Jim Rogal, Executive Producer
James C. Rogal is an award-winning Executive Producer who has spent more than 20 years in the production business. He currently owns and operates Century Communications, LLC, an independent communications consulting firm. Prior to forming Century Communications, Mr. Rogal spent 12 years in senior management positions at WQED, the public television station in Pittsburgh, PA, where he supervised the production of programs and series for national broadcast on PBS and cable, as well as numerous client productions.
Mr. Rogal’s PBS credits include Within These Walls: A Visit to the White House, American Treasures of the Library of Congress, and Life by the Numbers. Other projects include Space Warriors for A&E and Everyday Science for National Public Radio.
Before joining WQED, Mr. Rogal was the East Coast Director of Production and Programming for YOU-TV, a national cable health network; Supervising Producer for Major League Baseball Productions in New York; and a news reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Associated Press Chicago bureau.
Mr. Rogal’s awards include several national and regional Emmys, an International Film and TV Festival Silver Award, a Gold Telly Award, and a Gold Cindy Award. Mr. Rogal earned an MA in Journalism from Northwestern University and a BS in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis.
Lori Cardille, Executive Producer
Lori Cardille is a professional artist with a BFA in Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. After more than a decade as a professional actress in New York, Lori returned to her native Pittsburgh and published I'm Gonna Tell, a book of essays and artwork. Her photography and installation art have appeared in galleries around Pittsburgh. She is a member of Pittsburgh Filmmakers.
Randy Kovitz, Writer, Director, Sound Designer, Editor
Randy Kovitz started directing for the camera while fronting his Los Angeles spoken word band Lies Like Truth. One of the resulting videos, The Specials, played at a number of film festivals, including the Sonoma Valley Film Festival and The Director’s Cut in N.Y.C.
Since Lightweight, he has directed 17 Days, an interactive video for Carnegie-Mellon University’s Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and directed and edited a video for the CMU School of Drama’s actors' showcases in NY and LA.
While working as an actor in Los Angeles, Randy had several screenplays optioned; he has also worked as a writer-for-hire. and directed stage productions and fights scenes for film stage and TV. He has several new scripts in development.
Deborah Hosking, Writer, Production Designer, Editor, Marketing Director
Deborah began her career as a painter, graphic designer and writer. She now works in digital photography and video. Her work includes the video installations Second Nature, Memento, and Memento II (HK), which was installed at the Mattress Factory Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and production design for the short film The Specials. Other video work has been shown at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the 2 Minute Film Festival, Acid Rain Productions on Manhattan Neighborhood Cable, and Pittsburgh Filmmakers' annual Film Kitchen Contest
Deborah has also been an exhibiting artist for many years, showing in New York, Hong Kong, Europe, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Adrienne Wehr, Producer
Award winning producer/performer Adrienne Wehr is a force in independent filmmaking outside of the traditional Hollywood mold. She produced the critically acclaimed indie feature The Bread, My Sweet (www.thebreadmysweet.tv) which remains in successful worldwide distribution. She is also involved with the ongoing development of two new features: Dear Zoe—an adaptation of the Philip Beard novel—with Zin Haze Productions, and The Loon, a Missus & Trixie Film.
For more than a decade, Adrienne was Associate Producer and a writer for the Emmy award winning children’s television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Adrienne was behind the winning strategy guiding The Bread, My Sweet through its celebrated festival season onto its prosperous distribution. She is a film consultant and lecturer on independent filmmaking. She has also produced and art directed award-winning commercials and short films that have screened worldwide, and served as the lead film/media grant panelist for the Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative.
Adrienne produced & performed in live theatre productions for La Mama ETC in New York City and was the founding producer/host of the long-lived theatrical cabaret The Dark Night Series for City Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA. She served as Chair/Spokesperson for the Pittsburgh Film and Media Alliance, was a longtime board member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and National AFTRA Convention delegate, and was a Councilor for the Screen Actor’s Guild’s (SAG) Philadelphia Branch.
Adrienne has a Bachelor of Arts in Writing/Literature with a minor in Performing and Visual Arts from Denison University. She is an equity owner and co-founder of Missus & Trixie Films LLC, and equity owner of who knew productions, LLC.
Mark Knobil, Photographer
Mark Brings his eclectic experience to the project via a career spent primarily shooting documentary projects for broadcast on PBS and National Geographic Television. Shooting locations have included Sulawesi, Cameroon, Seczwan, Saigon, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Tanzania, and Dayton Ohio.
