Producers

Interstellar Studios
Interstellar Studios specializes in producing award winning, multimedia productions that entertain and educate the public about the wonders of space.
Interstellar Studios products include planetarium programming, high-definition documentaries, web programming and interactive kiosk design. With experienced personnel and in-house editing suites, the company meets a variety of multimedia production needs.

Production Team
The “400 Years of the Telescope” production team is comprised of a talented group of professionals, accomplished in astronomical media productions.

Executive Producers
Dan Koehler
Dan Koehler, General Partner, brings a life-long love of astronomy and 10 years of experience at Astronomy Magazine to Interstellar Studios. With an MBA in Finance, Dan is a skilled executive producer, capable of managing production finances while fostering creative talent.

Kris Koenig
Kris Koenig, General Partner, Interstellar Studios, shares his love of astronomy with the public through his unique outreach efforts, photography, and multimedia products. His work has taken him all over the world, including most of the major observatories in the western hemisphere. Kris is also founder and director of one of the most successful community observatories, and the nation’s only outdoor planetariums in the country.

Producer/Director
Kris Koenig
Kris Koenig is a video producer from the ground up. His expertise in camera work, interviewing, lighting, editing, and production management is apparent in the ten-hour PBS telecourse “Astronomy: Observations and Theories”, for which he won two Emmy® Awards in 2005, for Instructional Programming and Outstanding Non-news Writer. His footage has been used in National Geographic productions, and his astrophotography graces the covers of nationally acclaimed astronomical textbooks and appears in various publications and videos.

Writers

Dr. Donald Goldsmith
Donald Goldsmith received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969, and was a postdoctoral fellow (at Stanford and Berkeley) and then a faculty member (at the State University of New York, Stony Brook) before devoting himself to the full-time popularization of astronomy. Dr. Goldsmith served as a full-time consultant at KCET-Television for the 13-hour television series “Cosmos,” hosted by Carl Sagan, who was his undergraduate advisor at Harvard. He was the science editor and co-writer of the 1986 NOVA special “Is Anybody Out There?” featuring Lily Tomlin, and served in the same capacity for the 6-hour public television series “The Astronomers,” first broadcast in 1991, for which Dr. Goldsmith also wrote the companion book. His book Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, written in collaboration with Neil Tyson, was the companion volume to the 2004 public television series “ORIGINS.”

He has written, co-authored, or edited more than two-dozen books on astronomy, and has produced numerous articles for journals such as Natural History, Discover, and Astronomy. Among Dr, Goldsmith's books are The Runaway Universe, Connecting with the Cosmos, Worlds Unnumbered, and Einstein's Greatest Blunder?

Kris Koenig
Kris Koenig is a 2005 Emmy® Award-winning writer for the 10-hour public television telecourse “Astronomy: Observations & Theories”. He is a lecturer at California State University of Chico, and the founder and director of the Kiwanis Chico Community Observatory and the Shoemaker Open Sky Planetarium. He is also an associate member of the American Astronomical Society.

Dr. Albert van Helden
Albert van Helden (1940) is emeritus professor at Rice University and the University of Utrecht. He was trained as an engineer and worked at the Ford Motor Company for several years, before changing to History. He obtained his Ph.D. from Imperial College, University of London, in 1970, and taught at Rice from 1970 to 2001 and Utrecht from 2001 to 2005. His research area is the history of astronomy, and his publications include The Invention of the Telescope (1977), Measuring the Universe (1983), The History of Science in the Netherlands (1999, with L.C. Palm and K. van Berkel), and a number of papers on the astronomy of Christiaan Huygens. His book Galileo and Scheiner on Sunspots, 1611-1613, coauthored with Eileen Reeves, will be published in 2008. Van Helden served as President of the History of Science Society, from 1998 to 1999. He is the originator of the Galileo Project, an Internet resource on the life and works of Galileo

David Levy
David Levy is the author and editor of 35 books. He won an Emmy in 1998 as part of the writing team for the Discovery Channel documentary, “Three Minutes to Impact.” As the Science Editor for Parade Magazine, he is able to reach more than 80 million readers, almost a quarter of the population of the United States. A contributing editor for Sky and Telescope Magazine, he writes its monthly “Star Trails” column, and his “Nightfall” feature appears in each issue of the Canadian Magazine “Skynews”.

David Levy is President of the National Sharing the Sky Foundation, an organization intended to inspire new generations to develop an inquiring interest in the sciences, or in other words, to reach for the stars. Levy resides in Vail, Arizona, with his wife, Wendee. He is one of the most successful comet discoverers in history, and has discovered 22 comets, nine of them using his own backyard telescopes. With Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California, he discovered Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994. That episode produced the most spectacular explosions ever witnessed in the solar system. Levy is currently involved with the Jarnac Comet Survey, which is based at the Jarnac Observatory in Vail, Arizona. The Jarnac Observatory has telescopes planned for locations around the world.

Editor
Kimberly Generous White
Kimberly's passion for editing began in her Connecticut high school's Television Production department. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Animation Production from Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York with a concentration in advanced Avid editing techniques. Since moving to Los Angeles, she has edited four independent feature films featuring talents such as Andy Griffith, Paul Sorvino, and Tony Curtis. In addition she has edited show content for various programs airing on PBS's NOVA, The History Channel, NBC, G4, and promotional material for FOX Searchlight. As one of the youngest members of the Motion Picture Editor's Guild under the Picture Editor classification, she eagerly continues to work on a variety of new projects.

