| WHO WE ARE . . . |
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Kathleen Minton Catapano - Executive Producer (top) Kathleen Minton Catapano is the Founder/President of Lucky Rabbit Media. Recently Kathleen developed broadband networks for NextNewNetworks on jewelry and weddings. Prior to that, she served as Executive Producer/Vice President of Oxygen Media where she created a variety of award winning and highly rated shows. Shows include 26 episodes of Women & the Badge featuring women in law enforcement plus a 90-minute feature documentary Caught in the Crossfire, profiling a female homicide detective in Indianapolis. Women & the Badge won the Gracie award for Best Reality, The Houston Film Festival Gold award and for the feature documentary a WIN nomination. In addition Kathleen Executive Produced 26 half hours of Real Weddings from the Knot – a wedding reality series. She also Executive Produced 6 half hour fashion features on bridal design called Bridal Fashion Preview where designers such as Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera were profiled. She Executive Produced 26 episodes of Your Money & Your Life – a magazine show on money, career and small business. She also served as VP Production and VP Programming for the network. Prior to Oxygen, Kathleen was the Founder/President of Perez Minton Productions – a multi million dollar production company dedicated to multi cultural children’s programming. Through her company, Kathleen is the Creator/Executive Producer of Nickelodeon’s award winning pre-school show Gullah Gullah Island. She created and oversaw production on 80 episodes plus 4 home videos. Awards include: Emmy nomination for Best Children’s Show, 2 Parent’s Choice Gold Awards, 2 Cable Ace nominations and 2 NAACP nominations for Best Children’s Show and a TV Guide selection as a top ten children’s show. Kathleen also served as Executive Producer at the Emmy award winning animation studio, The Ink Tank, where she oversaw all animation production for commercial and series work including such clients as Hitachi (a spot for the Super Bowl), MTV and WGBH. Other credits include: Senior Producer Eureeka’s Castle, a daily puppet show for Nickelodeon which won an Ace Award for Best Children’s Show plus a Broadcast Design Award for Best Set and Puppet Design. She is a cum laude graduate of Boston College and lives in Brooklyn Heights with her husband and 9-year-old son, Leo. Pauline Mason - Producer (top) Pauline Mason has worked in television, on documentaries and most recently has been devoting her talents to the burgeoning broadband world, producing weekly webisodes for various broadband channels. She’s also currently working as Line Producer on two documentaries that are slated for theatrical release – one on electricity and its use in our world today and another based on a novel by bestselling author, Amy Tan. Prior to this Pauline was at Oxygen Media for over 6 years, acting as Director of Production as well as Director of Post Production for the launch of the women’s’ network. She was also Supervising Producer, Line Producer and Writer on a number of Oxygen shows, including reality shows, magazine style shows and documentary series. Other networks where she worked include Nickelodeon where she was Coordinating Producer for (18) half hour episodes of "Gulllah Gullah Island", an Emmy Award nominated children's show and HBO on "The Chris Rock Show". Pauline lives in Brooklyn and loves to read, ride her bike and swim! Jean Candiotte - Creative Director (top) Jean Candiotte has worked in the US and internationally, as an award winning Creative Director and developer of original content. Recently, she was the Senior Vice President, Editorial and Creative Director at Oxygen Media in New York, where she developed and oversaw award-winning shortform series, and on air promotions. She also worked as Story Editor on several series and specials, including "Real Weddings From the Knot," the highest-rated original series on the network at the time. Jean has an extensive background in the international marketplace, as well. She lived and worked in Asia for 5 years, where she helped launch successful ventures, such as News Corp's STAR TV, the MGM Gold Movie Network, and the National Geographic Channel. Jean served as Creative Director, and oversaw original production, for both the MGM Gold Network and National Geographic Channel. Prior to her time in Asia, Jean worked as a writer, producer, and director in New York. She has done extensive work in the women, kids, family, and comedy genres. She also wrote, directed, and performed sketch and improvisational comedy with various theater groups throughout the city. Her background in improv has helped her develop her passion for storytelling, as well as her sense of humor. She sees both as extremely vital to success in the television business. Jean's work has been honored with multiple Emmy Award nominations, AWRT Gracie Awards, New York Festival Awards, CINE Awards, Promax Awards, BDA Awards, Telly Awards, Parents Choice Awards, and other industry and public service commendations. David Petersen - Director (top) David Petersen, Oscar nominated Producer for Best Documentary, Short Subject category was also the Director, Producer and Editor of the Emmy Award winning WNET series "Egg; The Arts Show City Arts/City Life". His documentary, "If You Lived Here, You Would be Home Now" aired nationally on PBS in the fall of 2003 and won the CINE Golden Eagle Award, as well being nominated for the Independent Spirit Award. He is currently producing and directing various short features for the Sundance Channel and also has a one hour show currently in development with HBO. His feature length PBS documentary "Let the Church Say Amen" was the official selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Kathi Watson - Editor/Shooter/Graphics/Web Design (top) Kathi attended Carnegie Mellon University and received her BS in Graphic Communications. After college she spent several years as a web developer, working in San Francisco, Hong Kong and New York. After attending grad school for an MA in Media Studies she turned her attention to video production and television. Working at Oxygen on a number of projects, in various capacities, she settled on editing as her focus. Recent projects include a 1-hour documentary for MSNBC on the up and coming sport of MMA. She has also edited multiple pieces for MTVu, ranging in topic from pop musician John Mayer to Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda. Kathi also shoots on occasion and creates graphic opens and transitions. Her background in web development has come full circle given the proliferation of broadband video and she currently is working on several broadband projects, as well as creating web sites for broadband content and general use. Kathi lives in Brooklyn, loves to travel and recently bought a bike to tool around the neighborhood. Joey Ahlbum - Animator/Illustrator (top) Joey Ahlbum was born and raised in New York City and Brooklyn. He graduated from the High School of Art and Design and the School of Visual Arts. His animation and illustration work includes projects for Nickelodeon, Pizza Hut, Cartoon Network, MTV, Frederator, and PBS. Recently, he was supervising director on the Emmy award winning “Clifford’s Puppy Days” for Scholastic. He is currently working on his Ninth season of “Elmo’s World” where he has completed over 50 episodes. Joey Ahlbum’s personal films include his thesis film at SVA called “Bandits!” which toured in a Best of ASIFA series and played in Movies in the Park. “Parade” was shown at the Zagreb Animation Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and included in a package of short films, which toured the U.S. and played at the Film Forum in N.Y.C. He currently lives in NYC with his lovely wife and daughter and enjoys trips to the beach, eating Korean food, and riding his bike to work. Petr Cikhart - Director of Photography (top) http://www.petrcikhartfilms.com Petr Cikhart was born and raised in Prague. As a 19-year-old Assistant Director, he covered the war in Chechnya for Czech TV, and was arrested and held hostage for two days by Russian soldiers during the assignment. It was his first field shoot, and he was hooked. He emigrated to the United States in 1995 after winning a journalism internship at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. After finishing his internship and working briefly as a Lobsterman in Maine, he moved to New York City to resume his career behind the camera. For the last eight years, Petr has worked as a high-adventure Director of Photography. In this capacity he has traveled to more than 70 countries on all continents for a variety of programs, including CBS’s Emmy-winning series The Amazing Race, National Geographic’s critically acclaimed series Be the Creature, National Geographic’s Crisis Zone: Doctors Without Borders, A&E’s Dog The Bounty Hunter and Cowboy 101 for WETA, Science Investigators for WGBH and Throwdown with Bobby Flay, which is on the Food Network. Petr has also lent his talents to several feature-length documentary films, such as Farmingville, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Showtime’s LA-gang documentary Gangs: Escaping the Life, and Blindsight, which was filmed on location in the Tibetan Himalayas and won the Audience Awards at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival and the 2007 Palm Springs Film Festival. Some of Petr’s current projects include the 12th season of The Amazing Race, the new Inspiring series The Big Give and feature-length comedy Best Man starring members of the Upright Citizens Brigade. He is also producing and shooting short narrative films such as You Can Get It If You Really Want and Broken Nose. Between adventures abroad, Petr often shoots for Dateline (NBC), 60 Minutes (CBS), The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, History Channel,The Daily Show (Comedy Central) and CNN. As an owner of two Panasonic HD Varicam cameras, Petr has mastered filming in High Definition. He regularly employs alternative filming techniques, including aerial, underwater, and lipstick-camera cinematography. He speaks Czech, English, Italian, Spanish and Russian. |