you. Lance spent his summers growing up in Cutchogue and now in Orient.

Joe Lauro

As a filmmaker, Joe received his master’s degree at New York University’s Department of Cinema Studies. In the late 1980’s he was the musical director for the Academy Award winning documentary The Ten Year Lunch, and worked throughout the 1990s as musical consultant, director or associate producer on numerous other documentary projects. He is now the owner of Historic Films Archive LLC in Greenport, NY.

Rory MacNish

Rory MacNish is a North Fork native and has been producing digital videos and teaching at Cornell for the past 10 years. He received his Bachelor of Arts in film and television from New York Institute of Technology. His love of film and television began in high school, and since then he has been a director for “Long Island Magazine” at WLIG-TV, a production assistant for several commercial films in Manhattan, and has spent 5 years working for MTV. Dreaming of becoming the next Jacques Cousteau, Rory has no made of 6 documentaries for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County Marine Program. Most recently, he finished a video tour of the trails of Southold Town, which will be airing on Channel 22, as well as a documentary called “King of the Hamptons.”

Al Milian

Al Milian is a recently retired teacher, having taught history for 33 years on the secondary level in the Connetquot School District on Long Island while also involving his Honor’s Students in video production. Having interned at Ch. 21 in the late 70’s, he developed a small TV studio in his school where he held classes in video production while also personally doing freelance camera work and editing. One of his student teams finished first in New York State in the National History Day contest (video category, junior division) and placed 10th nationwide. He has also taught video production for the Long Island Institute of Professional Studies.

Presently shooting and editing two ongoing fishing programs for television (“Adventures In Fishing” with Capt. Ray Kelly here on Long Island and “Fishin’ with Ted and Russ” in Citrus County, Florida), he has done animation work for “Kid Fitness,” an exercise and fitness program presently airing on PBS throughout the country and has shot and edited a number of :30 & :60 spots. He has worked with “The Electrix,” a Long Island-based blues band, in shooting and editing their concerts and has edited a documentary for the Sikh community in Queens concerning a civil rights issue involving a NYC police officer and the right to wear his turban on duty.

Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison studied film at The School Of Visual Arts. Interned for MTV’s comedy series, “The State”. This led to production assistance work on various MTV programs such as “The Video Music Awards” and “House Of Style”. Worked as a camera operator for WHPX, New London C.T. Earned an additional camera credit on the History channels documentary “Sail 2000, Aboard The Eagle”. For the last 7 years has worked as a Crew Chief for the Showtime channel in network operations. Is currently working on an independent documentary titled Harry Hellfire.

Sonja Reinholt

Sonja Reinholt, before moving to Greenport, had a decade career in the television/film industry. She started in VFX working for well known VFX Creator, Douglas Trumbull. This led Sonja to move to Los Angeles and start her career in production. Sonja worked 3 years in LA and 7 years in NYC on independent films, television commercials and music videos. She worked up the film “ladder” to become a respected and experienced line producer. Currently out of the business, Sonja now works for the Corcoran Group in real estate marketing and sales in her new home of the North Fork.

Richard M. Rosen

Television/Film Production
Segment Producer – “America’s Business” – daily – 1/2 hour morning business news
Consultant, CNBC
Consultant, FNN
Producer/Writer, CBS
“Father’s Daughter”; sitcom (pilot)
Producer/Writer, Warner Brothers – “Minutemen” – sitcom (pilot)
Producer, Camera national syndication
“The Winners” – weekly 1/2 hour sports documentary
Producer, Director PBS
“The Oscars” – one-hour documentary
Producer, Director PBS
“The Super Bowl” – one-hour documentary
Producer, Director PBS
“All About TV” one-hour weekly series
Production Manager, ABC
“ABC’s Wide World of Entertainment”
Production Manager, national syndication
“Flipside” – weekly hour rock music series
Camera, commercials:
Revlon, Calgon, Dial, Log Cabin etc.
Camera, stringer Middle East CBS, ABC

Colleen Syron

With 17 years of experience in design, Colleen Syron has her own design firm, Syron Design where she creates brands and interactive brand experiences for a diverse range of clients. Colleen was Director of Web Development, at DeSantis Breindel. Colleen directed the recent relaunch of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s website, overseeing all aspects of the initiative, including deigning the user interface for the site’s award-winning “Promise Stories.”
Past experience includes, Design Director for the Wall Street Journal, and branding and advertising. Colleen was at Waters Design where she won many awards (including the AR 100 and the New Media Invision Award), was featured in magazines and helped IBM create it’s first “graphical” interface using Mosaic. She was on the faculty of the School for Visual Arts and taught in the Masters Program In Web Design at the Parsons School of Design. Colleen earned a BFA from The University of Notre Dame and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Juliet Weber

Juliet has been a documentary editor for over 20 years. Recent credits include Good Ol’ Charles Schulz for PBS/American Masters, Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater for HBO; and the independent documentary A Jihad for Love, which will have its US theatrical premiere in May of 2008. Other credits include A Rape In a Small Town: The Florence Holway Story, (Emmy Nominee for editing); Sister Helen, (Sundance Directing Award 2002); Diary Of a Political Tourist; Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives; Fastpitch, (Best documentary, Nashville Independent Film Festival); The Restless Conscience (Acadamy Award Nominee, feature documentary), Daughter of the Bride, (Acadamy Award Nominee, documentary short); and Lindbergh for PBS/The American Experience.

Ian Wile

Ian’s background encompasses work in feature films, reality television as well as work in commercials and promos. As a partner at Rogue Post, he has shepherded many interesting projects through the trials and tribulations that make up the post process. He helped develop the process that resulted in the first Digital Intermediate ever completed on an independent film. Ian brings a combination of technological understanding and creativity to every project. Prior to starting Rogue Post, Ian was a freelance editor working on independent feature films in NY. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts film program, though he stresses that his learning has truly been done in the various projects he’s worked on and vows to quit when there is nothing left to learn. Recent personal credits include Frost (Executive Producter), Sordid Things (Executive Producer), The Big Bad Swim (Editor), Late Watch (Editor), and Philips.

John D. Williams Jr.

John D. Williams Jr. is perhaps best known as Executive Director of the National Scrabble Association. In this role, he was featured in WORD WARS, the hit documentary at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. John has also worked for 20 years as a writer/producer for television and film. He’s written and produced for Nickelodeon, SPIKE television, TV LAND and ESPN among others. John has also written numerous screenplays, the most recent purchased by Paramount.