Production Team
Jonathan Kitzen – Writer/Director
Jonathan Kitzen was born with a camera in his hand. He is an award winning film and
documentary filmmaker with a MA in motion picture production from New York University. He
recently drew great praise for his work producing and shooting Running with Bulls 3D.
Kitzen's past work makes him uniquely suited to producing Lightning which requires capturing
a fleeting event at the fastest possible speeds in stereoscopic 3d and then projecting them at
the highest possible resolutions. He has been at the forefront of photographic/film technology
and technical development for over 20 years and is one of the main sought after consultants
in the 3D world of film and television. Kitzen, is currently at the forefront of high speed
stereoscopic photography in the beyond HD realm. He is the co-founder of Meduza Systems
which creates ultra high definition stereoscopic cameras for the military, aviation, and
entertainment industries and meet the high standards of 15/70mm film. Meduza recently won
a technology award at the 2011 National Association of Broadcasters annual event. Having
carved out a niche in the "difficult to film" production areas, Kitzen is working to launch a new
Dome Cinema acquisition format in late 2011 and will be co-producing a number of projects in
this area. Kitzen is currently engaged in numerous film projects including a stereoscopic
narrative which will use never seen before 3D techniques.
Kitzen was the former CEO of MKAFILM which was an American-Russian JV that specialized
in completely custom camera and optical systems for numerous Hollywood feature films and
contract work for many large government organizations. His Russian partner was the only
group to ever receive an academy award for 3D technology. Kitzen was the financial and
guiding force behind the conversion of the Zepar 3D lens system to the Phantom 65 camera.
Past experience has included everything from being a cinematographer and line producer to
owner of one of the largest theaters in Florida. When you combine Kitzen's natural storytelling
and visual skills with his cutting edge technological advances, his work is some of the most
exciting and advanced films being made today.
Nicholas Reed - Producer
Nick comes from a background in advertising, marketing and has spent 16 years as a senior
agent in Hollywood running the Motion Picture Literary Group at International Creative
Management. He has been involved with some of the most influential artists, writers, directors
and actors. He has been involved with a large number of critically and commercially
successful films and television series. He brings a wide breadth of knowledge, experience
and relationships on creating,executing and marketing quality entertainment. Only in
Hollywood can you go from being a British Royal Navy Pilot to being cast by Steven Spielberg
in the film HOOK to becoming the Co-Head of International Creative Management's Motion
Picture Department (one of the biggest Hollywood talent agencies) and according to the
London Times one of the most influential Brits in Hollywood.
After college he pursued a career in Aviation when he joined the British Royal Navy as a pilot.
During the end of his flight training he and a colleague won a government backed competition
in Scotland to build and manufacture single-seater fully acrobatic aircraft where he was the
builder and test pilot.
He then joined a marketing company, Belou Communications- which after its first twelve
months in operation was voted the runner-up Best New Business of the Year by The
Independent Newspaper. During his time there he worked in strategic marketing for clients
such as Kodak, Fed-Ex, and several government organizations.
After moving to the United States in 1992, he was cast by Steven Spielberg to play Robin
Williams' father in the film HOOK and then later cast by Francis Ford Coppola to play a small
role in DRACULA. Intrigued by Hollywood, he joined ICM in an effort to understand the
making of movies.
Working with writers, directors, and actors, he has been involved with such movies as MY
BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, AUSTIN POWERS I, II and III, ELIZABETH, TRAINING DAY,
BRIDGET JONES DIARY, MOULIN ROUGE, THE BOURNE IDENTITY SERIES,
MONSTER'S BALL, WHITE NOISE, UNDERWORLD I, II and III, MEET THE PARENTS,
MEET THE FOCKERS, BORAT, LIVE FREE DIE HARD and the upcoming Disney event
picture PRINCE OF PERSIA among many others. In television he was involved with the
successful CSI series, the relaunch of HAWAII 5-0 amongst others.
He has served on the Los Angeles British Film Board advising the government on film policies
and has advised government ministers. He has also advised the Finnish government on their
film and entertainment business. In addition, Nick is a guest speaker for UCLA's graduate film
program.
John Hart – Creative Scientist/Stereo Creator/Technical Guru
John is behind the amazing renderings for a new dynamic look to Hubble and Cassini images.
Hart recently retired as Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of
Colorado, Boulder where he taught for almost four decades. His formal education includes a
B.A. in Physics (Amherst College, Magna Cum Laude, 1966) and Ph.D. in Meteorology and
Oceanography (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970). He began working with stereo
imaging in 1998 after pursuing nature and wildlife and adventure sports photography for
almost 30 years.
Innovative and novel techniques were implemented by the team in order to visualize a wide
range of scientific phenomena with the goal of using stereo-realism to bring out the intrinsic
beauty of his subjects and make them accessible to a wider audience. Physical principles or
astrophysical models developed by Hart were used to estimate relative cloud heights, or
distances to direction of travel of known objects modeled to create the photo-realistic
conversion of the 2D images into 3D. Images were then zoomed and panned in the film, using
asymmetric zooms, to give the illusion of flying past and into the object. Others were
morphed, imparting motion to specific parts of the frame based on Hart's knowledge of fluid
dynamics and the astrophysical properties of the individual objects. The image sequences
were then painstakingly converted to 3D frame by frame by hand rendering over thousands of
hours.
The result of these labors are the intensely beautiful images of Cosmic Journey which takes
Hubble and Cassini to a new and profound dimension. John has developed instrumentation
for viewing stereoscopic prints (the MirScope) and has contributed to the methodology of
combining animated stills and videos into stereoscopic programs designed for digital
projection and 3DTV's. Single-sided versions of his stereo-pairs have appeared in magazines
like Outside, Adventure Sports, American Canyoneering calendars, and on the covers of
Science, Microscopy Today, and StereoWorld. His photomicrographs routinely place among
the top entries in the yearly Nikon International Small World competitions, and his projected
3D programs have won first-place awards at National Stereoscopic Association Conventions
(2007 – 2010 inclusive), the LA3D FilmFest (2010), and the Stereoscopic Displays and
Applications Conference (2011).
Hart's research has focused on modeling of motions in planetary atmospheres and oceans,
and the use of microgravity laboratory experimentation, carried out on the Space Shuttle, to
understand the structure of global-scale thermal convection subject to rapid planetary
rotation. His work also emphasized study of the transition to chaos in rotating atmospheres
and the extraction of simplified low-order dynamics from fully resolved numerical, as well as
laboratory, experiments. He used both techniques to look for possible processes responsible
for planetary jets. Hart has served as associate editor of Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid
Dynamics and the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and was on the editorial board of
Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. John lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife Judy.
Trey Swann: Associate Producer
Trey Swann joined the team to oversee educational outreach, supervise certain aspects of
production, and to develop strategic film sponsorships and promotional partnerships. Using
his background in education, Trey has developed supplemental curriculum materials that aim
to broaden the learning experience of each film, and to provide educators with interactive
educational activities that support the Common Core Standards. Prior to this, he worked in
the Motion Picture Department at International Creative Management, and for Shine
International, the international sales and distribution arm of the Shine Group. Trey graduated
Magna Cum Laude from the University of California, Los Angeles.