TORN Brief Synopsis

An unexpected bond forms between two women when their sons are killed in an explosion at a local shopping mall. When the police find evidence of a bomb, one of the sons becomes the prime suspect, threatening the two mothers’ new friendship and forcing them to question how well they knew their own children. Torn is a powerful dramatic journey that invites each of us to confront our own perceptions of the world and one another.

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TORN Detailed Synopsis

In the wake of a public tragedy that kills their sons and derails their lives, two women struggle to find their emotional footing. At first, the deadly food-court explosion at a local mall is attributed to a gas leak. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Lea (Dendrie Taylor) barely notice one another in the chaos as they collide at the police barricade while searching for their boys. Later, when the authorities call them in for repeated questioning, the women bond in their grief and begin a friendship – despite the fact that that their backgrounds are worlds apart. Maryam’s husband Ali (Faran Tahir) is suffering deeply but becomes increasingly remote, eager to return to their native Pakistan. He is adamant about this, even though they are both longtime citizens of the U.S., Americanized and prosperous – she as a realtor, he a restaurant owner. Lea long ago divorced her husband Charles (Patrick St. Esprit), because his fundamentalist religious beliefs had grown so forbidding. Until the tragedy, Lea has struggled working at a low-paying maintenance job to support herself and her late son. The two women’s emotional needs are identical. For a time, they are each other’s lifeline, meeting nearly every day, either to visit the blast site, which has become a fenced-in monument of tributes and flowers or the misty cemetery where Maryam’s son lies buried. Lea cannot yet bear to part with her son’s ashes – and instead places them under his old bed. Renewed questions from the lead detective in the case (John Heard) are irritating and puzzling – until an FBI agent (Sharon Washington) reveals that a bomb triggered the explosion. Maryam’s son is suddenly the prime suspect, primarily because of his Pakistani roots. She and Ali are insulted. Lea is outraged on her friend’s behalf. Even so, troublesome facts emerge. Maryam is surprised that her son (Sagar Parekh) had, without telling her, made visits to the local Mosque, where he may have been introduced

2 to an angry extremist. At first, Ali professes to be ignorant of these visits, although Maryam is later shaken to discover that they involved a secret between father and son. Lea in turn feels betrayed when news reports reveal to her that Maryam’s son once broke the jaw of another teen who picked on him for being Muslim, and that Ali himself was briefly and wrongfully arrested years ago, in a post 9/11 roundup. Maryam didn’t share these facts with Lea because, in grief, they hadn’t seemed relevant. For Lea, such omissions poison her trust of Maryam and persuade her of the unthinkable – that she has poured out her heart to the mother of her son’s killer. Just as forcefully, tables turn. The police and the FBI confront Lea with discoveries they’ve made about her son – that he made deadly threats in the heat of quarreling with school bullies, that he posted a web-video of an angry diatribe. These could be read as just innocent postures of a teenager who is no more angry or aggressive than the next one – indeed no angrier than Maryam’s son, dealing with the same kinds of bullies, challenges, and peer- pressures. Such ambiguities once again plunge both women into identical grief. Neither can say whether their once promising friendship will survive. Maryam, learning all that her husband shielded from her, is forced to consider that she may not have known her own son. Lea is forced to wonder the same about her boy. How is that even possible? What do we know of our neighbors or of the people we love? Torn poses this question with powerful suspense, dramatic intensity and insight.

