The
Crew
Contact: mark@conchrepublicpictures.com
We are seeking financial partners and/or in-kind goods and services.
If interested in being a part of the team, please contact us at the
email address above. Business Plan and Script available upon
request.
Mark Darby Slater - Writer/Director/Producer
Mark, while living in Malibu, California, landed his first professional screenwriting position to write a romantic
comedy with Oscar-Nominated Film Director, Paul Turner, and producer, Mark Steinberg. Since then he has been
commissioned to write the love story "90 Miles to Cuba," and
"The Portrait," a musical stage play within a
filmed drama, for producers Patricia Royce and Joel Kaplan. He has also edited the script,
"The Legend of the Fishkill," a family drama. Mark is the Secretary and board member to the thriving Key
West Film Society. Saving Elena will be Mark’s directorial debut.
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 Ben Kufrin - Director of Photography
Mr. Kufrin’s background in still photography has led him to a successful career and diverse career in cinematography from independent features, network television and commercials. His projects include MTV’s Making the Band, Fox’s Storm with Martin Sheen, Victoria’s Secret, Panasonic, and NHL commercial campaigns plus independent features, My Brother Jack, Gang of Roses, and Cock and Bull Story. Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, LA Weekly, and Variety have pronounced him, “the one to watch.”
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Scott Gruppe - Composer
Scott Gruppe is an artist of many talents: Well known in Key West for figurative expressionism in oils, he also writes poetry and screenplays. In addition he is a lyricist, singer and composer! His education in music began when he started playing with a band in Massachusetts at age six: As an adult he studied percussion. Scott recently worked on the sound design, music sample and treatments for The Slaton Sea and In the Bedroom.
He wrote the score for the Saving Elena theatrical teaser and an earlier pilot scene. Journalist and critic Mark Howell of Solares Hill, wrote on January 21, 2005, “The amazing music is by Scott Gruppe.”
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Trevor Keates - Editor
BAFTA award winner and two-time BAFTA award nominee in the same year for Best Editor, Mr. Keates vast resume includes, but not limited to, The Great Gatsby, Return of the Pink Panther, Behind Enemy Lines, and Invaders from Mars. The experience of these high-profile films, along with television credits speaks for itself.
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Dean Walters - Director of Musical Sequences
Mr. Walters, conductor, director of choirs and stage productions, voice coach, executive director of Island Opera Theater of the Florida Keys, Inc., an accomplished singer as well. His extensive experience includes such stage productions as Die Fledermaus, La Traviata, and Fiddler on the Roof. Dean Walters co-founded and was music director of Opera New York. He was general manager of International Artistic Productions, Inc – a talent agency – both companies exist in New York today. The New York Times heralds him as “…a poised, personable artist … singing … clear and sonorous.”
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Gregg Lukomski - Technical Director
Visual Effects Artist Gregg Lukomski’s resume includes such high profile popular hits as Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Gone in Sixty Seconds and Dinosaur. Mr. Lukomski, an able hand at creating, will transform the Key West of today into the yesteryears of the 1930s. Mr. Lukomski’s wide range of talents are not limited to, but include, motion picture photography, lighting, screen writing, and of course, digital imagery. Currently working on Saving Elena, he has just recently been commissioned to work on a new Nicholas Cage
film.
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Montgomery Triz - Art Director
Mr. Triz film credits include Cop and a Half, Undisputed, Dead Presidents, Spiders, and Mondo Picasso. As an artist, he has been commissioned for his paintings and sculptures, his latest being a 14 foot of President Lincoln for the Washington DC Welcome Center near Lincoln Theater. Currently he is composing themed designs for Historic Tours of America’s
museums.
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Henry Villate - Writer
Henry Villate has an AA degree in Creative Writing from Palm Beach
Junior College where he won first prize for a stage play. His writing
talents surfaced early on while in Key West High School when he won
second place in a state wide writing contest.
Villate's fascination with the love between Carl and Elena has been a
life-long quest: He has written two stage plays, a screenplay, and a
novel, all based on this remarkable story.
When Slater met Villate in 2001 they began with creative meetings and
writing exercise to prepare this difficult subject matter for the
screen. A four-year-long collaboration, and a strict adherence to a
methodology, has resulted in a remarkable adaptation of this true
story, the screenplay, "Saving Elena." Slater says if you consider us
to be a team, we compliment each other well: "I am the craftsman, but
Hank is the true artist!"
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