Additional Team Members

To view a particular team member’s bio, click on that person’s photo or scroll down on this page.

Some of Our Partners

Team Member BIOS

DAWN LOGSDON's career has been dedicated to making films about civic issues and city life, particularly at the neighborhood level. She directed and produced Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans (2008) which premiered nationally at the Tribeca International Film Festival. It went on to win the SFIFF Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary and was a PBS Black History Month feature presentation three years in a row. Dawn co-directed and edited Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (2013) and Lindy Boggs: Steel and Velvet (2008). Dawn edited the Sundance Award-winning Paragraph 175 by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, Academy Award-nominated Weather Underground by Sam Green, Emmy award-winning Have You Heard from Johannesburg? by Connie Field, and the Peabody award-winning The Castro by Peter Stein. Short films that she produced and directed include Tomboy, which was exhibited at the Whitney Museum and aired on PBS. Dawn received a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley. Her honors include a Soros OSI Media Fellowship, California Arts Council Artist Residency, BAVC Media Maker Award, Djerassi Artist Residency, Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship, New Orleans Contemporary Art Center Artist Fellowship, and the New Orleans Arts Council Award.
back to top →

LUCIE FAULKNOR produced and researched Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans and has worked with award-winning directors Dorothy Fadiman and Lynn Hershman-Leeson in the areas of fundraising, publicity, outreach and community engagement. Faulknor has also produced Dublin Ireland's first Women in Film & Television film festival and presented a lecture series that included Laurie Anderson, Bobby McFerrin, Wayne Shorter, Sydney Pollack and others. She has worked for a number of arts organizations including City Arts & Lectures, SFJAZZ, Palace of Fine Arts Theater, the Irish Arts Foundation, Stern Grove Festival, Yerba Buena Gardens, Dublin (IRL) Fringe Festival and for a number individual performing and visual artists including Jim Campilongo, Storm Large, Tracy Snelling and Kevin Woodson. She has a Master's degree in Nonprofit Administration from USF's School of Business & Professional Studies and a B.A. in Arts Management from SFSU. Lucie is a fourth generation San Francisco Public Library user.
back to top →

ELLIE McCUTCHEON (Associate Producer) After three years as Serendipity Films’ in-house troubleshooter, website builder, data wrangler, and associate producer, Ellie became an FAA-certified drone pilot. Quickly becoming one of the Bay Area’s go-to drone operators, Ellie now specializes in aerial storytelling techniques that move beyond the standard aerial establishing shot. Most recently, Ellie has filmed for NPR, KQED Arts, University of California – Berkeley, and Blue Shield of California. She is also a Bay Area drone/UAV instructor with Women Who Drone. Keep an eye out for some of her aerial footage of California libraries in Free for All!
back to additional team members→

ERIC RISHER (Associate Editor) has worked as an assistant editor films that have screened at numerous festivals, including AFI Docs, Full Frame, Telluride, and The Cleveland International Film Festival. His first film was a short documentary called FURRIES, which had its world premiere at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco.
back to additional team members→

STANLEY NELSON (Executive Producer for Faubourg Treme and Free for All) is an Emmy-winning MacArthur "genius" and one of the premier documentary filmmakers working today, with five films in competition at Sundance in ten years and multiple industry awards to his credit. His recent films include The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Freedom Riders, winner of three primetime Emmys in 2011, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, which was shortlisted for the Academy Awards and won the International Documentary Association Award for its use of archival footage; A Place of Our Own, a semi-autobiographical look at the African American middle class; The Murder of Emmett Till; Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind; The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords and more. Nelson was Executive Producer on Dawn Logsdon's and Lolis Eric Elie's Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. Currently Nelson is co-founder and Executive Director of Firelight Media, a nonprofit that provides technical education and professional support to emerging documentarians.
back to additional team members→