3 TORN Production History

The human dilemma dramatized in Torn has preoccupied writer Michael Richter ever since the birth of his son, in the months following 9/11. “I was living in New York, riding a cross- town bus, and imagined what – in retrospect – would have been a derivative movie about a group of people affected by a single disaster. Yet as I wrote it out over the course of several drafts, one pair of characters particularly haunted me – two mothers, seated side by side on an uncomfortable bench, bonding but not realizing that one of their sons had killed the other.” This idea lay dormant for several years while Richter moved to northern California with his wife and son, and got busy as a key executive behind the success of Facebook. Later when he returned to the premise, Richter focused afresh on the friendship of Maryam and Lea – restructuring the central drama so that each woman in turn comes to believe the other’s son could be guilty of the atrocity that has brought them together. He then showed what he was doing to writer Marc Posner as well as director Jeremiah Birnbaum, both of whom gave him valuable input and now share story credit. “Michael and I worked extra hard to keep the ‘FBI forensics’ aspect of the story to a bare minimum,” Birnbaum recalls, “because that stuff can take over if you’re not careful, and we were determined to stay close to what the characters are dealing with.” One unusual aspect of the story intrigued Richter, even as he was writing it: “Of the two women, only Lea is able to change. Maryam is a person who will not change no matter what happens. She lives the American Dream much more intensely and faithfully than any of her neighbors, even her husband Ali. Lea, on the other hand, is all about change.” She is after all the one who risks the first step of reaching out to Maryam after they’ve both lost their sons. She suffers the torment of turning against her friend when evidence indicates that Maryam’s son may have been her own son’s killer. It is Lea, notes Richter, who must let go of her outrage and her son’s ashes in the film’s final moments. Writer and director agreed they would have to work thriftily, outside the studio system, to protect the story’s nuanced character sense. Both wanted the raw honesty of indie film, but brought off with a cinematic beauty that transcends budget. Birnbaum credits cinematographer Sam Chase for achieving exactly this – a precise balance of immediacy and elegance in the imagery, from shot to shot. “Sam has such a wonderful command of the wide-format,” says

4 Birnbaum. Torn was shot digitally on the Red camera, with an eye toward filmic texture, and edited by Bruce Cannon, best known for his work with John Singleton. “Our goal was to tell the story in as few words as possible, and steer clear of any setup that smacks of ‘TV movie.’ Most of Torn is either shot wide or in close-up. We don’t do a lot of medium shots, or establishing shots. This protects our sense of raw emotion. At the same time, it keeps us from becoming either sentimental or melodramatic.” As Birnbaum strategized with Richter about how to finance the picture, they thought globally. One Turkish company expressed interest, Richter recalls, very much attracted by the theme of mutual tolerance between people of different religious faiths. They were ready to finance it generously, too. But there was a catch: “They saw it as a vehicle for one of their biggest stars and wanted to focus on one mother only.” This was precisely the kind of compromise the pair were determined to avoid, so they kept searching – and in time hooked up with executive producer Jawad Qureshi, head of a Pakistani media group, who was eager to make his first American feature and enthusiastic about the project as-is. Through Qureshi they were able to make a deal with Pakistan’s top star, Mahnoor Baloch, to play Maryam. Her presence in the film guaranteed a strong release in South Asia, and enough funds to get the picture made. Before she was firmly on board, Birnbaum flew to Pakistan for two days to meet with upwards of two dozen other prospects as well. “There are no casting agents in Karachi,” he says. “You show up and put the word out.” He was extremely happy that Baloch embraced the role in the end. “I wanted somebody who could act in a specifically American context. There in Pakistan, acting styles are very broad – the gestures are bigger, the aesthetics exaggerated. Mahnoor was up for the challenge of leaving all that behind for the more naturalistic American approach. She wanted to stretch herself.” Dendrie Taylor came to Birnbaum’s attention for the role of Lea through casting director Julia Kim – who also suggested Faran Tahir for Maryam’s husband, Ali. In both cases, he was surprised and pleased. In Taylor’s case, he was floored “by her exceptional access to her most jagged emotions,” which are visible from the moment Lea first notices Maryam, early in the film, and unforgettable near the end, when she views a video of her late son. “Dendrie’s a fantastic actress,” says Birnbaum. “She’s been doing great character bits in everything from The Fighter to ‘True Blood’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ but has never had a role that’s allowed her to do what she

