Major in FTT
Careers: Where do you go from here?
This is a small sampling of current happenings from recent alumni of the Department of Film, Television and Theatre program. If you’d like to add or update your FTT info, please email tmandell@nd.edu .
For more FTT alumni information, visit Cothalum —the FTT Alumni Listserv!
Timi Aguilar (’91) was both a producer and executive producer for AT&T Corporate Television from 1992 to 1997, directing and producing numerous industrial videos and documentaries in locations such as Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia. She’s currently a media relations manager and public policy director for AT&T.
Kristine Allen (’82) has been working in public radio ever since her days as program director of WSND-FM. She’s now program director of WPSU-FM, heard in a large swath of Central Pennsylvania from Altoona up to the New York border. She’s also a voice-over announcer for many TV programs produced by a sister station, WPSX-TV, including "Weather World", seen throughout Pennsylvania, and "What’s in the News", distributed to many public television stations nationally.
Brian Antonson (’93) worked as a freelance cameraman in New York City in television and film. He graduated from the NYU Media Ecology program in 1997, then became the director of production at Instructional Television. He currently teaches TV and film at DeSales University, Pa.; freelances for WCBS news; and is in preproduction for a feature film, which he will be directing this summer.
Brett Boessen (’95) worked in NYC after graduation for a year-and-a-half on various productions and is now a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University, studying media and rhetoric.
Karen Carbone (’90) is living in D.C. area, working on the East Coast in film, voiceover, commercial, and things that will pay more than theatre! She worked on Homicide, America’s Most Wanted, The Prosecutors, a handful of indie films, and has regular BG work on features and TV shows shot in the metro area. She’s also been working in casting.
Dan Chambliss, originally in the Class of ’75, graduated ’99, is the Creative Director of Big Ideas-Midwest in South Bend, Ind. He was the casting director and set designer for the independent film written by Kareemah El-Amin titled The Thin I’m In, featured in the Black Film Festival (Hollywood) and Women In Film (Chicago). He worked on El-Amin’s indie documentary titled Black Women on Black Men and The White Girl Thang.
Jeffrey Cloninger (’99) currently lives in Minneapolis and performs in "Side Show," the musical. He also works part-time as a floor director at the local FOX affiliate.
Claire Connelly (’00) is in Chicago. She was the production coordinator on Joe Otting’s short film, The Third Rail, worked as the 2000 IFP Midwest Independent Filmmaker’s Conference coordinator, and was the assistant to the producer and director on the independent feature Ball in the House.
Jennifer Crescenzo (’97) is currently the senior producer at Video/Action —a Washington D.C. based, not-for-profit production company focused on creating media that provides a voice for people and communities whose stories are rarely heard. In June of 2001, she received a local Emmy Award in the category Public Affairs/Documentary: Short Segment for Extraordinary Response to International Terrorism —a story about the people of Lockerbie, Scotland whose individual acts of kindness deeply touched the families who lost loved ones in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Greg D’Alessandro (’82), former music producer from New York City, recently graduated from USC Film School with an M.F.A. in screenwriting, and works as a writer for Perception Films and a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Film School.
John Dardis (’85) has split his time since graduation between New York and Los Angeles, developing a successful film lighting career as a technician/gaffer (True Lies, Jerry MacGuire, Men In Black), and is now fruitfully cultivating a vocation in screenwriting, including a script for a project produced by Academy Award winner Hillary Swank.
William Donaruma (’89) went to work for Universal Studios, where he became a production manager and producer on network TV specials and series, movies, and commercials. He later worked as a camera person and editor until eventually joining the faculty at Notre Dame. He is currently working on an independent feature, A Country Mile, and a documentary, Voulkos 2K1.
Melissa Dunne (’97) has gone on to perform in award-winning independent films The Rest of Your Life as well as starring in an Emmy award-winning Super Bowl commercial "Mood Foods". She’s also performed at The Second City Skybox Stage in Chicago.
Brian Fremeau (’99) graduates this spring with an M.F.A. in film, video, and new media from the Art Institute of Chicago. He’s done freelance work around Chicago, including a video exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art and, in the spring of 2001, taught advanced film/video production as a visiting instuctor at Notre Dame.
Patrick Gallagher (’93) is a film editor in Los Angeles. He was an assistant editor on the motion picture "Spider-Man".
Ron Hogan (’92) received a master’s degree from USC Cinema-Television, spent the remainder of the decade working for various new media companies HotWired, PlanetOut, and Amazon.com, and is writing a book full-time in New York City.
