presents
Meet Our Team
Bret Parker, co-founder of Artfarm Productions, is a veteran in the film industry with 26 years under her belt at Pixar Animation Studios. Parker started her career at Pixar in 1996 and has gone on to animate on many films since, including the Oscar-winning “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles.” In 2012 with the development of the film “Brave,” Parker shifted her focus at work, becoming Animation Tools Lead and an integral part in the design and development of the current animation software used at Pixar, know as Presto. In 2018, Parker shifted focus again and took on the role of Animation Second Unit Supervisor for “The Incredibles 2.” She is currently working on an unannounced project, to be released 2023. Outside the studio, she created and directed work for the ground breaking dance troupe Iluminate, as well as wrote and directed a short animated film about climate change in partnership with the Marine Mammal Center and California College of the Arts. In 2019, along with her wife, Parker directed and produced her first feature length documentary, “Through The Windows,” which premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco to a sold out audience. She is continuing to bring her unique perspective as a queer female director to the screen with her latest film, “Pete.
Bret Parker - Director and Writer
A self-described story teller and co-founder of Artfarm Productions, Pete Barma is a director committed to bringing fresh stories from her perspective as a queer female to the screen. As an award winning out LGBTQ+ educator, she spent the last 30 years teaching literacy and understands the craft of story telling inside and out. In her role as educator, she has also founded LGBTQ+ and ally student clubs to help support and educate young people in the Bay Area, and frequently guest speaks on the subject. In 2019, she co-directed her first feature length documentary, “Through The Windows,” which premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco to a sold out audience. Her current focus is to continue to open the lens on the marginalized communities who have not typically appeared on screen. As such, she has written the autobiographical screenplay “Pete,” which is currently in production, to be finished in 2022. She continues to work on a series of queer stories.
Pete Barma - Co-Writer and Executive Producer
As queer film makers, we have been fortunate to be able to help create a production team that richly represents the LGBTQ+ community, with each member of our team bringing their own perspective and experience to the film in their own right. In fact, several of our core creative team are not only passionate advocates of LGBTQ+ rights within the workplace, but have also worked to broaden the creative connections within the film community so that Pixar can be out and present in local queer festivals like Frameline. We have also surrounded ourselves with allies, who have all volunteered to work on the film due to their belief in and their own unique connection to this story. As such, our crew is a literal diverse representation of inclusion that make us uniquely positioned to make this film one that both the LGBTQ+ audience of all ages, and community beyond can identify with, relate to and enjoy.
Jake Kaplan
Producer
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Jake Kaplan has worked in the wonderful world of animation for the past eight years. Since graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he has worked on animated productions ranging from small indie projects to major studio television series and feature films such as The New Looney Tunes (Warner Bros.) and Incredibles 2 (Pixar). As a Producer, he utilizes his years of education and experience in animation from both a creative and management perspective to strategize and communicate effectively with all sides of a project. He approaches his work with a blend of a Californian focus on wellness as well as a New York expectation to get the job done on time. In addition to his work in animation, he is the co-chair of Pixar's LGBTQ+ Studio Resource Group, PixPride, and spends a huge part of his time advocating and volunteering for LGBTQ+ advocacy and inclusion in the workplace.
Tia W. Kratter
Production Designer
Tia Kratter is currently working as a Visual Development Artist at Walt Disney Animation, creating and pre-visualizing images for a feature length film that will be released in Fall of 2023.
Prior to working at Disney, Tia joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1993 as a Digital Painter during production of the studio’s first feature film, Toy Story.
She has subsequently held the Shader Art Director role on five other films, including Pixar’s Monster’s Inc., A Bugs Life, Brave, Turning Red , and
others. As a Texture Art Director at Pixar, she was responsible for specifying the color and texture of every object modeled for a film. In 2013 Tia moved to become the Manager of Art & Film Education at Pixar University, Tia helped to foster the continuing education of Pixar employees; teaching art classes and offering writing, film, and a wide variety of related classes to its 1200 employees.
Prior to Pixar, Tia was a background painter at Disney Feature Animation from 1980 to 1994, where she worked on a variety of acclaimed animated
films including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast, Tron, and others.
Her paintings for films have been in exhibits around the world: MoMA NYC, Japan, England, and beautiful Oakland, California, among other
exotic locations. When she’s not at work, Tia spends her time painting watercolors- doing her best to keep computers as far away as possible. She is a signature member of the NWWS and California Watercolor Association. Tia is a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
She currently resides in Moraga, California with her husband and artist, Paul.