5 had to do in Torn, which is to show a myriad of feelings at war within herself over a short period of time.” “I was very aligned with what Michael and Jeremiah were bringing forward,” says Taylor. “These women bond but the paranoia of the outside world and the men in their lives impinges. We can’t pretend things like this haven’t happened.” Indeed, Taylor, Richter, and Birnbaum all point out that the script was written well in advance of the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, and, owing to the long-march timing of low-budget production, filmed before the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut and this year’s bombings in Boston. Such tragedies are now – even more tragically – becoming commonplace to the public. Says Taylor: “For Lea and Maryam, ‘How do we solve the problem?’ is an even more important and profound question than solving the crime.” When casting Faran Tahir – whose credits include Star Trek, Iron Man and the current hit Elysium – Birnbaum was wary that he might be too physically imposing for a man as inward and defeated as Ali. “Faran’s an action star, with a model physique. Could he play this broken man, a man who is already damaged before the death of his son – a man whose dreams have already been shattered because he was wrongly accused and jailed after 9/11?” Tahir argued successfully that a man can be outwardly strong but shattered inside. His performance is proof of that. “Jeremiah and I were on the same page,” the actor recalls of his preparations with Birnbaum. “We made his inner burdens physical.” Tahir normally shaves his head – but to play Ali he let a faint layer of stubble fill in and blur his scalp. When selecting costumes, they selected them a size too big – to subtly underscore a sense of diminishment. Also: “Ali has been working just as hard as his wife,” says Tahir, “but she drives a fancier car. We have Ali driving an old Toyota.” His work so pleased the filmmakers that, as Birnbaum says, “We kept coming up with extra stuff for him to do.” Tahir meantime had never worked with Mahnoor Baloch before, but saw to it that they met early and often over the course of the four-week production: “Right from our first dinner together, we hit it off,” he says. “Our birthdays are a day apart, by a funny coincidence. As we were camped at the same hotel during shooting, we saw to it that we had one meal or at least coffee together every day – to better create that feeling of ‘unspoken words’ between us that an audience needs to sense is there in a couple.”

6 This emerges with particular power in one of the film’s opening scenes, a sweet bit of diversion in which Ali tenderly and seductively entices Maryam with a bit of kebab – “Taste it, and you will be transported to Karachi!” – mere moments before a newscast alerts them to the tragedy which has struck their son. This touch is not only loving, as Tahir concluded when preparing the scene but also foreshadows Ali’s homesickness for Pakistan, which has been growing in him after the false arrest he suffered in the wake of 9/11. It also drives a fatal wedge between himself and Maryam once their son is gone. “You don’t find your partner in grief,” says Tahir. “This is why the wife looks for a deep friendship outside of their marriage.” Taylor, in turn, clicked with veteran film star John Heard when he came aboard in the third week, in the role of the police detective who must grill both mothers and, at different points in the story, advise each of them that their sons are prime suspects in the bombing. “He and Dendrie would just go at each other,” says Birnbaum. “You were never 100 percent sure how they were going to play a scene from take to take. You only knew it would be real, whatever they gave you – that it is happening. John’s so strong and brings so much craft with him that he fit right in even though we had our own groove going.” Sharon Washington, who plays the unflinching and decidedly non-sympathetic FBI agent on the case, is a veteran actress and friend of Birnbaum’s, who says: “She’s so versatile that I only wish I could give her more to do in this role – but she has to be the heavy. Her character has a job to do, pure and simple.” For the other brief but all-important role of Lea’s estranged husband, Taylor had a strong suggestion that the filmmakers heeded: Patrick St. Esprit, who has a prominent role in the forthcoming sequel to Hunger Games. “Dendrie told us: ‘I’ve got this great husband,’” says Birnbaum. “Apparently, she and Patrick had played a married couple onstage a decade or so back and they felt extremely comfortable with each other.” This was vital, felt Taylor. “There was a jitterbug we’d danced in that play where Patrick had to tumble me over his head – and we came out of that experience with this great, sweet, very physical trust.” Shooting Torn had been very demanding because the actors had been doing so much in such a brief time. So when St. Esprit arrived for a day’s shooting, says Taylor, “It was a breath of fresh air. We were able to communicate quickly that Lea and her husband had this deep and complicated history.” The sweetness between them was essential, because Lea’s husband – for all of the gentle magnetism St. Esprit invests in the part – must also be the bearer of the ugliest fears,

