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Role in the film:
Director
Brief biography:
Born in 1960 in Antibes,
France, Gans was an early convert to film
fandom. As a teenager, he made Super-8
samurai and kung fu films and in the late
1970s, he published the fanzine, Rhesus
Zero, sharing his passion for sci-fi, kung
fu and other genre films with others. In
1980, Gans studied at the French cinema
school Idhec (Institut des Hautes Etudes
Cinematopraphiques) and directed a short
film called Silver Slime, a tribute to Mario
Bava, which was well received at the 1982
Paris Festival.
In 1982, he also founded the magazine Starfix and championed the
work of directors like David Cronenberg,
Dario Argento, Russel Mulcahy, David Lynch,
John Carpenter and Sergio Leone. Initially
working on an adaptation of Liberatore's
underground cult comic, RanXerox, Gans then
wrote and directed a segment of Samuel
Hadida’s 1994 production of H.P. Lovecraft's
The Necronomicon. Gans’ segment, Hotel of
the Drowned, convinced the Japanese creator
and investors that he was the perfect choice
to direct the live-action adaptation of the
successful manga and anime series, Crying
Freeman. Crying Freeman, also produced by
Hadida, won the Audience Award at the 1995
Sweden Fantastic Film Festival and was
nominated for the 1996 International Fantasy
Film Award at Fantasporto.
Gans went on to create for Metropolitan the video collection, "HK",
devoted to Hong Kong movies. He then worked
for two years on a free adaptation of Jules
Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea before
directing Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte
des loups) about the Beast of Gevaudan, an
unknown animal who killed more than one
hundred people in France at the end of 18th
century. Released in 2001, Brotherhood of
the Wolf was nominated for a Saturn Award
and Best Director at the 2002 Academy of
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, the
Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold
at the 2002 Brussels International Festival
of Fantasy Film, and won a Cesar (the French
Academy Award®) for Best Costume Design as
well as the Grand Prize of European Fantasy
Film in Silver at the 2001 Catalonian
International Film Festival, Sitges, Spain
in addition to being nominated for Best Film
at that festival. |
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Role in the film:
Screenwriter
Brief biography:
Born in Canada,
unrelenting gonzo filmmaker Roger Avary has
captured both the mainstream of Hollywood as
well as the fringe of indie cinema with his
aggressive and unique filmmaking style. A
former video store clerk from Manhattan
Beach, California, Avary is a self
proclaimed charter member of what he calls
“the video store generation.” The first
generation of information age filmmakers
with complete and total access to a database
of tens of thousands of films at any given
moment...something no other generation
before his can claim. In 1994 his first
feature film, the cult classic, Killing Zoe,
produced by Hadida, garnered the Prix Tres
Special in France and won the best film
awards at Japan's Yubari International Film
Festival and Italy's MystFest. The film was
released by New York-based October Films and
has won favorable, if not heated, reviews.
The film has been hailed by Daily Variety,
Cahiers du Cinema, and the Village Voice as
one of the finest debut films of the last
twenty years. His second film was a bold and
visually striking adaptation of Bret
Easton-Ellis’ novel, The Rules of
Attraction. The film was such a creative
success that Roger Avary and Greg Shapiro
have optioned the rights to Bret
Easton-Ellis’ novel Glamorama. The film is
currently in development under Shapiro’s
production banner, Kingsgate Films. He has
also completed work on Robert Zemeckis’s
upcoming animated feature, Beowulf.
