MEET THE CREW
Andrea Kalin - Producer and Director
Founder of Spark Media and Stone Soup Productions, Andrea is a celebrated documentary filmmaker, whose films have aired on major networks around the globe, screened theatrically to sold-out audiences and earned 90 industry awards, including a Prime Time Emmy, and Golden Globe and WGA nominations. She has worked in over 25 countries, from disaster zones to remote tropical rain forests, crafting gripping human stories for the screen. Andrea specializes in bringing viewers to the emotional front line where lives of courage, perseverance and dignity persist through seemingly insurmountable hardships. Kalin's recent filmography includes First Lady of the Revolution, which won Audience Awards at the Sidewalk and Fairhope Film Festivals, and Best Documentary at the Oxford Film Festival; Red Lines, which was awarded Most Disturbing Documentary at the 2016 Ramdam International Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival; and No Evidence of Disease, which won the Madelyn’s Choice award at the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, and was released by Regal Cinemas on over 44 screens nationwide on World Cancer Day 2015. Other feature length docs she has directed and produced include: Smithsonian Channel's Worlds of Sound and Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story; PBS's Allah Made Me Funny, Prince Among Slaves, Talking Through Walls and The Pact, which won Best Documentary at the Boston International Film Festival. Kalin's debut, Partners of the Heart, aired on PBS' “American Experience”, won the Erik Barnouw Award for Best History Documentary, and inspired the original HBO movie Something the Lord Made, starring Alan Rickman and Mos Def. Recently, Partners of the Heart was named as one of the 50 most culturally significant films supported by the organization in its history.
Bill Duke - Executive Producer
Bill Duke, also known as an actor, has been acclaimed for his direction of a variety of feature films, including A Rage in Harlem, The Cemetery Club, Sister Act 2, and the crime drama Hoodlum, starring Laurence Fishburne. For television, Duke directed the CableAce winner, The Boy Who Painted Christ Black, as well as episodes of New York Undercover, Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice, and Dallas. He was nominated for an Emmy for his direction of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun on PBS. Other public television projects include Deacons for Defense for Showtime and The Killing Floor for American Playhouse, and The Meeting, nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Bill Duke is now producing and directing independent projects and content for multiple platforms. These projects serve to focus on morality and redemption and emphasize cultural history and family values.
Paula Heredia - Editor
Paula Heredia is a distinguished and multi-Emmy award-wining editor and director. She won an Emmy Award for her work on the HBO documentary In Memoriam, NYC 9/11/01, and an ACE Eddie Award for the acclaimed documentary Unzipped. Her work on the 2012 HBO documentary, The Weight of the Nation was also nominated for an EDDIE Award. Her editorial credits also include: Sleepless in America for National Geographic; Many Rivers to Cross, which was broadcast on PBS and won the Emmy Award for Best Documentary in 2014; the Emmy-Award winning miniseries The Alzheimer’s Project and The Trials of Ted Haggard, both produced for HBO; The Art of Failure, which won an Emmy Award in 2008; and director Andrea Kalin’s The Pact, which was broadcast on public television in 2007 and won Best Documentary at the Boston Film Festival. Finding Christa, winner of the 1992 Sundance Jury Award for best documentary, was selected for the New Films/New Directors at the Museum of Modern Art New York. Her other works include Colorado Cowboy, which won the cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994; Modulations Cinema for the Ear, a 1998 Sundance Film Festival premier; and I Remember Me, winner at the 2000 Hamptons Film Festival; and for HBO, El Espiritu de la Salsa, Alive Day Memories, Life After Life, The Vagina Monologues and The Best of America Undercover. Heredia teaches workshops on filmmaking throughout the Americas, heads the international committee of New York Women in Film & Television, and serves on the board of advisors of Robert DeNiro’s All Access support program at Tribeca Film Institute. Her latest film, Toucan Nation has received top accolades on the 2016 film festival circuit and is airing on Discovery’s Animal Planet.
Bryan Sarkinen - Director of Photography
Bryan Sarkinen is a New York-based Director of Photography. In addition to his duties on The Pact, Sarkinen was one of the directors of photography for Allah Made Me Funny and No Evidence of Disease and was the lead cinematographer on Too Brief a Child: Voices of Married Adolescents, a United Nations Population Fund project that took him and producers to Bangladesh, Yemen, and Burkina Faso. A double major in Film and Journalism from New York University, Sarkinen evolved his first television show called The Final Cut. The program aired on colleges all over the United States and featured interviews with actors and directors such as Robert Duvall, Dario Argento, Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris.