Director of Photography
Scott Stender
Scott Stender has worked as a freelance producer, director of photography, writer and editor in the San Francisco Bay Area market since 1983. The majority of his work has been broadcast and corporate/industrial video. The focus of Scott's work has been commercial ad campaigns and documentaries with environmental and wildlife themes.

Soundtrack Composer
Mark Slater
Mark Slater was born in Reigate, England into a musical family. His father Christopher Slater, a professional conductor and organist, was a professor at Royal College of Music in London. Mark started playing the Cello and Piano at the age of 5. His early musical gifts earned him a scholarship as a chorister in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, followed by a scholarship to one of the oldest schools in the UK, Oakham School. After Oakham School he studied composition at London College of Music and techniques for composing for film at the Ealing Studios (1998), and studied with Nick Ingman and Rodney Newton.
 
Mark had his debut as concert pianist in 1998 at the Dorking Halls performing Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff. He has worked on several films, documentaries, plays, and concert commissions over the last several years since 1998, including Flatland the Film (2007) [Flatland Productions Inc., Ladd Ehlinger].  He worked briefly with David Arnold on The Musketeer (2001). In 2007 he composed music for the Philips Aurea website. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with members of the London Symphony Orchestra.  In 2005 Mark competed in the Gary Garritan Competition. He was a runner up.

Director of Visualizations
Leonard Wikberg III
Leonard Wikberg III has been the Producer/Art Director/Animator of Science Data for almost 30 years. His company provides real world science authoring, consulting and visualization. Science Data produces animation, imaging, post-effects and programming for motion picture, television and multimedia applications for various clients worldwide. Some include: The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, The Canadian Film Board, NBC, BBC, Nippon Television, Department of Defense; numerous museums: Beijing Planetarium (China), Tycho Brahe Planetarium (Denmark), The Odyssium (Canada), The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Stardome Observatory (New Zealand) and Meteor Crater, Arizona.

Assistant Editor/Videographer
Anita Ingrao
Anita Ingrao has worked in the field of video production for 17 years. She worked with Kris Koenig as videographer and production assistant for the Emmy® Award-winning 10-hour PBS telecourse “Astronomy: Observations & Theories”. She is currently one of several videographers for the PBS series, Sierra Center Stage, capturing popular band performances at Sierra Nevada Brewery's Big Room. Anita has also worked as videographer, editor, and production assistant for “News Writing” and “English Composition: Writing for an Audience”, nationwide telecourses, by Annenberg/CPB.

2nd Unit Producer (Europe)
Ilona Six
Ilona Six, Lead Producer for Six Entertainment, a Dutch movie production company, has produced mainstream, high definition, internationally distributed films. The most recent production “Honeyz,” produced in 2006, is the first production recorded using three-dimensional high definition sound. “Honeyz” will be distributed internationally, and simultaneously released in theaters, on DVD, Pay per view TV, Internet, mobile phones, and on HD Blu-Ray® DVD in the Benelux on April 28, 2007.

Animators
California State University Chico, Applied Computer Graphics Program
Web and documentary graphic design/animation in collaboration with Interstellar Studios and Science Data
The Applied Computer Graphics Program is an interdisciplinary degree program at Chico State that embraces computer graphics, computer science, design, and art.  The program helps prepare students for careers in diverse fields requiring expertise and knowledge of animation, computer modeling, concept design, storyboarding, video game design, web design, and special effects, as well as the ability to communicate and collaborate with others in diverse content domains. The program provides the students with exposure to and practice in the various aspects to the production pipeline.

The Applied Computer Graphics Program has produced skilled and talented students. Our alumni have entered career paths in major studios (Pixar, ILM, EA, etc.), a host of mid-size and smaller production studios, as well as choosing the entrepreneurial path. These talented students have also produced award winning animations, video games, and music videos during their tenure in the program. In the last three years at the Media Arts Festival program students placed well; 2007 – 1st in Interactive Media with a video game, 2nd in the highly-competitive Music Video segment, and 3rd and 5th in Animation; 2006 – 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th  in Animation; and 2005 – 2nd in Animation and a Special Jury prize for Interactive Media.

Chico State Game Studios, which has produced such video games as Bronze Age and Viathan, allows students to learn more about the industry pipeline. The group is currently in the process of producing a new game, High Noon, which is a first-person single player steampunk adventure video game.

http://graphics.ecst.csuchico.edu

graphics@ecst.csuchico.edu

Production Assistant
Krista Shelby
Krista Shelby, Production Assistant, has worked on a variety of small production projects through college, including two short films and numerous pop-culture parodies starring her peers and family. She has written, produced and edited all of her own work.

Director of Communications
Jennifer Oman
Jennifer Oman has coordinated city and countywide multimedia outreach campaigns. She has experience in public relations, and promotional and technical writing. Jennifer's background in the arts has served her well in providing oversight for development of media products, and the coordination of artists, graphic designers, and broadcast media specialists.