Avary also collaborated with director Quentin Tarantino as
co-author of his Cannes Film Festival Palm
d'Or winner Pulp Fiction. In 1995 the two
shared best writing accolades from the Los
Angeles Film Critics Association, the New
York Film Critics' Circle, the Boston
Society of Film Critics, the National
Society of Film Critics, the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the
British Academy of Film and Television for
their work on Pulp Fiction. This phenomenal
success has led to a prolific writing career
for Avary, working at Warner Brothers,
Paramount, Dreamworks, and others. Avary has
been very active as a producer, both on his
television projects, and the independent
films Boogie Boy and The Last Man. Avary is
a spokesperson for Apple Computer and their
prosumer editing software, Final Cut Pro,
with which he edited his 35mm feature The
Rules of Attraction. An avid Apple
evangelist, Avary’s full page spreads have
appeared worldwide in Daily Variety, The
Hollywood Reporter, Post Magazine, Rez
Magazine, Videography Magazine, Millimeter
Magazine, and many more. He dropped out of
the Art Center College of Design, screaming
at one of his professors, “You don’t need a
degree to study film!” He now lectures
yearly at the Art Center. Avary collects and
restores vintage Atari X-Y monitor arcade
machines, as some people might specialize in
restoring old automobiles. Avary is
currently editing his digital video feature
of the footage shot in Europe for Victor’s
travels, to be titled Glitterati. He is also
preparing the screenplay for his next film
as director. |
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Role in the film:
Producer
Brief biography:
Samuel Hadida is one of
the most successful producers and
distributors in the worldwide film business
today. From his home base in Paris, he and
his brother, Victor, have grown Metropolitan
Film Export, founded in the early 1980’s by
the brothers and their father, David, into
the largest and most successful independent
all-rights distribution company of English
language pictures in France.
Metropolitan has distributed hundreds of successful films in
France, continuing through The Lord of the
Rings trilogy. Through the growth of this
distribution business, Hadida has developed
a keen understanding of distribution and
marketing. It was then an easy step for
Hadida to move into producing his own films.
His first production was True Romance, the first film produced from
a Quentin Tarantino script and his first
collaboration with director Tony Scott.
Hadida now produces or co-produces several
films each year through Davis Films, the
production company owned and operated by
himself and Victor. These productions
encompass the best of the French industry,
European productions and co-productions, and
American productions.
In addition to Silent Hill, Hadida most recently produced Tony
Scott's Domino with Kiera Knightley and
Mickey Rourke. Hadida is also the producer
of Resident Evil and Resident Evil:
Apocalypse, starring Milla Jovovich, The
Bridge of San Luis Rey with Robert De Niro,
and Fabian Bielinsky’s thriller El Aura. He
was co-executive producer on George
Clooney’s Academy Award® nominated Good
Night and Good Luck.
Hadida has had a long collaboration with writer-director Roger
Avary, having produced Avary’s first
directing venture, Killing Zoe (with
Jean-Hugues Anglade and Julie Delpy) and
executive produced Rules of Attraction. It
was natural that Hadida reached out to Avary
to write the screenplay for Silent Hill.
Hadida has also had a long association with
Christophe Gans. He produced Gans’ first
film, Necronomicon, his next film Crying
Freeman, as well as the phenomenally
successful Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood
of the Wolf), one of the highest grossing
French films of all time and nominated for
four Cesar Awards and eight Saturn Awards.
The decision to make Silent Hill together
solidifies their successfully enduring
relationship.
Other Hadida productions include David Cronenberg’s acclaimed
psychological thriller Spider starring Ralph
Fiennes and Miranda Richardson, Sheldon
Lettich’s Only the Strong (the first
Capoeira/martial arts film, and the film
which introduced both Mark Dacascos and the
famous score music now popularized in the
United States in the “zoom zoom zoom” Mazda
car commercials), Michael Radford’s Dancing
at the Blue Iguana, Steve Barron’s Pinocchio
with Martin Landau (one of the first films
to combine computergenerated images and live
action), Matthew Bright’s Freeway (winner of
the top award at the Cognac Festival and
Reese Witherspoon’s first role), and
Gabriele Salvatores’ Nirvana.
Upcoming projects include Onimusha, the adaptation of the
successful Capcom video game, as well as
Judge Dee, adapted from the famous series of
books by author Robert van Gulik. |
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Role in the film:
Producer
Brief biography:
Don
Carmody has been producing
films for close to 30 years. He was
vice-president of production for Canada’s
Cinepix (now Lionsgate Films), where he
co-produced David
Cronenberg’s early shockers They Came From
Within and Rabid as well as the popular
comedy Meatballs.