7 bigotries, and unbridled ignorance in the film. As a passionately evangelical religious man, Lea’s husband is also tragically intolerant of anything un-Christian, be it his Muslim neighbors or his own son Eddie trick-or-treating on Halloween. “The theme of destructive religious fanaticism is ironically expressed by the guy who looks most Middle American,” says Richter. The actors embraced these dark themes with enthusiasm, though it was never easy. “Mahnoor, Dendrie, and Faran had to commit themselves to this horrible inner space,” says Birnbaum. “They each have kids. At the end of every day they were so thoroughly exhausted. They gave their all to these roles.” As both writer and producer, Richter was present throughout the shoot. He is particularly proud of how flexible he and Birnbaum remained as the movie’s shape evolved in response to what the actors were giving them: “Originally,” he says, “we shot a longer ‘first act.’ We lingered more over the grieving and bonding and the women’s process of becoming friends – but as we put the film together we discovered we didn’t need any of this material to put the story across. All the suffering and empathy is right there – in Dendrie’s eyes and Mahnoor’s.” Birnbaum agrees: “The old adage is true that you make a film three times: when you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. Our notion was to build the first part of the movie around the growing friendship, and climax that by having Lea release her son’s ashes at the cemetery where Maryam’s son is buried. We even shot the scene that way, and even though it was great and she gave a lovely speech, the moment itself felt ‘off’ in relation to the rest of the story – so we dropped it, and reworked the moment so that she can’t do it. Instead, she stores her son Eddie’s ashes under his bed until the final scene, when she can release him into the ocean.” For Taylor, these deleted “bonding” scenes were essential to her process of bringing Lea to life, even as she accepts that the story works better without them. “There was a sweet moment where we went sailing together and another where Maryam encourages me to speak to Eddie. This was in the original version, where I release his ashes in the cemetery. These were important for me and Mahnoor, because we’re creating a love story between friends.” Given the tight schedule, Taylor recalls with amusement, their first scene together was one of Lea and Maryam’s more intense quarrels. Thus, the bonding scenes thereafter became all the more important. As often happens, the story they were enacting received mysterious bits of validation. “An eerie thing happened the day we filmed at the cemetery,” says Taylor. “Two

8 mothers who lost their sons in gang shootings had met and become friends and were there that day visiting the graves.” Richter inadvertently discovered the back-story of these mothers when a well-meaning intern approached the pair to shoo them out of an impending shot. To his great relief, they were not offended. Quite the contrary: one had brought a little grandchild, the daughter of one of the dead young men, and she was wide-eyed with fascination by the moviemaking process. “We knew going in that we were making something true and necessary” says Taylor. “But here was proof.”

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9 MAHNOOR BALOCH Maryam Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Mahnoor Baloch grew up there, in St. Lawrence, Canada, and Dubai, where she was educated in private schools. She married at 16. She and her husband Hamid Siddiqui, still very much together, had known each other since childhood – their fathers were close friends – and have a grown daughter. Baloch took a college degree working with private instructors. Before deciding on an acting career, she thought seriously about becoming a psychiatrist. Her more creative talents beckoned, however, and since her early 20s she has made an exceptionally successful career in Pakistan as a model, TV, and film star. She is best known to her countrymen for the televised serial “Lahmay”, which she created, produces, stars in, and directs. Torn is her first American film. Her character Maryam lives – contentedly, at first – at a crossroads between cultures, much as Baloch herself does. “Love and respect are more important for me as an artist than money or fame,” she has said. “The good artists do only selective work.” When Birnbaum showed her Richter’s screenplay for Torn, she embraced it because of the riches of character presented and the relevance of the conflicts in which Maryam is embroiled. “A successful actor is always flooded with offers,” Baloch says. “But before I sign on the dotted line, I need to believe in the story. If the story interests me, I do it – otherwise I won’t budge no matter how much money I am offered.” She has lately taken up painting and drawing: “Not still lifes; I do mainly human figures. I would love to keep on with this. It’s very hard work, but paradoxically it relaxes me. I’m still a beginner, but, God willing, one of these days. I’ll have an exhibit.”