Warren Junium, III (’97) is currently director of publicity for Children’s Miracle Network in Salt Lake City, Utah, He spent two years as a television producer for President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton at The White House, producer for a production company in Washington, D.C., producer for Lesea Broadcasting in South Bend, and as a studio operator at WNDU.
Mary-Kathryn "M-K" Kennedy (’97) has been working for the Hispanic Heritage Awards as executive producer of the annual Awards TV special—broadcast on NBC, as well as a Spanish-language version of the Awards Special and a 15-year retrospective of the awards both to air on Telemundo.
Mike Kogge (’99) shot the short film Icelandic Homecoming, a project that is part of his Fulbright scholarship, in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Andy Kris (’94) supervised the sound and mixing of "The Laramie Project", which was the opening night film of the Sundance Film Festival. It’s a film based on Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was killed because he was gay. It premiered on HBO March 16. Andy also mixed and supervised the sound on "Storytelling", Todd Solodnz’s film, which also premiered at Sundance. It was relased on January 25 in New York and LA. Andy owns AKME Sound Productions in New York City and has been a sound mixing/supervisor on numerous features.
Michael Kurinsky (’97) moved to Los Angeles and, after a two-year stint working at a management/production company representing writers, directors, and actors, currently works as a development assistant at the animation studio Klasky Csupo.
Beth Leliaert (’01) is living in New York City, has been freelance editing for a company that makes shows for PBS’s Frontline series, and works at Madstone Films.
Alison Macor ( ’88) has a Ph.D. in radio-television-film from the University of Texas and is the contributing film critic for the Austin American-Statesman in Austin, Texas.
Kelly McGann (’00) After a film distribution internship at Lion’s Gate Films and assistant directing an off-off broadway play, both in NYC, Kelly took a job in NYC as e-commerce marketing manager at Liz Claiborne Inc. She is currently vice president of RedWagons.com in Chicago.
Jim McNamee (’97) has worked on the roof of The White House in Washington, D.C., at the top of the Amoco Building in Chicago, and on a tour of the United Nations in New York with Kofi Annan. He is currently the post-production supervisor at Cerebellum Corporation (www.standarddeviants.com) in Falls Church, Virginia.
Justin Mitchell (’95) spent seven years working within the new media/internet world in Los Angeles while pursuing filmmaking on the side. Shortly after graduation from ND, he began production on Songs For Cassavetes (a music documentary), finished in 2000. After playing the London Film Festival, the film landed a distribution deal with 7th Arts Releasing. They’ve released it in theaters and on DVD/VHS.
Scott Mitsui (’92) received an M.F.A. from the University of Miami, moved to Los Angeles and graduated from the American Film Institute program in Cinematography and now works as a cinematographer in Los Angeles.
Chris Murphy (’92) co-wrote, produces, performs, and tours college campuses with an interactive, improvisational show called "Sex Signals". The show examines dating and acquaintance rape, and uses humor as well as education to most effectively begin a dialogue between men and women about this sensitive issue. He performed at the International Conference of Sexaul Assault and Harrassment on campus and has been one of 10 nationally touring lecture programs to showcase at the National NACA Conference in Indianapolis, and Chris performed at St. Mary’s College. He’s also a company member of the Factory Theater in Chicago and directed his first short film American Tragedy, that will be submitted to film festivals. Finally, Chris played a would-be assembly line worker who holds up a sign and makes random comments about customer-submitted commercials for a series of Icehouse beer commercials showing in the Southeast.
Kristy Murphy (formally Kristy Zloch, ’96) was an actress on The West Wing, playing Katie Witt. Beginning fall 2002, she played the recurring character Abbey, a flight nurse, on NBC’s ER. She has also appeared on JAG, Ally McBeal, and Once and Again. She is married to Mark Murphy, executive producer for features at Milestone Pictures.
Kevin O’Gorman (’87) added a master's degree in media arts at Michigan State in 1998 and now uses his film training to design computer games.
Ken O’Keefe (’99) lived and worked in New York City as a freelance production assistant and grip/electric, and moved to Los Angeles to work in the editorial department for the Universal Pictures release The Bourne Identity.
Maura Pheney (’95) After performing in theatre and cabaret in New York and Chicago for six years, including Famous Door Theatre’s Hellcab (one of the longest running shows in Chicago) and her own own cabaret shows If You Can’t Love Me, At Least Make the Bed! and But Wait...There’s Maura, Maura has moved to Los Angeles to concentrate on film and television projects.