Starting
his own production company in 1980, Carmody
went on to produce the smash hits Porky’s
and Porky’s II, the perennially popular A
Christmas Story as well as Spacehunter:
Adventures In The Forbidden Zone, Whispers,
The Big Town, Physical Evidence, Switching
Channels and several Chuck Norris films,
including The Hitman and Sidekicks.
He
returned to comedy successfully with the
Weekend at Bernies series, and The Late
Shift for HBO, which was nominated for seven
Emmy® Awards, three Cable Ace awards and the
Producers’ Guild of America Golden Laurel.
The Late Shift also won a Golden Globe for
actress Kathy Bates and a Directors’ Guild
Award for Betty Thomas.
His
credits include some 75 films thus far,
including Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves,
The Mighty with Sharon Stone, Studio 54 with
Mike Myers, the Academy Award® nominated
Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon, Ben
Affleck and Robin Williams, In Too Deep with
L.L. Cool J, the cult hit The Boondock
Saints with Willem Dafoe, The Third Miracle
with Ed Harris and Anne Heche, Get Carter
with Sylvester Stallone, The Whole Nine
Yards with Bruce Willis and Mathew Perry,
The Pledge directed by Sean Penn and
starring Jack Nicholson, 3000 Miles to
Graceland with Kevin Costner and Courtney
Cox, Caveman’s Valentine with Samuel
Jackson, Angel Eyes with Jennifer Lopez,
David Mamet’s The Heist
with Gene Hackman, and Danny DeVito, City by
the Sea with Robert DeNiro and Frances
McDormand, Wrong Turn with Eliza Dushku,
Gothika starring Halle Berry, Penelope Cruz
and Robert Downey Jr., Resident Evil based
on the all time bestselling video game and
Resident Evil: Apocalypse starring Milla
Jovovich, and Assault on Precinct 13 with
Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel
Byrne and Maria Bello. He is executive
producing Lucky Number Slevin with Bruce
Willis, Josh Hartnett and Morgan Freeman and
producing kinwalkers in Toronto. Both will
be released in 2006.
In 2002
Carmody was co-producer of the hit film
musical of Chicago starring Rene Zellweger,
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere, which
won seven Academy Awards® including Best
Picture, three Golden Globe Awards,
including Best Musical or Comedy and the
Producers’ Guild of America Golden Laurel
Award for Best Picture as well as many,
other awards and citations around the world.
Carmody
was born in New England and emigrated to
Canada with his parents as a boy. He
graduated from film school in Montreal and
has gone on to produce films all over the
world. He currently lives in Toronto and Los
Angeles. |
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Role in the film:
Executive Producer
Brief biography:
Andrew Mason Mason spent
2004 in Romania producing, with Lakeshore’s
Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi, the horror
thriller The Cave, starring Cole Hauser,
Marcel Iures and Lena Headey. The
directorial debut for Australian Bruce Hunt,
the film was released by Screen Gems in
August 2005.
Mason began his industry career in the early 1970’s as a film
editor in documentaries and commercials. He
moved into producing, and headed a highly
successful TV commercial production company.
He formed Australia’s first visual effects
company in 1983, and worked as visual
effects supervisor on a number of Australian
films. He returned to producing and, in
1990, joined forces with director Alex
Proyas, producing numerous music videos &
commercials directed by Proyas. In 1993
Mason served as visual effects supervisor
and second unit director on Proyas’ The
Crow.
In 1996 Mason produced Dark City for Proyas, released by New Line
Cinema in 1998. He followed this with The
Matrix, directed by the Wachowski Brothers
and produced with Joel Silver and Barrie
Osborne. He served as Executive Producer of
Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.
Mason executive produced three Warner Bros. Pictures released in
2002/3: the live-action Scooby Doo starring
Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr, Sarah
Michelle Gellar and Linda Cardellini, Queen
Of The Damned starring Stuart Townsend, and
Kangaroo Jack starring Jerry O’Connell and
Estella Warren. He served as executive
producer on the Warner/Village Roadshow 2001
release Red Planet. He also executive
produced Bristol Bay/Crusader
Entertainment's Swimming Upstream starring
Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush, released by
MGM in February 2005.
