Greg is a filmmaker from New York City who makes documentary films about music, art and culture. He is the founder of the production house Sunset People and currently directs and produces the fine art doc series James Cohan Features. Also a veteran DJ of eclectic tastes, he is an ever curious student of music. The Sound of Toys grew out his interest in how an object that’s hidden in plain sight can have a profound impact and be a vehicle of cultural exploration.
View WebsiteAdam Horovitz, better known as Ad-Rock or King Ad-Rock, is an American musician, songwriter, guitarist, rapper, producer, and actor. He is best known as a member of the pioneering hip hop group, Beastie Boys.
In addition to his work with Beastie Boys, Horovitz has released music with a side-project called BS 2000 and has produced albums for Teriyaki Boyz and Northern State. He has created remixes for artists such as Fatboy Slim, Le Tigre, Lady Sovereign, Beck & M.I.A., often using the name 41 Small Stars.
He has composed film scores for the documentaries Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010), No No: A Dockumentary (2014), and the fictional narrative film The Truth About Lies (2015).
Adam has employed Casio keyboards in music throughout his career and brings his unique interpretation of the instrument to the score of The Sound of Toys.
View WebsiteJenni Morello is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer focused on creating films that contribute to deepening social justice conversations. She received critical acclaim for her work in Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s One of Us, (Toronto Int’l Film Festival, 2017) currently on Netflix. Most recently she shot Made in Boise (PBS 2019). She shot and directed Sesame Street’s Child Resiliency series, which received an Emmy for children’s programming.
As a contributing cinematographer, she has worked on award-winning films Half the Sky:Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, The Fourth Estate, Ask Dr. Ruth, and most recently Rebuilding Paradise. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco in the field of public health, she holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in social documentary film. She was named to DOC NYC's inaugural 40 under 40 list and is a 2019 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee.
View WebsiteAs executive Director and owner of Goldcrest Films and Saboteur Media, Nick Quested has built one of the premiere documentary brands in the world, winning two Emmys and getting an Oscar nomination for his work. Nick has served as a producer on over 35 films including Sebastian Junger's The Last Patrol, Korengal, the PGA and twice Emmy nominated Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, and the Oscar nominated Restrepo. Nick's credits also include Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives, Rubble Kings, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers, Stolen Seas, The List, Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, and Doin' It In the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC.
Prior to focusing his attention on producing, Nick was an award winning director with over 100 music videos and commercials to his credit, working with world renowned artists such as Common, Dr. Dre, Nas, EPMD, Red Man, Guru, Fat Joe, Dru Hill, Mobb Deep, P. Diddy, Master P, Three 6 Mafia, Lil' Romeo, Trick Daddy, Trina, Carl Thomas, T.I., Brandy, Ray J and Shaq, and with brands such as Sprite, And1, Nike, Lexus and Land Rover.
Recently Nick has worked with National Geographic on directing two documentaries: Hell On Earth (2017), a film about the conflict in Syria and Iraq and Blood on the Wall (2020), alongside Award-nominated director Sebastian Junger, which explores the depths of corruption plaguing Mexico and Central America and the policies of the past that have made it impossible for everyday people to find justice.
View WebsiteDubbed the “hero hip-hop needed,” veteran music journalist, hip-hop curator, Queens-native, filmmaker, and musician Sacha Jenkins has narrated hip-hop poetics for three decades. As a teenager coming of age in the throes of hip-hop, Jenkins published his first magazine, Graphic Scenes & X-Plicit Language, a zine about graffiti. By age 20, he co-found Beat Down, the first ever hip-hop newspaper. Jenkins went on to spend several years at Vibe magazine, where he served as both Staff Writer and Music Editor.
In 1994, Jenkins co-found the music journal ego trip, who would go on to produce two books: ego trip’s Book of Rap Lists (1999) and ego trip’s Big Book of Racism (2002). In 2000, Jenkins’ unmatched knowledge of New York City’s graffiti culture awarded him a fellowship to the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Jenkins has built a reputation as a creative working as a television and film producer; he served as both a Creative Consultant and Writer on Cartoon Network’s The Boondocks, Executive Producer on Vh1’s The White Rapper Show (2007), Miss Rap Supreme (2008), and 50 Cent: The Money and the Power (2008). In 2012, Jenkins joined Mass Appeal as Chief Creative Officer. His first feature-length documentary, Fresh Dressed (which tells the tale of hip hop fashion), premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Jenkins would go on to direct Burn Motherfucker, Burn! (2017) and Word Is Bond (2018), both of which premiered on Showtime.
Jenkins served as Executive Producer on the Netflix series Rapture (2018), an eight-part doc series on a broad range of artists from T.I. and Rhapsody to Nas and Dave East (the latter episode which he directed). At the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Jenkins premiered Railroad Ties, a short film that tackles the intersection between the Underground Railroad movement that liberated African Americans during slavery and latter-day descendants on a mission to better understand who came before them.
A recent project Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men—a four-part doc series directed by Jenkins—chronicles 25 years of the seminal group’s career, unpacking all the obstacles that the nine Black men in the group had to leap over during their rise. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, and aired on Showtime in 2019. Jenkins is also a musician, whose latest band, The 1865, has been heralded by legendary guitarist and Living Colour founder Vernon Reid as “the only band that matters. Right now."
Most recently, Sacha held the world premiere of his latest film BITCHIN’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York and will be releasing it on Showtime summer 2021.
View WebsiteAlan Butler is an artist based in Dublin, Ireland. He produces moving image, photography and sculpture. His work explores material and philosophical ideas about how imagery and meaning function in technologically mediated realities. Alan's work is in the collections of IMMA - the Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Office of Public Works, Ireland, The Arts Council of Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin. He is represented by Green On Red Gallery, Ireland. He is a member of the collective ANNEX who represented Ireland at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2020.
Mark Malazarte is an art director, product designer, and front-end developer residing in historical Harlem, New York City. He was previously a volunteer at the Maysles Documentary Center and Maysles Education Center where he met Greg Poole while taking film classes under the roof of legendary documentary filmmaker Al Maysles.
Mark enjoys shooting street phogoraphy with his Epson RD-1s as well as video with a Sony a6500. Currently he is a Senior Experience Designer at R/GA.
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