DENDRIE TAYLOR Lea She was one of the fiercely comic, memorably intense sisters in David O. Russell’s Oscar- nominated The Fighter. Later this year she’ll be Mrs. Walt Disney, opposite Tom Hanks as Walt, in the much-anticipated Saving Mr. Banks. Fans of “True Blood” know Taylor as Beverleen; followers of “Sons of Anarchy” know her as Luann Delaney. She has appeared on “The Ghost Whisperer,” “CSI: Miami,” “In Treatment” and dozens of other programs. We have seen her in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Sam Mendes’ Jarhead. Dendrie Taylor is, in short, one of the busiest actors in the business. Torn nevertheless asks more of her than any role she has ever played, this side of her work onstage – for between film and television assignments, Taylor stays busy in theatre. Of the three characters we get to know best, her Lea transforms the most deeply from one end of the film to the other. She not only suffers the grief, the loss that she

10 shares with her new friend Maryam, and the betrayal that both women feel when police suspicions focus on their sons – it is she who must most closely examine her own snap- judgments, her own impulse to condemn, and take the steps to make things right. “With each piece of material,” she says, “you ask yourself, how am I going to do my best? Torn is so charged. We actually filmed it before the most recent of the tragedies, such as the Boston bombing. What the film is dealing with has become so much a part of our conversation in the mass media. What Michael and Jeremiah have made here is very prescient.” In addition to Saving Mr. Banks, Taylor will soon be seen in Beyond the Heavens, Out of the Furnace, and Dawn Patrol.

FARAN TAHIR Ali He inspires Tony Stark to grow a conscience in Iron Man, commands a starship in the first chapter of the latest Star Trek franchise, and serves as a future American President in the current hit Elysium. In Torn, Faran Tahir is asked to do something simpler and deeper: take us inside the heart of a grieving father who has not only lost his son, but the place he sought to make for himself and his wife in the world. Born in Los Angeles as his Pakistani parents studied acting and directing at UCLA, Tahir is descended on both sides from theatrical and literary families. He was raised in Pakistan after his parents took him home to pursue their careers. (His father is Naeem Tahir, director of the Pakistani National Council of the Arts.) Tahir returned at age 17 to the United States, studied at UC Berkeley and Harvard, from which he holds a Masters in Theatre, and has since distinguished himself with prolific work in American television – “NYPD Blue,” “Alias,” “The West Wing,” “JAG,” “Monk,” “Cold Case,” “24,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and the reborn “Dallas” – and catching the eyes of (among others) the Disneys, who cast him in their live-action Jungle Book in 1994, and director Mike Nichols, who in 2007 cast him as Brigadier Rashid opposite Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson’s War. In addition to Torn and Elysium, Tahir will be seen later this year in the action-horror fantasy Jinn.

JOHN HEARD Inspector Kalkowitz Ever since he first played the romantic lead in Chilly Scenes of Winter, costarred as Jack Kerouac (opposite Nick Nolte’s Neal Cassady) in Heart Beat, and won critical raves in the title role of Cutter’s Way, John Heard has been acknowledged as one of the finest actors of his generation. He has worked steadily with top-flight directors (Ivan Passer, Martin Scorsese, Paul

11 Schrader, Robert Redford, Brian DePalma, to name but a few) in parts large and small. In Torn, Heard brings every ounce of his craft and gravitas to Inspector Kalkowitz, the local detective whose grim duty it is to keep Maryam and Lea apprised of the suspicions that have descended on their sons. Very shortly, Heard will be seen in Snake and Mongoose, opposite Noah Wyle and Tim Blake Nelson.

