Contributors

An independent filmmaker who believed the local film community lacked cohesion, Ryan began Minnewood in 2006 as a way to showcase local films on public access. Since then he's been fortunate to visit nearly two dozen local productions, interview over fifty film artists, and help Minnewood transition to the web. During that time he also wrote and directed two short films that have already gone on to play at eight film festivals across the country.

Born in Easter Island, raised in Hawaii, Sergio has spent much of the past few years working as a freelance produducer, DP, and editor.  In 2006 he established Mara Films, LLC (www.marafilms.com) to aid in the development of native and indigenous media content.

Brian Stemmler has been working in Television and Film for 25 years.  In 2005 Brian Produced, Directed and Edited a short film titled "LOW", which won the Jury Award for Best Short at the 2007 San Diego Black Film Festival. Brian's current work in Television has been as an Emmy Nominated Segment Producer for L.A. news magazine show "9 On the Town", Fox Reality's "Reality Remix" and Fox Sports "Celebrity Sports Invitational".  As a Producer/Shooter, for two years Brian Produced the West Coast content for the New Media Network LXTV.COM (now owned by NBC/Universal).  Brian continues to freelance for LXTV in Chicago and Dallas and currently lives/works in the Twin Cities as a freelance Photographer, Producer, Shooter and Editor.

Ethan Miller has been apart of Minnewood for the last couple years. After getting a B.A in Broadcasting and Electronic Media, he is looking to gain more real world experience, while being involved with something he believes. Ethan is looking to hone his film production skills with an emphasis in cinematography & editing. The best part of Minnewood is working with so many wonderful people that are passionate about film production. He has enjoyed seeing Minnewood grow from an idea to a reality. Currently Ethan resides in Minneapolis, MN with his wife, Danielle and daughter Naomi.

Dan Stewart is motivated by communication and art. He is also motivated by his faith in God. So he decided to mix the three in a way that would both entertain and challenge the viewing public. Having made a couple of short films, promo videos, and a music video, Dan is eager to expand his repertoire in all facets of filmmaking through internships, film competitions and any other sort of video and film projects that he can get himself into. Working with Minnewood, he is excited to see what doors will be open up to him or he will push open within the Minneapolis film scene.

I have a recent interest in film and hope to write and direct my own; therefore I love this opportunity with Minnewood.  By day, I assist kids with special needs, and own my own business, called Nikki's Sacred Space where I  am a Soul/Spiritual Coach, helping people excavate, clear, heal and transform the clutter from their souls. I am also a mother of two children.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in Art History, Alysse is continuing her education at Dunwoody to study graphic design.

These days you can find me helping my friends and family with their technological needs or surfing the net for innovations in open-source applications and scripts. I continue to learn new web languages such as PHP/MySQL and AJAX. Some content management systems that I have worked with in the past are WordPress, Open Reality, PHPNuke, Mambo, Joomla, Drupal and many more.