Here Come The Videofreex

FILMMAKING TEAM

Jenny Raskin – Producer/Director

Jenny has produced numerous documentaries for television channels such as Discovery, The Learning Channel and the Sundance Channel.  The content of her documentaries ranges from science (“Time Game” about gene therapy) to the arts (“Anatomy of a Scene” which dissects the filmmaking process). She was the series producer for two verité documentary series (“Maternity Ward” on TLC and “Critical Hour” on Discovery Health) for which she supervised 25 hours of programming.  Her independent feature documentary “On Hostile Ground,” which profiled three abortion providers, enjoyed a theatrical release to critical acclaim, and was aired on the Sundance Channel.

Jon Nealon – Producer/Director/Editor

Jon has worked as a documentary producer and editor for more than a decade.  He produced and edited several investigative documentaries for the A&E “Investigative Reports” series.  For two seasons, he was the Senior Producer of the verité series “Women and the Badge” for the Oxygen Network.  He edited and produced the powerful examination of the Randy Weaver case, “Ruby Ridge: Anatomy of a Tragedy,” for Discovery. He produced and edited multiple episodes of “The First 48.” His independent documentary “Goodbye Hungaria,” has been seen at festivals around the world, and was broadcast internationally on Aljazeera English.

John Foster – Director of Photography

John has shot numerous narrative and documentary films. He was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for Sunday and Keane. He also shot the critically acclaimed narrative feature Tully and the Emmy-nominated documentary The Trials of Daryl Hunt.

T. Griffin – Original Score

T. Griffin is a songwriter, composer and producer based in Brooklyn New York. He has composed music for over 30 feature length films, and dozens of live and multidisciplinary projects. Directors include Jesse Moss, Ross Kaufman, Katy Chevigny, Roger Ross-Williams, Liza Johnson, Michael Almereyda, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Tze Chun, Jem Cohen, and Sam Green among many others. He was one of six composers selected as a fellow at the Sundance Composer’s lab in 2008 and has been nominated twice for CinemaEye Honors for original music score. As a player and producer he has worked with independent musical luminaries including Vic Chesnutt, Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine, Tim Hecker, DJ/Rupture, Mary Margaret O’Hara and members of godspeed you! black emperor, Fugazi, The Dirty Three and The Ex.

THE VIDEOFREEX 

Skip Blumberg, co-founder of Videofreex, is a digital producer camcorder reporter, and video pioneer with hundreds of titles online; on Showtime, PBS, Disney Channel, National Geographic TV, and other TV channels internationally; and in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou Paris, and other venues around the world. Blumberg’s Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show, Interviews with Interviewers (about interviewing), and Flying Morning Glory (on fire) are considered documentary video classics. In Motion with Michael Moschen has received 1,000,000+ YouTube views. His latest video is Growing Up Bonobo. Blumberg is the recipient of 3 Emmys, an Ohio State University Journalism Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and many other honors. Skip has produced numerous educational and fundraising films and conducted hundreds of production workshops, university and school classes, and in-person screenings, including as U.S. Department of State Cultural Envoy and Artistic Director of MyHero.com’s Global Exchange. He is President/Founder of Friends of City Hall Park (NYC).

Nancy Cain, co-founder of Videofreex, co-directed Media Bus, a nonprofit post-production facility, when it transplanted from Lanesville to Woodstock, NY in 1978. She also served as program director of Woodstock’s community access TV station. In 1984 she began working in Hollywood directing several early reality television programs, and field directing for The Wilton North Report, a late night program on Fox TV. Cain was co-creator and producer of the PBS series The ‘90s and was the creator/producer of CamNet: The Camcorder Network, a 24-hour programming service on United Artists Cable Systems. Her videos have been shown at The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Muse d’Arte Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and other venues. She is the author of Video Days: And What We Saw Through the Viewfinder. Cain is a writer and prolific photographer of California desert life.

David Cort, co-founder of Videofreex, had an independent production company producing, among others, a series of short dance videos that were included in the award-winning film Four Journeys into Mystic Time directed by Shirley Clarke. He served as production designer for the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, NH where he also performed as Albert Einstein. Later he designed battlefield communications systems for the U.S. Air Force. He was a recipient of the American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Grant, and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of California, Los Angeles; and California State University, Dominguez Hills

Bart Friedman, co-founder of Videofreex, has produced videos that have been exhibited at the Everson Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Woodstock Film Festival, and other venues. After Lanesville, he co-directed a not-for-profit media arts center and post-production facility in Woodstock, NY, continuing as Media Bus, Inc. He is currently a partner in Reelizations Media, a company that produces and distributes videos related to behavioral health and addiction recovery. He is an independent video producer in regional arts and community affairs, and serves as a board member of Saugerties Public Access Television and Willow Mixed Media.