Doing independent dramatic projects is a special treat. The Pittsburgh fave The Bread My Sweet and Mombies from the Neighborhood Narratives project, come to mind. Bringing the spontaneity and directness of documentary photography to the creative minds behind a dramatic production is what Mark is currently most interested in exploring.
Janet Smith, Production Manager
Janet Smith began her film and video production career at public television station WQED in Pittsburgh. After four years working on nationally broadcast television documentaries for WQED, she embarked on a freelance career that found her working with an eclectic list of television and documentary production companies, including Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the BBC, and WGBH/NOVA. As a producer and production manager for many of these projects, Ms. Smith has co-ordinated the efforts of large teams of diverse people, often working in extremely challenging locations, toward the achievement of mutual goals.
In recent years, Ms. Smith has expanded her repertoire, serving as Producer on a number of independent films. She was a producer for the feature documentary, My Tale of Two Cities as well as the short narrative films Lift and Tommy and Me (a selection for the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Narratives project). In 2008 she took the big plunge and worked as Production Secretary for the feature film The Road, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortensen. She has built on this experience with more work producing independent shorts, such as Anywhere But Here, one of the winners of the Steeltown Film Factory script writing competition.
When not working on longer-term projects, Ms. Smith works for a varied selection of freelance clients in both the corporate and non-profit arenas. In between it all, she is raising two teenagers, her most challenging production effort to date.
Heide Waldbaum, Line Producer (preproduction)
Heide Waldbaum has been working in Feature Film Production for over thirteen years. Most recently as the Virtual Production Manager on Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time, as well as the largest-budget feature to come out of Hollywood. She was an integral part of the 2010 Oscar winning teams for both Visual Effects and Art Direction for Avatar. She previously worked on such Hollywood blockbusters as Stuart Little, Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3. Over the years she has served in multiple capacities as a Production and Art Department Coordinator, Graphic Artist and Assistant Art Director, Visual Effects and Post Production Coordinator, Special Effects Producer and Pre-Visualization Supervisor. She was also part of the 2004 Oscar winning Visual & Special Effects team for Spider-man 2.
Prior to her production days, she worked as an associate producer and development executive for two independent film companies. Heide graduated from Westminster College in Pennsylvania with a degree in Writing & Theater and then studied Film, Television and Screenwriting at UCLA. Her additional film credits include The Parent Trap, Dreamcatcher, Pluto Nash and Blue Streak. She has worked with acclaimed award-winning directors such as James Cameron, Sam Raimi, Lawrence Kasdan and Nancy Meyers.
Jen Sturm, Costume Designer
Jen is a graduate from Carnegie Mellon University with an MFA in Costume Design. She was the recipient of the Elizabeth Schrader Kimberly award for Costume Design, and her work for Heart of a Dog was seen at the 2011 Prague Quadrennials student exhibition.
Kristen Schaeffer, Post-production Supervisor
Kristen Lauth Shaeffer is a filmmaker, media artist and educator. She was co-creator and executive producer of Greetings from Pittsburgh: Neighborhood Narratives, for which she received grants from The Sprout Fund's Community Connections, The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation. Other projects include a short documentary about pierogies, and Mercury in Tuna, a short narrative that she wrote and directed.
Danielle Laubach, Art Director
Danielle Laubach made her film debut as the Art Director for Lightweight. Since then she has production designed a number of projects, including the features New York Heartbeat and Homemakers and the short films Flour Baby and Lasting Sorrow, as well as several episodes of the web series Dog Bytes and the interactive educational film 17 Days. Her other work includes theatrical set designs for Carnegie Mellon's Richard III, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me and The Pittsburgh Opera's Rinaldo. She earned an MFA in Scenic Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
Mitchell Barutha, Location Manager
Mitchell Barutha started doing photography in the mid-seventies in Boston, working his way from the darkroom to the studio at a major department store. This led him to New York in the eighties where he worked on one of the largest photo documentations of the city, worked as Annie Leibovitz's printer during her early Vanity Fair days, and eventually had his own studio where he did advertising photography. After the birth of his daughter, Mitchell and his wife Linda moved to Pittsburgh and have been here ever since. Mitchell has done advertising, commercial, editorial and portrait photography here in Pittsburgh. Mitchell spent an entire year documenting Kennywood and had a show of his hand-colored photos at the John Stobart Galleries, but most people know him for his Shady Ave magazine covers over the last twelve years. Mitchell started doing location scouting and managing several years ago and has been busy since, now having worked on many movies and local commercials. "Working on Lightweight has been a pleasure and I have enjoyed meeting and working with the entire cast and crew."
Diane Melchitzky, Prop Master
Brooke Schooles, Web Designer, Media Coordinator