In 2003, Mason’s City Productions produced Danny Deckchair, a
romantic comedy starring Rhys Ifans and
Miranda Otto, written and directed by Jeff
Balsmeyer. Lions Gate released the film in
July 2004.
Mason is a member of the board of the Macquarie Film Corporation,
established by Australia’s Macquarie Bank to
fund Australian film and television
projects, and is deputy chair on the board
of the New South Wales State Film and
Television Office. |
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Role in the film:
Executive Producer
Brief biography:
Victor Hadida served as
executive producer of David Cronenberg's
acclaimed psychological thriller Spider,
starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda
Richardson, chosen as an Official Selection
at the Cannes Film Festival. Furthermore,
Hadida was the executive producer of the
Resident Evil franchise and Christopher
Gans' Crying Freeman. He also served as
executive producer on Tony Scott's Domino,
Mary McGuckian's The Bridge of San Luis Rey,
based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel by
Thornton Wilder, and Avi Nesher's Turn Left
at the End of the World. He is co-executive
producer of George Clooney’s Academy Award®
nominated Good Night and Good Luck. |
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Role in the film:
Executive Producer
Brief biography:
Akira Yamaoka has composed
music for dozens of Konami video games. Yamaoka attended Tokyo Art
College, where he studied product and interior design. He started his
career as a freelance music composer and eventually joined Konami on
September 21, 1993. He is most well known for his work on the Silent
Hill series of video games, for which he composed all the music and
created all of the sound effects in all four games. He also played the
central role of Producer for the games Silent Hill 3 and 4, and
additionally he has worked on the sound and music for other popular
franchises from Konami. Recently, Akira Yamaoka has released his first
solo album and has also contributed music to the Silent Hill feature
film. |
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Role in the film:
Director of Photography
Brief biography:
Dan Laustsen
has photographed some 30 movies, many in his
native
Denmark, with perhaps his best known credits
being the features Brotherhood of the Wolf,
The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Mimic, and Giselle. Laustsen’s many other
credits include Nomad, Darkness Falls, Don’t
Peek, I Am Dina, which won the award for
Best Cinematography at the Robert Festival,
Heart of Light, and Running Free.
The Danish-born Laustsen also served as
Director of Cinematography on Gummi-Tarzan,
earning him the Special Award at the Bodil
Awards, Miraklet i Valby, and Isfugle both
of which won awards for Best Cinematography
at the Robert Fesival. Laustsen studied
still photography and was working as a
fashion photographer when he decided to
attend the Danish Film School for three
years. He shot his first feature at age 25
in Denmark. The dailies on his first
American film, Miramax’s Nightwatch, caught
the eye of Guillermo del Toro, who hired him
on Mimic. |
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Role in the film:
Creature Designer and Supervisor
Brief biography:
Patrick Tatopoulos
is undoubtedly one of the top creature and
special effects designers currently working
in movies. His impressive resume includes
Creature Designer and Supervisor on I,
Robot, Godzilla, Independence Day, Stargate,
Pitch Black, They, Saint Sinner, Cursed,
Supernova, Super Mario Bros and both
Underworld and
Underworld Evolution. He also created the
animatronic mice used in Stuart Little.
Tatopoulos worked as a conceptual creature
artist on Van Helsing and The Chronicles Of
Riddick, and
the upcoming Eragon. He was a visual
consultant on AVP: Alien vs. Predator, and a
set conceptual artist on Dracula, The Doors,
Se7en, and The Librarian: Quest for the
Spear. To round out his impressive design
talents, Tatopoulos created new worlds as
the Production Designer of Underworld
Evolution, I, Robot, Independence Day, Dark
City, and the TV series, “Special Unit 2.” A
man of many talents, he even designed some
of the costumes on
Stargate. |
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