Film Task Force Members

Shellea Allen is the Executive Director of SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild- American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) in the Pacific Northwest. SAG-AFTRA is the labor union that represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals. SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform America and the world. SAG-AFTRA member's work together to secure the strongest protections for media artists into the 21st century and beyond. Shellea enjoys spending time in the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest skiing, scuba diving, and surfing. 

Ashley Ball is an artist at heart and advertiser by trade. As Senior Producer at the purpose-driven marketing agency, C+C, Ashley brings 10 years of advertising experience to clients that are making a positive impact in the world - encouraging the use of public transportation, recycling, promoting equitable community college admissions, financial education, and mental health services. As the daughter of a first generation immigrant family and a born and raised Seattleite, she hopes to increase access, opportunity, and education for underrepresented communities in the film industry as well as carefully preserve and grow the Seattle creative community. 

Co-Founder and CEO of Clatter&Din, Inc., Mr. Barnes ran his company for 26 years. He is currently Director of Operations, Formosa Interactive, who acquired Clatter&Din in October 2020. Early in his career, Peter produced over 50 albums, often serving as session drummer, engineer and producer. As general manager of one of west coast's top music production facilities, The Music Source, he worked with such clients as The Olympics, NBC Sports, Ford and Boeing. In 1994, Peter co-founded Clatter&Din, Seattle's premier post-production facility. Among his many career awards, Mr. Barnes was honored with an Emmy for his team's dialog recording work (ADR) on the hit CBS television series "Northern Exposure" and with a Telly for his music composition for the launch of the Seattle's Best Coffee Company. Working with such diverse clients as Pearl Jam, Frank Sinatra and Barney, while surviving literally hundreds of bad corporate videos, rock wannabes and venture capitalists, Mr. Barnes has a vast history of experience under his belt.

Beth has been with SIFF since 2003, and is responsible for managing the artistic vision of SIFF, including all aspects of film programming, the staff of film programmers, the 25 day Film Festival, SIFF Cinema's 5 year-round screens, and the SIFF Education team. She secured SIFF's status as an Academy Award® qualifying festival for short film in 2008. Before starting at SIFF in 2003, Beth worked with the Sydney Film Festival, as a programming assistant. In addition to her daily work in programming, Beth has served on juries and panels in Palm Springs, Cleveland, Vancouver BC and Berlin, Germany. 

Virginia Bogert has directed, written, edited and produced award-winning media for three decades from features, shorts, and commercials, to corporate, documentaries and television. Her company Laughing Dog Pictures LLC., focuses on human rights issues and the Arts. Her many credits include documentaries for Public Television: Pike Place Market: Soul of a City, which garnered six Emmys and 3 Tellys; Healing a Soldier's Heart, The Hands that Feed Us; and programs for MoPop, as Director of Film & Media. Her romantic comedy The Delivery, a SIFF Fly Film, won Best Short at Port Townsend Film Festival. Tootie Pie, a dramatic short, premiered at Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), screened at Langston Hughes Center, and is broadcast on PBS. Virginia was a SIFF juror and producer for SIFF's Fly Films. She has created countless Microsoft case studies, documentaries for National Endowment for the Arts (American Masterworks), videos for MTV, The Today Show, and the Food Channel. Her United Nations PSA was distributed world-wide. Virginia holds a BA in English, an MS in Media Ecology from NYU and Certification in Educational TV from SUNY. She's President Emerita of Women in Film Seattle, a member since 1990, and is co-founder and director of the woman-centric Post Alley Film Festival. Virginia also teaches documentary filmmaking and is advisor to University of Washington and Seattle Film Institute. 

Seattle-based filmmaker and screenwriter, Rimone Brandom attended the Film & Video Program that was once offered at the Seattle Central College, having graduated in 2010. In 2016 Rimone received a Certificate in Screenwriting from the University of Washington. Currently he is once again attending a class at the University of Washington, to receive a Certificate in Film Production. Rimone directed the documentary Eaglestaff in 2014, released on Youtube and is often used in Seattle Public Schools as an example of how Native American curriculum can be adopted in schools where it has yet to appear. 

As a producer and partner at SHEP Films, Brice Budke produced the award-winning feature film Prospect, which was filmed in Washington State and debuted at SXSW. Brice regularly produces commercials with Microsoft, Amazon, the Seattle Seahawks and other great companies. His production design and immersive install company, The TAKA Collective, handles all the prop, set and graphic design needs for SHEP's projects. Brice Budke is a third-generation Pacific Northwesterner, lives in Seattle and grew up on the Eastside.  

Sarah Crowe has been producing documentaries, narratives, and commercials for nearly 15 years. She is presently a Senior Producer at Amazon working primarily on brand advertising. When not at Amazon, Sarah spends her time creating documentaries and supporting independent film in Washington, such as Lane 1974 (directed by SJ Chiro), Worst Laid Plans (directed by Mark Jones and Nesib Shamah), and is the Executive Producer on Potato Dreams of America (directed by Wes Hurley). She produced Welcome to Doe Bay (directed by Nesib Shamah and Dan Thornton), an Emmy-nominated documentary that premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2102. Sarah's directorial debut is an international award-winning feature documentary Dyna Does Dressage that premiered at the Prescott Film Festival in 2107. 

