Meet our DCS 2010 Writer/Directors Alexander Major: Writer/Director "Random Natural Occurrence"
As an attorney, father and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, Alexander Major is familiar with “life/death” decisions, but not on the scale of his screenplay’s hero. A graduate of Montana State University and Catholic University School of Law, Major currently lives outside of Annapolis, Maryland and works in Washington, D.C. after being whisked around the world by the military. Between college and life as an Air Force intelligence officer, Major spent a year in the U.S. Virgin Islands where he worked as a SCUBA divemaster and tour boat narrator while living on a sailboat, couch and a semi-submarine.“Random Natural Occurrence” was written after joking about how hard real life-death decisions would be to make compared to many seemingly hard decisions we make on a day to day basis, and the environment in which those real decisions would have to be made.  Kieran McGowan: Writer/Director "Pascal's Bullet"
Kieran McGowan is a dynamic figure with absolutely no interests. He frequents Mexican eateries the world over. He invented the Van de Graaff generator and is a pioneer in the art of monkey wrangling. He coined the term "place-mat." He possesses supersonic vision and is an award-winning plagiarist. He conducts intergalactic battles on a microcosmic scale. He brooks no opposition. He once tricked Stephen Hawking into saying “underwear.” He is the only person who will ever understand you. Inspirations for “Pascal’s Bullet” included Cormac McCarthy by way of Martin McDonagh, with Harold Pinter riding shotgun. McGowan claims his short film will be the first cinematic treatise to explore the topics of Keats, Isaac Newton, AND the need to shoot people in the face. His short script “Under the Stairs” was a finalist in the 2008 Movie Script Contest, and his feature screenplay, “Larson’s Field,” was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival screenplay competition. His kid-friendly stories and illustrations can be found at www.drkalamazoo.com
 Kiyong Kim: Writer/Director "Camera Obscura"
Kiyong Kim is a writer, director, illustrator, and designer from Los Angeles. He was a Finalist for the 2009 Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship, his short film “Edit>Love” was one of the First Place winners in the Intel Indies/AtomFilms contest in 2006, and his short script “Brobot” finished Fourth Place in the 2003 Slamdance Screenwriting Competition. He's directed several short films that have won contests and have played at numerous festivals, and his last film was acquired for distribution by Canal+. “Camera Obscura” is Kim’s first non-comedic film, first night shoot, first car shoot, first film shot in Albuquerque (a town he has never seen until this week), and first time shooting and editing a film in only one week. Kim’s first film was actually written in Spanish for his high school Spanish class. By day, he works as an Art Director at a web marketing company. By night, he can be found in various cafes working on his next project.
 Mars (Casey) Mraz: Writer/Director "The Treehouse"
Mars Mráz is a recent graduate of the University of New Mexico’s M.F.A. Program in Dramatic Writing. He is an emerging writer who has recently published his first play, Rosario & the Bull. Many other plays of his have been produced in Albuquerque, N.M., including Greek Row Tragedy, The Feather and The Big Come and he is currently working on an upcoming production of his newest play Persephone. “The Treehouse” was written in a Screenwriting Class at UNM and was read in a staged reading of short screenplays in the spring of 2009 in the Words Afire New Play Festival. Dogs the world over do not like Mráz, and dogs have bitten him on several occasions. Perhaps he did something to a dog in a previous life, but he cannot remember. Although very experienced in the world of theatre, “The Treehouse” marks Mráz’s first foray into film, and no dogs were used in the making of his first film.
 Matt Ryan: Writer/Director "Nothing but Besties"
Matt Ryan is a veteran theatre and independent film actor, having performed in over 25 stage plays and more than two dozen independent and short films. He has been a production coordinator on a number of independent films produced with HBO. Ryan has also worked as a development executive for a number of production and management companies in Los Angeles and pitched various projects to The Sci-Fi Network and HBO during that time, one of which he developed and wrote the pilot for himself. Working with high school students, Ryan is constantly amazed at how seemingly out of tune many are with the world today, and equally amazed at what they actually consider important. “Nothing But Besties” was originally written as a short one-act play for a 24-hour theatre festival that took place on Halloween night in Los Angeles. From there, the play was revised and performed in the Short Lived 3.0 One Act Festival in March 2010, which Ryan directed. Brad Pitt once tipped Ryan $100 when he worked as a valet.
 Rob Lueker: Director "Pony Ride" (Music Video by Boris and the Saltlicks)
A third generation New Mexican, Rob Lueker has an extensive background in film and television that spans 22 years. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Television Production from Pepperdine University, Lueker served as a television news photographer before moving into the world of film. He attended workshops at the Rockport International Film Workshop in Maine, followed by a fellowship in cinematography at The American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The highlights of his education were an apprenticeship with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. on the motion picture “Assassins”, and a trip to Budapest, Hungary for the 3rd European Masterclass for Cinematography students, sponsored by Eastman Kodak. Since then, Lueker has worked in the world of set lighting on motion pictures and television series such as “The X Files”, “House”, “3:10 to Yuma”, “In Plain Sight”, “Breaking Bad” and many others. As a New Mexico filmmaker, Lueker hopes to open a new chapter in his career as a director/ cinematographer and will channel his efforts through his company, Piñon Films.
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The Players 