Danielle Feinberg
Director of Photography, Lighting /
Visual Effects Supervisor
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Danielle Feinberg is a Visual Effects Supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios. Feinberg began her career at Pixar in 1997, after receiving her BA in computer science from Harvard University. Her first
position was on the movie A Bug's Life as a render wrangler, an entry level, problem-solving position, and she soon was leading the otherwise all-male department. Feinberg got her first taste of lighting
during this time and fell in love with creating the final image for film. She went on to light many of Pixar's films, including Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., the Oscar-winning Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Another Oscar winner, Wall•E, was Feinberg's first movie directing the lighting in her role as Director of Photography. It was heaven for someone whose greatest inspiration is using technology to make art. She went on to oversee the lighting on two more Oscar-winning films, Brave (featuring Pixar’s first film with a girl as the main character) and Coco, celebrating the Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos. Feinberg recently completed the film Turning Red, taking on the role of Visual Effects Supervisor. She was the first woman in 20 years to hold this position at Pixar, using both her technical chops and her aesthetic skills, to help push the film to new places.
Feinberg has given talks about the challenges of making Pixar's film in various cities across Europe, Asia, Central America, and the United States. She also gives talks to girls of all ages, encouraging them to pursue code, math and science by showing them the magic found in combining art and technology to create movies. In 2016, she was able to bring that message to a broader audience with her TED talk that was part of the PBS "Science and Wonder" presentation for TED Talks Live. It was named one of the top TED talks of 2016.
Mahyar Abousaeedi
Director of Photography, Camera
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Mahyar Abousaeedi joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2005 as a layout artist on Academy
Award-winning features “Ratatouille”, “Up” and “Toy Story 3". Abousaeedi was the
director of photography for camera on the “The Good Dinosaur,” and continued that role
for “Incredibles 2,” and "Turning Red". Raised in Denver, CO, Mahyar enjoys
snowboarding, backpacking, and being a new dad, but has yet to take up Bret Parker's
invitation to surf - the water is just too cold. He worked in architecture before joining the
studio, and attended University of Colorado, Boulder, and went on to earn a Masters of Fine
Arts in Cinema from the University of Southern California.
Jake Monaco
Composer
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Composer Jake Monaco’s musical fingerprints can be found on some of the biggest film and TV scores of the past decade. His most recent film scores include Disney’s Flora & Ulysses , the groundbreaking Pixar Sparkshort OUT , and Disney’s Short Circuit short Going Home on Disney+; Think Like A Dog starring Megan Fox and Josh Duhamel, Netflix’s Dumplin’ starring Jennifer Aniston for director Anne Fletcher, and Fox’s action
comedy Keeping Up With the Joneses starring Jon Ham and Gal Gadot. In television, Monaco’s music can be heard in the Amazon animated series Do, Re & Mi starring Kristen Bell and the Pixar short series Forky Asks A Question for Disney+. Monaco grew up in New Jersey and New Hampshire, finding his bearing toward music at an early age. He studied composition and music technology at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and started the band NE3 opening for bands like Maroon 5 - before enrolling at the film scoring program at USC where he began his fruitful and ongoing collaboration with Christophe Beck. “I’ve always loved storytelling through music, which is why songwriting came so
naturally,” says Monaco. “I found it difficult to conjure up inspiration for a piece just for the
sake of writing music. So when I finally made the connection between music and film, it just
clicked and I fell in love.”
Anna Wolitzky
Editor
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Anna Wolitzky is a Bay Area film editor who has worked at Pixar Animation Studios for over 20 years. She has been an editor on several feature films such as Toy Story 3, Coco, Monsters University, Onward, and, most recently, Turning Red. Anna also edited the animated short film, “Burrow”, part of the Pixar Spark Shorts program, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2021. She is currently editing a new original feature film for the studio, which is slated for release in 2024. This is Anna and Bret’s second collaboration; she also previously edited Bret’s documentary Live Action feature, “Through the Windows”.
Rebecca Banks
Associate Producer ​
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Rebecca Banks found her roots in the film and television industry starting with acclaimed, award wining series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Banks studied film production and arts administration with an emphasis in Public Affairs at Indiana University of Bloomington and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Banks's work is a medley of varying artistic interests. She has had the pleasure of working with companies such as Netflix, VICELAND TV, AMC, Smithsonian Channel, FOX, Nickelodeon Animation, Pixar Animation Studios and she presently works in development production at Walt Disney Feature Animation. She is currently aiming to work on several narrative films addressing issues in human rights, diversity and inclusion with the aim of becoming a Strategic Planning and Production executive.
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Bret Levin
Technical Supervisor​
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Brett Levin was VFX Supervisor on the animated short film Piper (2016), and led the scene
description and composition project used as the basis for Pixar's Universal Scene Description.
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