Dave Drummond is a film location manager based out of Seattle.  He has worked on a number of motion picture and television projects that have filmed in the state of Washington. Dave's recent work includes the TV shows "Grey's Anatomy," "Station 19," and "Twin Peaks: The Return," the films "East of the Mountains" and "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," and a variety of locally-made corporate and commercial spots.  He also speaks about Seattle's rich film history at the SIFF Education Center.

Abie Ekenezar is an actress, singer and filmmaker living in Seattle, WA with an extensive background resume and has been in the entertainment industry professionally with IMDB credits since September 2013.  Abie came on board with the agency Big Fish Northwest to work with the next generation of professional TV and Film professionals on the show Strowlers which is a fantasy film project released by Zombie Orpheus Entertainment. Abie has been involved with such other projects as Grimm, Man In The High Castle, Librarians, Portlandia, JourneyQuest and even Z-Nation, filmed in Spokane, Wa along with having a multiple of undisclosed future projects filmed now and the rest of 2020

Maria Gargiulo is an Emmy award winning writer-director-producer. Her work has appeared on PBS, Fox, CBS and international film festivals  A graduate of the American Film Institute and Stanford University, she was one of the first Nicholl Screenwriting Fellows.  Her narrative awards include LA's TVFest Best Drama (The Collectors) and the USA Festival Best Short (Got 2 Come Up). Although she started her career as a tv commercial producer, she segued into documentary production exploring minority communities in Full Circle, (Native Americans) and Garments for One Another, (Muslim Americans).  She has written for the Discovery Channel, directed for Fox's America's Most Wanted and been a PBS series producer (The Meaning of Food). As an Artist in Residence, Gargiulo has taught teens in rural schools and youth prisons.

Vivian Hua (華婷婷) is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer. As the Executive Director of Northwest Film Forum in Seattle and Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary arts publication, REDEFINE, much of her work unifies her metaphysical interests with her belief that art can positively transform the self and society. In 2018, she released her narrative short film, Searching Skies-which touches on the controversial topic of Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States-and in 2020, she will begin production on a comedic Asian-American series entitled Reckless Spirits. She is passionate about researching efforts to preserve cultural space and finding ways to covertly and overtly disrupt oppressive structures. 

Susan LaSalle is a producer and a Directors Guild of America Unit Production Manager and Senior Producer at agency Kully Struble. Over the years her work as a commercial producer has won Telly's, Addy's, and Davey awards.  Highlights of her career include the Academy Award winning documentary Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Your Environment, It's Your Choice: The Facts about Smoking (Discovery Channel), Seattle International Film Festival's Golden Space Needle Shorts Award winner Full Disclosure (iTunes) and director Virginia Bogert's short film Tootie Pie which has aired annually on MLK Day (KCTS/PBS). Susan produced Mark Titus' feature documentary THE BREACH, about the plight of wild salmon which screens globally and won Best Foreign Documentary at Galway Film Fleadh in Ireland and a Top Ten Film at Palm Springs International Film Festival. Susan has produced and managed three feature narrative films: ALL I WANT IS CHRISTMAS (FoxTV), THE 3 TAILS: A Mermaid Adventure (Netflix) and THE GENDER CARD FLIPPED (Showtime).  In 2019 Susan was Unit Production Manager on Bao Quoc Tran's feature film THE PAPER TIGERS. Susan is a graduate of The Evergreen State College, a past board member of Women In Film - Seattle, a former volunteer for Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), and was a longtime board member and board chair of Corporate Accountability International, an organization that works to protect human rights, public health, and the environment from corporate greed and abuse.  

Lacey Leavitt is one of the most successful filmmakers from the Pacific NW, and the winner of the 2017 Seattle Mayor's Award for Achievement in Film. She was a Sheila C. Johnson Sundance Creative Producing Lab fellow at the highly competitive and prestigious Sundance Institute. Her specialty is working with new and independent cinematic voices and her film and television producing credits include Lynn Shelton's Outside In (Toronto Int'l Film Festival), Touchy Feely (Sundance), and Laggies (Sundance), Megan Griffiths' Sadie (SXSW), The Off Hours (Sundance), Lucky Them (TIFF), Todd Rohal's The Catechism Cataclysm (Sundance), The Hunky Boys Go Ding-Dong (adult swim), and M.O.P.Z. (adult swim), and Colin Trevorrow's (director of Jurassic World) first feature Safety Not Guaranteed (Sundance). Lacey has been working in the cinematic XR space for the last two years, producing the VR films Arcadia Flats (dir. Joe Jacobs), Eagle Bone (dir. Tracy Rector, TIFF), and Potato Dreams (dir. Wes Hurley, AFI Fest). She was also a producer of the Potato Dreams' "flat" companion Little Potato, which won the Best Short Documentary Award at SXSW '17. Lacey graduated with distinction from the University of Washington with a degree in Cinema Studies, was a board member of the innovative Seattle food/theater company Cafe Nordo during their capital campaign. 