PATRICK ST. ESPRIT, Charles Pelletier (Lea’s husband) A versatile actor of the stage and screen, Patrick St. Esprit’s credits include a prominent role in the forthcoming Hunger Games: Catching Fire as Romulus Thread – head peacekeeper of District 12. In Torn, he plays Lea’s soft-spoken but – painfully, for her – intensely judgmental ex- husband. Prior to this, St. Esprit has been best known for his television work: “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” “JAG,” “Crossing Jordan,” “Sons of Anarchy.” In the latter, he works with Dendrie Taylor, with whom he also costarred as husband and wife in a play, years ago – a creative bit of “common past” that lends a certain honest, intimate edge to their work together here. He will soon be seen in the films Draft Day and Liberty.

SHARON WASHINGTON, FBI Agent Reese Hers is the grimmest, most inflexible role in Torn. Washington plays the FBI agent who must – if she is to do her job – show no charity to the mothers she is interrogating as she gets to the bottom of the mystery over whether their sons were involved in the bombing that drives the story. Even so, as director Birnbaum notes, “Sharon does a superb job of revealing layers within this character. I only wish I could give her more to do.” Washington’s other film credits are an impressive array that includes: Die Hard: With a Vengeance; Michael Clayton; and School of Rock.

MICHAEL RICHTER, writer-producer Up to now, he has made his most public mark as a leading player at Facebook, but Torn is the result of creative ambitions that Michael Richter has pursued seriously from an early age. Miami-born, he grew up in the northeast – primarily New York – balancing his law studies by both acting in and directing plays in college and law school. Above all, he has been dedicated to writing, developing his craft as he flourished over the past two decades as an entertainment lawyer, working with such corporate clients as eBay, Sony Pictures, and top talents like writer

12 Stephen King. The concerns driving Torn grew out of his apprehensions as the father of a young son in the wake of 9/11. He has written and sold other scripts in the years since, but Torn is the first to be produced and its fortunes developed in more recent years parallel to Richter’s involvement with Facebook, where his specialties – privacy, copyright law, and first amendment issues – have made him that thriving company’s Chief Privacy Officer (Products). After moving from New York to the Bay Area as part of this leap, Richter met, worked with, and became friends with film producer and educator Jeremiah Birnbaum, who makes his directorial debut with Torn.

JEREMIAH BIRNBAUM, director-producer As he is not only a working film producer but founder and president of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking, whose students and faculty were vital to the making of Torn, Birnbaum has cleverly fused his resources to serve his first major work as a director. New York- born, educated at Wesleyan University and the Tisch School of the Arts, he has produced close to a dozen independent films since forming Fog City Pictures seven years ago – among them Rob Nilsson’s Presque Isle and James Savoca’s About June. And though he shares a co-directing credit with Al Attles III on an 2005 indie-comedy So Fresh, So Clean, Birnbaum regards Torn as his first fully-fledged work as a director. With its subtle attention to the state of the present world and the myriad ways people are divided not only against one another but divided within and against themselves, Michael Richter’s Torn screenplay spoke to the most personal things Birnbaum hopes to express in all of his work, whether as a storyteller or a teacher.

13 TORN

Directed by Jeremiah Birnbaum

Screenplay by Michael Richter

Story by Michael Richter Jeremiah Birnbaum & Marc Posner

Executive Producer Jawad Qureshi

Principal Cast Mahnoor Baloch … Maryam Dendrie Taylor … Lea Faran Tahir … Ali

John Heard …. Inspector Kalkowitz Sharon Washington … FBI Agent Reese Patrick St. Esprit … Charles Pelletier Jordon Parrott … Eddie Pelletier Sagar Parekh … Walter Munsif

Supporting Cast Shruti Terawi … Nausheen Vivek Tatineni … Jawad Joe Hakik … Imam Abou Nabih Gregory Freiberg … Chris Mason Michael Ray Wisely … Tim Vilma Vitanza … Eleanor Craig Marker … Mall Security Guard Karen Kahn … District Attorney Jim Hechim … Pool Player Karl Antony … Officer Williams Brian Danker … FBI Agent Brian Degan Scott … Bomb Squad Charles Post … Skater Punk Robert George Nelson ... Police Captain Celik Kayalar … Imam Mahmoud Jeffrey Weissman … Mr. Angr Robert Parnell … Press Reporter Bruce Blau … Mortician

