The Filmmakers

About The Filmmakers:

Gary Simson (Director, Writer, Producer) has written, directed and produced more than 100 biography, sports, music and investigative crime documentaries for cable television, international news organizations, and broadcast television networks.  He has been honored with two Emmy nominations in the Outstanding Non-Fiction Series category.  In 2002, he received with his first nomination for a documentary on basketball great Isiah Thomas, which aired on the Fox Sports Network. In 2006, he received a second nomination for his two-hour film on the life of Marlon Brando.  Gary has produced for Bravo, History Channel, Discovery, Bloomberg TV, the Starz Network, Imagine TV and more. He has a masters degree in journalism from American University and worked as a news producer for Reuters Television in Washington D.C..IMDB.

Andy Willinger (Editor, Writer, Producer) is an award – winning filmmaker with over 20 years of experience.  As a founding member of the E! True Hollywood Story TV series team, Andy edited more than 30 one and two hour biographical documentaries.  He also spent 10 years making On-Air Promos as a Writer, Director, Producer and Editor for Game Show Network. Andy’s additional talents as a Musician, Songwriter and Photographer add a unique creative perspective to this project. He has a B.S. Degree in Broadcasting & Film from Boston University.

Joe Faissal (Editor) has been involved in post-production for over 20 years. Joe’s creative talents and deep understanding of technology has made him distinctly invaluable to a wide variety of projects, including commercials, concert films, features and documentaries. Recently, he collaborated with such notable directors as Taylor Hackford, Paul Mazursky and James Toback. Joe studied Film Editing at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Nick Ramos (Co-Producer) has nearly a decade of experience writing, producing and editing reality, news, promo and documentary films. He has produced programs and specials for E! Entertainment’s news department and for the Style Network. Nick was a producer on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Vanderpump Rules.”  He has also created promotional content for AOL-Huffington Post, the 2010 BET Awards Red Carpet event and the 2011 Essence Music Festival. 

Jimmy Hammond (Camera) has worked on dozens of high profile feature, episodic, reality and documentary films.  Projects include “The Newsroom” for HBO, “Valentine” for The CW and the documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne for Showtime.

Bill Megalos’ (Camera) work as a director ranges from commercials and music videos to dramatic films. As a cameraman, Bill filmed over 30 full-length documentaries for PBS, BBC and Channel 4 (UK) in more than 20 countries. For the past five years, he has been making social documentaries and working as a media consultant for the Asian Development Bank, a large N.G.O. whose aim is the reduction and elimination of poverty in Asia.

John Mitchell (Graphics) was part of the animation team for the hit TV show “Smallville”. He served as On-Set Supervisor for “Hidden” and was the lead animator on the “Aquaman” and “Knight Stalker” pilots for Warner Brothers Studios. His animation work also includes the Janet Jackson video “So Excited” and the feature films “Spiderman 3” and “Herbie Fully Loaded.”