Born and raised in Seattle, he's the Owner of Chameleon Creative Services and has spent most of his career in the sound field. More recently he goes back and forth between sound and camera. Credits include Grey's Anatomy, 21 and Over, World's Greatest Dad and an Emmy for Bill Nye The Science Guy. 

Melissa Purcell is the Northern Business Agent of the I.A.T.S.E. Local 488, Studio Mechanics of the Pacific Northwest. These are the technicians and artist's that work as freelance crew on film, television, commercial and corporate content. In the mid 1990's she served on the Executive Board of Women In Film Seattle. In 2006, she was asked to help bring Labor on board in the forming of a new state tax incentives program. Working in partnership with the stakeholders involved, the program was passed through state legislation and was signed by then Governor Christine Gregoire, which became Washington Filmworks. She currently sits on the Seattle Film Task Force within the Seattle Office of Film and Music, as well as on Washington Filmworks' Film Leadership Committee (FLC) and the WA State Labor Council's (WSLC) Transportation and Economic Development Committee. She is a prop master by trade in the commercial advertising, television and feature film industry and occasionally works as a production designer on corporate and commercial content. Her credits as a Prop Master, include such films as Rushmore, Forces of Nature, The Details, Nightjohn, and Smoke Signals to name just a few.  She has worked with well-known directors such as Martha Coolidge, Wes Anderson, Charles Burnett, Bronwen Hughs, Chris Eyre, and Curtis Hanson. She is a strong proponent of social justice and worker's rights, and lives in South Seattle with her husband, a director of photography, and their two teenaged children. 

Greg recently concluded his third 3-year term as President of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) local 488.  He is also a Governor-appointed board member of Washington Filmworks, an organization devoted to economic development and job creation in the motion picture industry. In January 2017, he and Collen Newberry started a grip and lighting equipment rental company called Elevation Grip. Greg is a lifelong resident of Washington State and a graduate of the University of Washington.  He enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter at their home in University Place or outdoors camping and boating in the Pacific Northwest. 

Maggie Stenson is an actor and member of SAG-AFTRA and Actor's Equity Association. She served on the legacy SAG Board from 2004 until merger with AFTRA, and now serves on the local SAG-AFTRA board, and as a delegate to the four national conventions. Maggie has enjoyed many diverse stage, TV, film, industrial, and recording projects over more than 30 years in the PNW. With her company Shining Heart Productions, she produced three albums for the trio Modern Angels (of which she is also a member): Shining Heart, ask for more, and Go to Sleep - The Goodnight Songs (ModernAngels.com). Maggie founded and serves as Executive Producer for Showtunes Theatre Company, a 20-year-old Seattle non-profit that celebrates musical theater by showcasing regional talent in performances that spotlight rare and reimagined material. She welcomes this opportunity to help develop and advocate for equitable and inclusive policies and procedures to enhance local film production. 

Anthony Tackett is a Filmmaker of 23 years working on commercials, narratives along with community support/outreach and as an instructor teaching people from 8 to 70 years old. He is the Founder of the African Diaspora Facebook group bringing together black and POC filmmakers to create a safe space for underrepresented filmmakers. Anthony is the Co-chair of the Seattle Film Task Force, the primary goal is creating opportunities for racial, financial equity and education for the underserved and underprivileged. Anthony is currently directing and filming his first feature documentary Black June a film following Black Lives Matter Protests that started on June 1st 2020 after the public lynching of George Floyd. Documentary is ongoing and being shot and produced presently. 

Born in Madisonville, Kentucky, Cleven James Ticeson often quips that he is "Kentucky bred, but Washington fed." A Northwesterner through and through, Cleven is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and the Evergreen State College in Olympia. He was recently recognized for 40 years of service to KCTS 9, where he has worked since 1974 in a variety of capacities, from copywriter, actor, and floor director to his present position of senior post-production editor. Over the years Cleven has received more than a dozen regional Emmy® honors, and national Emmy® recognition for his work on documentary film, Eli Creekmore. Cleven was an actor early in his career. From 1970 to 1973 he was part of the original national touring company of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, for which he was the understudy for the character Hud. 

 
Cleven is committed to education. He was a co-founder and board member of the Seattle Central College School of Applied Sciences and served on the college's technical advisory board. He also served as an instructor in the Media Literacy Program at Seattle Vocational Technical Institute. A sought-after speaker and lecturer, Cleven served as vice president of the Seattle Chapter of the Majestic Eagles, founding director of the Seattle Chapter of Power Learning Systems, a past-representative for the Inter-Faith Council of Seattle, and has served as chair of The Bahá'ís of Seattle. 

He is currently vice president of development, N 182nd Films LLC 

Born in apartheid southern Africa to an Ethiopian mother and Namibian father, Netsie Tjirongo is a writer, director, and community organizer. Her work focuses on the intersection of gender, race, sexuality, and immigration status. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing from Knox College. Her first VR documentary short, "Dom," inspects the nature of power through the eyes of a black dominatrix. Currently, Netsie works as a VR/360 teaching artist for the Reel Grrls/Arts Corps initiative Learning Immersive Technology (LIT).