14 Vint Carmona … Neighbor Jeremiah Peartree … Bartender Jacob Richter … Boy in Mall TV Announcer … Judi Barton Amee McCrary Dana Dowell … Female Cops Janelle Marie Maaika Westen … TV Reporters

Director of Photography Sam Chase

Editor Bruce Cannon

Casting Julia Kim

Line Producer Louise Lovegrove

Production Designer Aiyana Trotter

Original Music David Reid Derek Bermel

Producers Michael Richter James Burke Jeremiah Birnbaum

Co Producers George Manatos Maria Victoria Ponce Sam Chase

Consulting Producer Cynthi Stefenoni

Associate Producers Basil Yaqub Shoieb Yunus

Art Director Garrett Lowe

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Costume Design Tamara Chandler

Supervising Sound Editor David F. Van Slyke

Post Production Supervisor Bill Newcomb

Story Consultant Rob Nilsson

1st Assistant Director Scott Larkin

2nd Assistant Directors Keren Hantman Joshua Manes

Script Supervisor Maria Bernal-Silva

Key Makeup Artist Antoinette Yoka

Assistant Makeup Artists Nora Ponce-Calhoun Dottie Lux Julie Chow Savannah Schmidt

Wardrobe Assistant Courtney Lockwood

Assistant Art Director David Keenan

Set Decorator Lisa Ryers

Property Master Harmony Nichol

Graphics Designer Chris Mosson

1st Assistant Camera

16 Jeremy Wong

2nd Assistant Camera Khen Shomron Sean Sullivan Guillermo Tunon Carla Judson Chris Silva

Location Manager George Manatos

Assistant Location Manager Adi Ray

Sound Mixer Nikolas Zasimczuk

Assistant Sound Mixer Valerie Blue Bird Jernigan

Boom Operator Brian Rosado

Utility Sound Ben Greenwood

Gaffer Gordon McIver

Best Boy Electric Phil Lujan

Key Grip Chris Galdes

Grips Alex Fletcher Ryan Andersen Michael Samida Patrick Eggert Khen Shomron Lisa Ryers Susan Downs Garry Bowden Ryan Thomas

Additional Gaffers

17 Ernie Kunze Paciano Triunfo

Key Production Assistant Jaclyn Gross

Production Assistants Tynan Peterson Rebecca Grace

Local Casting Nancy Hayes

Extras Casting Susan Downs Mike Fatum

Crew Manager Achim Voermanek

Production Executives Stephen Kopels Joe Armel

Production Accountant Tammy Miller

Equipment Manager Jesse Gonzales

Catering Marcella Dirks Lisa Ahmad / Mirchi Cafe

Picture Cars Norcal Movie Cars Derek W. Adam

Assistant Editor George Manatos

Editorial Technicians Kirk Goldberg Carla Judson

Visual Effects Daniel DeBiasi Duy Nguyen

18 Edouard Nammour

Post Production Sound Services Slick Sounds

Sound Effects Editor David Aaron Brun

Dialogue ADR Editor Michael Szakmeister Shaun Berdick

Rerecording Mixers David F. Van Slyke Michael Szakmeister David Aaron Brun

Group ADR Director Adam Lazarre-White

Group ADR Mac Adee Chris Jones Adam Lazarre-White Morgana Wise

Color Correction / Conform Big Wheel FX

Colorist Daniel DeBiasi

Tape Mastering Devlin Video International

Music Supervisor Glenn Firstenberg

Music Consultant Brian Keane

Editorial Services Digital Difference Kevin Hearst

Stock Footage Mike Nester / Nester Video Brad Mack / First in Video

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Marketing Services Rosetta Marketing Group

Produced in Collaboration with the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking

Song Hot Tears Written and performed by Sarabeth Tucek

Filmed entirely on location in Northern California, USA

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