Davidson Gigliotti, co-founder of Videofreex, left Maple Tree Farm in 1975, joining forces with Elaine Summers and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, where he produced performance art and dance tapes, working with Trisha Brown, Min Tanaka, Elaine Summers, Laurie Anderson, Charlemagne Palestine, Jean Dupuy, Pauline Oliveros, Nam June Paik, and others. Beginning in 1977 he wrote the video art column in the SoHo Weekly News. His work was exhibited in the 1981 Whitney Biennial and twice in The Museum of Modern Art’s Projects series. In 1987 he moved, with Summers, to Sarasota, FL, where he wrote on art and other subjects for the Sarasota Arts Review, the Bradenton Herald, and Sarasota Magazine. He directed the Sarasota Visual Art Center between 1996 and 1998. He moved back to New York City in 2001 and is currently President of the Emily Harvey Foundation, which offers artist residencies in Venice, Italy. He is also editor of websites RadicalSoftware.org and the Early Video Project, and writes about video.

Chuck Kennedy, co-founder of Videofreex, left Maple Tree Farm in 1978 to live 45 miles away in New Paltz, NY. Chuck married and had a daughter. For several years, he worked in freelance electronics repair and studio maintenance, both in the Mid-Hudson and in New York City, before taking a full-time position at Lifetime Television in New York. He returned to work in New Paltz when a job became available at the Center for Student Media at the State University of New York. There, he supported the campus television and radio stations. Chuck died of heart failure in March 2004, just shy of his 60th birthday. His daughter Rhea Kennedy now represents his legacy in the Videofreex Partnership and is webmaster of www.Videofreex.com.

Mary Curtis Ratcliff, co-founder of Videofreex, left the collective shortly after they moved to Lanesville. By 1973 she had migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area. In California, Ratcliff’s wind sculptures and ceremonial pieces were used in the early women’s spirituality movement. Since 1999, Ratcliff has concentrated increasingly on two-dimensional work, integrating photography, drawing, painting, and image transfer techniques in multi-layered, intricate explorations of nature, pattern, and perception. Ratcliff’s artwork has been exhibited in over 20 solo shows and is represented in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Oakland Museum of California. She lives and works in Berkeley, CA and is a member of Oakland’s Mercury 20 Gallery and SFMOMA Artists Gallery.

Parry Teasdale, co-founder of Videofreex, served as an advisor to a Federal Communications Commission task force that resulted in the adoption of Low Power Television (LPTV) service in the United States. Thereafter he co-founded The Television Center, an LPTV consulting firm. In 1985 he began writing for and then became managing editor of the weekly Woodstock Times. He is currently owner, editor, and publisher of The Columbia Paper in New York’s Hudson Valley. and columbiapaper.com, which ironically has the CBS News Link on the home page. He is the author of Videofreex: America’s First Pirate TV Station and the Catskills Collective That Turned It On.

Carol Vontobel, co-founder of Videofreex, worked as an educator and as a caseworker for the developmentally disabled. She is currently employed as a licensed social worker having earned a master’s degree from the State University of New York at Albany. Her video A Portapak Conversation (1973), produced collaboratively during Videofreex, was screened as part of the Women’s Video Festival in Buffalo, New York City, and San Francisco.

Ann Woodward, co-founder of Videofreex, continued her work in television after Lanesville. She reunited with Russell Connor, whom she had assisted on Vision & Television (1970) at the Rose Art Museum, as a producer for Cable Arts Foundation, which encouraged cultural programming in emerging cable television outlets. Later she achieved a distinguished career as video editor, most notably on The Barbara Walters Special for which she earned two Primetime Emmy Nominations. During this period she continued to paint and illustrate. In 1990 she left television and returned to school to pursue nursing. She worked on the AIDS Unit at New York City’s St. Vincent’s Hospital for over a decade. She currently devotes all of her time to her visual art practice. Woodward’s mixed media paintings are held in private collections throughout the United States and Europe.