Nadine Bell is a freelance producer and writer located in Toronto, Canada.  She’s also the one writing this bio and assembling this website so writing about myself in the third person feels totally weird and I’ll stop now!

I was born in Toronto, raised in the country outside of Kingston, Ontario so I have that country girl in the city perspective.  Do I love camping?  Well, no, but I love being outside and playing in the woods.  I just like indoor plumbing to come back to when it gets dark.  Though I will pee outside with no worries, except if there are mosquitoes.  Then the worries abound.  Isn’t this supposed to be about my work experience?

Okay, well I went to Ryerson University in Toronto for Radio and Television, but I got bored in 3rd year and went and got an internship at my fav channel in the universe – THE SPACE CHANNEL – and after a few months I was lucky and blessed to be offered a full time gig there.  I took it without question and didn’t look back for 5 years and ended up the Video Game Segment Producer (I’m a hardcore Gamer).  Then, I looked forward and realized I was too restless and wanderlust-filled to stay.  So I left my job and my country and headed over to Australia for a wee bit.  I came back, debated on what to do next, and lo and behold I came back to Toronto and wrote a webseries.

 

Simon Evans was born to working class parents in the port town of Liverpool, England. At fourteen, Evans packed up his meager belongings and moved to the land of golden opportunity, Canada! After wandering aimlessly in the Toronto Wilderness for a number of years, he settled down into a career in the fine art of television production.

In 1983 he joined the entertainment division of City TV, and although just a plucky intern, was instrumental in the creation and execution of an “all-night” video program CityLimits. In 1984, things changed dramatically for Evans (as it did for music television in Canada), when the CRTC, granted CHUM television a video music channel licence and MuchMusic was born!

Evans quickly rose through the ranks of MuchMusic, learning many skills in the world of music programming and television production. In the position of producer, he created and oversaw many highly rated live and pre-taped music specials, daily programs and interviewed hundreds of the Worlds top musical acts (and a ton of really shitty ones!)

1997 was a year of change for Evans, as he moved upward into Space!( the science fiction and fantasy channel, not the endless, star filled void). For over ten years he served as the Supervising and Creative Producer of their in-house production unit, overseeing all original on air programming, interstitial website materials, and was solely responsible for writing and producing The Space channel’s weekly entertainment magazine program, Hyperspace.

Well, that’s how he remembers it…

Simon Evans now lives the happy life of a television and web production freelancer (when anyone will hire him) and spends most of his time, alone, talking to his cat.

Helena Frecker is one of the most amazing and talented people in the universe. And until she writes her own bio that’s all there is to say! Also, check out her band Beneath The Ice for some super sweet folk music.

Ainsley Kendrick is normally caught behind the scenes working as a Production Manager and Stage Manager for a multitude of theatre and dance companies in the great city of Toronto. She likes to spend her time bossing people around and keeping them on schedule, which made her leap into film such a breeze. This is Ainsley’s third film project and she is thrilled to be working with such a quirky bunch of people.

Jason Leaver studied Film at Ryerson Polytechnic University, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts. By day he is a corporate video producer – always putting a creative/fun spin on things. By night he has created a number ofshort films. Out With Dad marks Jason’s first foray into web series production; for which he serves as the series creator, producer, writer, director, cinematographer, editor, visual effects and somehow finds time to maintain the series’ website and all other social networking.

In 2004 he was awarded “Best Technical Production” in the 2nd annual One Minute Film Festival in Toronto for the film Duplication Violation. Also in 2004, the film Steep Decision (co-directed by Shawn Willings) placed third out of forty in the annual 2880 Minute Film Challenge in the Port Townsend Film Festival in Washington. Given, produced in 2005 for the Toronto 24hr Film Challenge place second place out of 28 completed films. In 2008 his film Penance won two awards: “Best Use of Line” and “Best Use of Character” inThe 48 Hour Film Project.  His video installation project “Mobius” was selected and appeared in Toronto’s 2009 Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.  In February 2011, Jason was nominated for outstanding direction and outstanding writing in the Independent Soap Awards in NYC; and in March 2011 he won Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Cinematography in a Drama Series for in the 2011 LAweb Festival all for his work on Out With Dad. His short film lol_wom3n won Best Narrative at the 6th annual One Minute Film Festival in Toronto.

Jason is also a co-organizer/co-host of the Toronto Web Series Community, a growing, supportive network of digital storytellers.

Vibrant and enthusiastic Photographer and Videographer, Dian Miguel started her education at Humber College in Toronto with Film and Television Production as well as Digital Videography and Digital Editing. Dian’s passion for photography started early in life and she has blossomed from an enthusiast to a professional. Beginning with landscape and portraiture, in recent years Dian’s experience has broadened into special events and commercial photography. She brings a positive energy and enthusiasm to every shoot. Her work can be seen at To The T Productions.

In 2007 Stephen Leck graduated from Sheridan College’s Media Arts program and began his career in Film and Television a week later. After interning at CHUM Television’s SPACE Channel he was immediately hired as a segment editor for the pop culture news show, HypaSpace, and The Circuit. Here Steve flexed his creative muscle on a number of segments and half hour specials for two years until moving into freelance. For the next year and a half Steve worked on a number of projects on Feature Films, Short Films, and Commercials, in a number of rolls such as PA, AD, and Producer. He then moved on to do freelance editing work for Astral Television, editing for a number of channels such as Family Channel, The Movie Network, Viewers Choice, and more.

Steve is currently working back at Bell Media’s SPACE Channel as a Promotions Producer/Editor and loving every second of it. Throughout his career, he has worked on and help create a number of web-based passion projects, such as short films, music videos, reality shows, behind the scenes interviews, and album reviews. The majority of these projects have been delivered through the website TheOffline.com (currently under heavy reconstruction), a division of American Genius.

Steve is a self-proclaimed geek and proud of it, which makes him perfectly suited for his job at the SPACE Channel. He enjoys many aspects of being said geek, such as; playing boardgames, reading comics, playing video games (he probably does this a tad too much), and catching up on way too many popular genre shows. Steve’s current favorite web-series (aside from LESlieVILLE) is The Guild.

Shelley Maclean grew up with aspirations of becoming an obstetrician. After being introduced to horror films at an early age by her mother, Shelley became captivated with the genre along with the French New Wave era and decided that pursuing a career in film was her true calling.

She studied film in Montreal at Concordia University. Then moved to British Columbia to discover “Hollywood North”. She got her first job as a Negative Film Processor in a Motion Picture lab and was the first woman to be hired in that department in 25 years.

Six years later, she made the transition to Visual Effects Editor for 5 years with CIS Vancouver and Stargate Digital Studios. Shelley also filmed her first Super 8 short called “Leaving Absence” which she directed, hand processed and edited.

After 13yrs in Vancouver Shelley felt it was time to head back to the east coast and currently resides in Toronto. She has been working as an assistant editor for several shows including the CBC series “Make The Politician Work”, and reality television such as “Free Range Parents” and ”Rescue Mediums” for W Network, TLC and SLICE.

Russell Winkelaar is the most beautiful soul in the world. (He didn’t write that, Nadine did.)