Marcus Miller - Composer, Original Score
Acclaimed composer and music producer Marcus Miller has been a fixture on the music scene for over twenty years, composing feature film scores for movies as varied as About Last Night, I Think I I Love My Wife, Breakin All the Rules, Head of State, Above the Rim, and Boomerang. Miller was also nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction for his work on "Black Sunday". Very early in his career, Miller became a fixture in the New York jazz clubs at a very young age and gained steady work with several veteran musicians such as David Grusin, Earl Klugh, Chaka Kahn, and one his personal heroes, Miles Davis. Over the years, Miller has also had much success as a music producer and writer, including a long relationship with R&B legend, Luther Vandross, which included the songs, "Over Now" and the Grammy Award winning "The Power of Love". Miller's solo work, featuring fusions of R&B, funk, and jazz has been just as well received. Miller's M2 album won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
David Isaac - Co-Composer, Original Score
Veteran music producer and composer David Isaac has partnered with Marcus Miller on numerous projects over the years, including the Grammy-Award winning M2 album and the Grammy-nominated Marcus Miller's Tales". As an associate producer and/or mix consultant, Isaac has worked on Two Can Play That Game, The Great White Hype, Ladies Man, The Brothers, and Deliver Us From Eva. Isaac is versed in almost every genre, from pop music to hip hop, R&B, gospel, and jazz, and has worked as a programmer and engineer for artists as varied as Eric Clapton, Madonna, R. Kelly, Bette Midler, Luther Vandross, Puff Daddy, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, and Wayne Shorter. He won Grammy's for co-producing David Sanborn's "Inside" and Wayne Shorter's "Highlife".
Ashley Culp - Executive Music Producer
Music Supervisor Ashley Culp is the Senior Vice President of Sleeping Giant Music Group and is the former Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at the Universal Music Group of Vivendi Universal. During his time at Universal, Culp helped to create strategic marketing plans for internationally acclaimed artists such as Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, B.B. King, Rob Zombie, Donna Summer, and Prince. His work on the Motown Brand at Universal included cross-promotional specials with major networks such as ABC, NBC, and USA, and a vast brand licensing strategy that extended the brand into a vast number of consumer products and platforms. Culp's work with Motown also led to the creation of Motown's Webby-nominated website. Ashley is also a veteran songwriter, pianist, and composer, having created scores for "The District" on CBS and the feature, Thirteen Moons, starring Steve Buscemi and Jennifer Beals.
Dondi Bastone - Music Supervisor
Having first cut his teeth on Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty over a decade ago, Bastone has since supervised music for more than thirty film and television projects, including Sideways and Election for director Alexander Payne, Ed Harris's decade-long labor of love and directorial debut, Pollack, writer-director-star Matt Dillon's City of Ghosts and The Human Stain for Oscar winning writer/director Robert Benton. His other credits include the films Home Fries, The Big Empty, The Crew, No Vacancy, The Sex Monster, Pornucopia for HBO, and the Emmy-winning documentary series American High and its follow-up Freshman Diaries.
Silvia R. Holmes - Producer
Silvia Holmes is an experienced field producer with over twenty years experience in radio and television. After graduating from Howard University, Silvia went on to work with Spark Media on Partners of the Heart. As an independent producer, she has worked on award-winning productions with PBS, Discovery, and Discovery Health. She is also a member of the non-denomination Family Life Christian Church, where she has been a staple of the choir for several years.
Kaylyn Dines - Field Producer
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Kaylyn Kendall Dines joined the Spark team as field producer and coordinator for The Pact. Currently a Director of Public Relations & Marketing at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, she has written articles that have been published in local and national publications including: The Courier News, a Gannett Newspaper in Bridgewater, NJ; The New York Amsterdam News; Black Enterprise magazine; and VIBE magazine. In 2000, Kaylyn completed two fellowship programs: Leadership Newark, Inc., a two-year fellowship designed for civic-minded professionals; and Project Leadership, a personal and professional development fellowship that was launched by the United Way of Essex and West Hudson Counties, in Newark.
Lloyd "Raki" Jones - Consulting Producer
Raki Jones is an award-winning, seasoned producer and writer who has collaborated on several film and outreach projects with Spark Media. Jones was a consulting producer on The Pact and was co-producer and co-writer for Prince Among Slaves, which won numerous industry and film festival accolades. Prior to his recent work with Spark Media, Jones wrote the Emmy-nominated The Colored Cyclone in 1995 and has won numerous awards for other multimedia projects. He is currently a professor and lecturer at University of the District of Columbia.
Denise Couture - Consulting Producer
Denise Couture has been a creative consultant at Spark Media for several years and worked as development director for Partners of the Heart. Also an independent producer, Denise also co-produced Invisible: Abbott Thayer and the Art of Camouflage with Pamela Peabody for PBS. After earning a master's degree from Columbia University's journalism school, Denise worked as a reporter for 15 years, covering Wall Street and international business before trading the world of print journalism for documentaries. In addition to her film work, Denise was a producer for The Diane Rehm Show on NPR and is currently the Senior Supervising Producer at 1A.