MARCIA SMITH (Executive Producer, Free for All) is President and co-Founder of Firelight Media, which supports diverse filmmakers, connects media to audiences in service of social change, and through its sister organization, produces feature length and short documentary films. In 2015, Firelight Media was honored with a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Firelight’s most recent film is Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities, that premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Firelight’s previous film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, was released in 2015, and after a successful theatrical run, broke PBS records for broadcast viewership, streaming, and social media. Marcia co-founded Firelight in 2000, and led the organization for the next eight years. Prior to returning to Firelight in 2012, Marcia served as Senior Vice President at The Atlantic Philanthropies, a multi-billion dollar charitable foundation active in seven countries. Among other awards, Marcia has received a Primetime Emmy nomination for writing, won the Writers’ Guild Award for best nonfiction writing, and was honored with a 2016 Muse Award from New York Women in Film & Television.
back to additional team members→

DOMINIQUE BRAVO, J.D. (Executive Producer, Free for All) Dominique is a lawyer, advocate, and producer representing and advising community and arts organizations and artists. She is a member of the board of directors of St Ann’s Warehouse, a performing arts institution in Brooklyn, New York, as well as of American Oversight, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog enforcing the public’s right to government records. Dominique previously served as the Associate Director of the Center on Race, Law and Justice at Fordham Law School; as General Counsel of the Roosevelt Institute; and as General Counsel of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists before its merger with the Screen Actors Guild. Dominique also produces documentaries, including Dori Previn, On My Way to Where, a documentary film that is scheduled for release in 2024; CRIMINAL, An Animated Musical Documentary, a short documentary that will be distributed by The New Yorker; and Steal This Story Please!, a documentary-in-progress about Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!. Dominique received her J.D. from Northeastern School of Law and her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.
back to additional team members→

ELLEN SCHNEIDER (Executive Producer, Free for All) has been a leader in social justice media strategies for over 20 years. In 2001, with support from MacArthur and Ford Foundations, she founded Active Voice, one of the first teams to leverage story-based media to put human faces on complex social and policy issues. Ellen was formerly the executive producer of P.O.V., PBS’ original series of independent non-fiction film, where she expanded P.O.V.’s parent company American Documentary into production, a pilot for one of PBS’ first reality series) and strategic community engagement. She speaks widely about the role of media in public life, from Harvard’s Neiman Foundation to Cambridge University; from the Council on Foundations to Netroots Nation; from Sundance Film Festival to the National Endowment for the Arts. She has worked closely with media-savvy pioneers like Atlantic Philanthropies, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Participant Media.
back to additional team members→

VICENTE FRANCO (Director of Photography) was a 2003 Oscar Best Documentary nominee and Emmy nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography for Daughter From Danang. That film won the Sundance Film Festival 2002 Grand Jury Prize. Other cinematography credits include the Academy Award-nominated films The Most Dangerous Man In America and Freedom On My Mind. He shot American Experience's Orozco: Man Of Fire, POV specials Discovering Dominga and Thirst, He also shot Botany Of Desire, The Judge And The General, and The Fight In The Fields: Cesar Chavez And The Farmer Workers' Struggle.
back to additional team members→

DEBRA SCHAFFNER (Editor, Free for All) is an editor and filmmaker of all things short and long, with an emphasis on art, education and body parts. Her work has screened at venues including SF DOC FEST, DOCS/MX, FRAMELINE and aired on PBS and SMG (China). She enjoys breaking into zoos and setting all the monkeys and penguins free, but has never been arrested. She is currently directing her first feature doc, Curse of the Mutant Heirloom, with support from Cal Humanities and the BAVC MediaMaker program.
back to additional team members→

ELIZABETH FINLAYSON (Editor & Story Consultant, Free for All) is an editor and writing consultant who brings decades of experience as an editor and writer for documentary film and video. In addition to In and Out of Time, her credits include the award-winning films Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy, The Kids of Survival: Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Samsara, Barbie Nation, and Blink.
back to additional team members→