Andrew Philip (’99) is currently in New York, working as one of two editors and one of two cameramen on the HBO show "Dead Giveaways: an Autopsy Special", as well as another HBO documentary, "The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman". He is also busy as a freelance assistant editor in New York City.
Tina Potthoff (’99) is currently a TV anchor at KOAM-TV in Missouri.
Betsy Quinn (’84) has an M.F.A. in child drama from Arizona State University and is currently a drama teacher, director, and arts department chair at Haven Middle School in Evanston, Ill.
Diego Ros (’00) moved to Mexico City and has been working freelance, first on a film as a P.A., then on commercials and music videos as a second A.D.. He edited a short documentary/infomercial for a nonprofit organization.
Maggie Ruffing (’98) is a producer for NFL Films (weekly segments on Fox’s "Under the Helmet"); and received an Emmy nomination for outstanding editing in 2000.
Jubba Seyyid (’92) has been in Los Angeles and recently produced projects for MTV ("BioRhythm"), Telepictures ("Love Connection"), FOX ("The X Show" on FX), and TV Guide (The TV Guide Channel). He’s currently the producer for the popular date show "ElimiDate"!
Mike Schmiedeler (’94) is a producer at Towers Productions in Chicago, IL, producing documentaries for The History Channel and A&E.
Angee Kerrigan Simmons (’95) is a producer for Kansas City Public Television, working on long and short form projects... anything from short promotional spots to documentaries, and was recently nominated for a Regional Emmy for the documentary titled "Tapping Kansas City: A Beer Story".
Jeff Spoonhower (’99) received his M.F.A. in computer animation from Rochester Institute of Technology, and currently designs character animation for Electronic Arts (EA Sports) in Orlando. His animated films, Hypertension and Intelligent Life have received numerous film festival awards, including First Place Animation at the Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival and Best Animated Short at the Cincinnati Intl. Film Festival.
Stephen Susco (’96) is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. His script "Untitled Harvard Heist" was purchased by Sony-based Escape Artists. The Hitchcockian thriller in the vein of a John Grisham novel follows two students at Harvard Law School who pull off a robbery of the campus credit union and get away with the crime only to get wrapped up in a tangled web of deceit involving a new college professor. Escape Artists partners Steve Tisch, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and David Alper will produce.
Christine Swanson (’94), graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, created the production company, Faith Filmworks, Inc. with her husband/producer, Michael (ND ’93), and developed the short film Two Seasons. The film won the Warner Bros. Pictures Production Award, a National Black Programming Consortium Award, and was selected to screen at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Her first feature film, All About You, won the Audience Choice for Favorite Domestic Film at the 2001 Chicago International Film Festival.
Nicole Swartzentruber (’99) moved to NYC in May 2000 to audition for musical theatre. She was cast as a Kit Kat Girl (the sax player) in the 10-month national tour of Cabaret (which came to the Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend in 2002).
Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece (’00) is a grantswriter for a nonprofit grassroots community organization in Queens, N.Y., which provides after-school programs, immigration counseling, and a senior center for local residents.
Jon Thorn (’96) graduated from Columbia University’s graduate program in film in the spring of 2001. He worked in New York City as a digital nonlinear editor/instructor since 1996, and was first assistant camera on Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men, 1997 Sundance Filmmakers Trophy, released by Sony Picture Classics. In 2000–01, he was head of education at Film/Video Arts, New York’s largest nonprofit media arts organization, where he oversaw a film/video teaching staff of 26 instructors and two assistants. After the events of September 11, Jon decided to leave New York City and tryied his luck at editing in sunny Los Angeles. He also wrote a script, which was selected for the Nickelodeon Comedy Writing Reading Series 2000.
In 2001, Kim Tracy (’93) joined E! Entertainment Television as a producer of "Revealed with Jules Asner" after producing electronic press kits for feature films since 1997.
Gina Vecchione (’97) directed the documentary Trip to Tehuacan, about the Mercy Outreach surgical team that travels to Mexico, performing life-changing operations on children. The film won the Audience Choice Award at the Long Beach International Film Festival and was chosen to screen at the Sundance Film Festival. After graduating in 1997, Gina began working in New York as an assistant AVID editor for National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. She now resides in Los Angeles and works as a freelance AVID/Final Cut Pro editor for the Discovery Channel, Lifetime, and other networks.
William L. Wilson (’88) works as a litigator for Anderson, Agostino, & Keller, PC, in South Bend. In addition to practicing law, he teaches entertainment law for the FTT Department during Notre Dame’s summer sessions, and teaches in the Paralegal Studies Program at Indiana University South Bend.