JENNIFER HUANG (Outreach Coordinator, Free for All) is currently coordinating outreach and engagement for Free for All: Inside the Public Library and directing The Long Rescue, following the rocky path of teens rebuilding their lives after sex trafficking in the Philippines. Previously, Jennifer co-produced From Baghdad to the Bay, a feature documentary following an Iraqi refugee turned gay rights activist, and Standing on Sacred Ground, a PBS series about indigenous people fighting to protect their sacred sites around the world. Additionally, Jennifer coordinated shoots and archival research for the American Masters documentary, Jacques Pepin: The Art of Craft, and at the documentary department of Lucasfilm, she wrote and produced Harlem’s Hellfighters: Black Soldiers of World War I and associate-produced nine other films. Additionally, Jennifer has worked as a writer, field producer and associate producer on independent productions for American Masters, PBS, Anonymous Content, the Travel Channel, HGTV, TNT and AZN TV.
back to additional team members→

LOLIS ERIC ELIE (Writer/Co-Director for Faubourg Treme) is a television writer, food historian, documentary film producer and essayist. He served as writer, co-producer and on screen narrator on Faubourg Treme. His work has appeared on HBO’s Treme, as well as Hell on Wheels and Underground. His books include Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country and Treme: Stories and Recipes From the Heart of New Orleans. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Faubourg Treme.
back to additional team members→

DERRICK HODGE (Composer) is a two-time grammy Award-winning bassist and Blue Note Recording Artist. Hodge has written and arranged for both the recording and live arenas, from composing original music for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, to arranging for Nas and the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as composing the original work Infinite Reflections for the Chicago Brass Ensemble. He has also directed and scored other projects—from acting as co-Musical Director for the 2015 Triumph Awards and arranging strings for Mos Def’s 2008 premiere at Carnegie Hall—to writing for films such as Back to School Mom, the 180 Days documentary series for PBS, Land of Opportunity, Black Candle, The Army Recruiter and Uneasy Listening. Early film work includes When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts for which he did additional writing and scoring; Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, and Faubourg Tremé: A Story of Black New Orleans.
back to additional team members→

JANET COLE (Consulting Producer) has been working in the field of feature documentary production and distribution for 30 years. She received a George Foster Peabody Award and Emmy & Academy Award nominations as Producer & Executive Producer of Regret to Inform, the acclaimed film about widows of the Vietnam War. She also produced Peter Adair's Absolutely Positive (POV/PBS, BBC, Sundance) and was a producer of Paragraph 175 for HBO and Channel Four in the UK. Cole's other Executive Producer credits include: Promises (two Emmy Awards, Oscar nomination); Heart of the Sea (PBS); Granny D Goes To Washington (PBS) and Freedom Machines (POV/PBS). Most recently she produced the 30th Anniversary DVD of Word is Out, a landmark theatrical film about gay and lesbian identity released in 1978.
back to additional team members→

VERONICA SELVER (Co-Editor) edited the Academy Award-nominated Berkeley In The Sixties, Brother Outsider: Bayard Rustin, and Blacks And Jews. Other credits include On Company Business, a three-part series on the history of the CIA; Absolutely Positive, about people living with HIV; and Coming Out Under Fire, on gays and lesbians in the military during World War II. Selver directed KPFA On The Air, and co-directed the Columbia Dupont Excellence in Broadcast Journalism winner Word Is Out, the first feature documentary on growing up gay in the United States.
back to additional team members→

KENN RABIN (Consulting Archivist) is known around the U.S. and in the English-speaking world for his audio-visual research and archival coordination of such projects as WGBH's landmark series, Vietnam: A Television History, which involved over 90 archives from a dozen countries and for his Emmy-nominated work on the series Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, considered by many to be the best historical series presented on PBS. Other film research includes 500 Nations, Kevin Costner's saga of Native American tribes done for CBS, Marlon T. Riggs' Color Adjustment, and a wide variety of documentaries, television shows, and feature films.
back to additional team members→

DANIELA CARIAS (Assistant to the Producers) started as an Intern at Serendipity Films in 2016 and is now back working with the Free for All Team. She has worked in numerous video projects in various production roles such as producer, script supervisor, and editor. In 2016 she directed and edited her first short documentary called Vanessa, which won Best Documentary at the 16th Annual City College of San Francisco Shorts Student Film Festival. back to additional team members→

We make FILMS that OPEN MINDS.

Founders

Dawn Logsdon

Lucie Faulknor

Additional Team Members

Some of Our Partners

Team Member BIOS