Irene taylor

Director, Producer, Co-Editor

Irene Taylor is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose films journey deep into the human senses.   Moonlight Sonata follows her 2007 Peabody-winning memoir about her deaf parents, Hear and Now, and her 2018 New York Times Op-Doc on the impact of hearing technology, Between Sound and Silence.

Her Emmy-nominated HBO feature Beware the Slenderman received two 2018 Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Director and Best Documentary.   Her films explore blindness in Open Your Eyes, the global effort to eradicate polio in her Oscar-nominated The Final Inch, childhood grief in her Emmy-winning One Last Hug, a portrait of a single bird in her Emmy-winning Saving Pelican 895, and one family’s testament to love and music,  Homeless: The Soundtrack.  

Moonlight Sonata is Irene’s eighth film collaboration with HBO.  She has also worked as a news journalist, a Himalayan mountain guide, is a Sundance Institute Fellow, and a documentary branch member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She founded Vermilion Films in 2004 and most recently launched The Treehouse Project, a nonprofit focused on accessibility to independent film.

Irene is based in Portland, Oregon.

Tahria Sheather

Producer, Field Sound, Assistant Editor

Tahria Sheather is an Australian documentary filmmaker whose work explores our human connection with the natural world. Most recently she produced the documentary feature film Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and will air on HBO later in 2019.

Also with Vermilion Films, she produced the short documentary Homeless: The Soundtrack, which received a special jury mention at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, a New York Times Op-Doc about the impact of technology on deafness, and a series of 17 short films on sex trafficking.

Tahria has directed, produced, shot and edited short films, 360 video experiences, broadcast series and commercials for brands, nonprofits and media outlets including The New York Times, National Geographic, Columbia Sportswear, Destination Canada, Columbia Sportswear, NoVo Foundation and Neighborhood Centers Inc. She is a Sundance Institute Fellow and a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance.

Brian Kinkley

Animator

Brian Kinkley is a filmmaker and commercial animator based in Portland, Oregon. His animations are balanced with digital and practical techniques that project an imperfect handmade aesthetic. His credits range from Visual Effects on Oscar-winning feature films, to quirky short handmade animations for Instagram.

Jordan Domont

Illustrator

To infuse depth and luminosity into his work, Jordan employs a palette of punchy hues. Experimenting, he discovered that when inks layer heavily onto Mylar, it creates a rich, almost melted effect. Pigments become slightly volatile, even mercurial, and their behavior enlivens the entire process. Jordan likes to explore how different amalgams of color work together, because it sure trumps sitting back and watching paint dry.

Dylan Stark and Ben Johnson

Composers

Dylan Stark and Ben Johnson aim to make music that is an emotive synthesis of organics and electronics – their work is often meticulously created from layers and layers of recorded and computer made sound. Whatever the instruments, samples or genre, they work to make music that conveys strong, complex emotions through melody and mood.

Bill Weber

Co-Editor

Bill co-directed and edited the award winning documentaries The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin (SXSW audience award winner 2017), To Be Takei (Sundance 2014), We Were Here (Sundance, Berlin 2011), and The Cockettes (Sundance, Berlin and LA Film Critics Best Documentary 2002). He also edited Feelings Are Facts: The Life of Yvonne Rainer (Berlin 2015), The Galapagos Affair (Telluride and Berlin 2013), HBO’s The Alzheimer’s Project: Caregivers (2012), The Final Inch (Academy Award Nomination, Best Short Documentary, 2009), and Last Letters Home (2007), as well as numerous documentaries, television documentaries, commercials and music videos.

HUNTER NOACK

Classical Performer

Hunter performs all of Beethoven’s original sonatas in Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements. 

Hunter Noack, internationally acclaimed concert pianist, integrates literature, visual art, dance, theater and design into his presentations of classical music. Through the IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild outdoor concert series he brings a 9-foot concert Steinway into the wild where traditional concert halls are replaced by forests, fields, deserts, and riverbank vistas. The live classical music is transmitted to the audience through wireless headphones, which gives them freedom to wander through each landscape with a soundtrack to their outdoor experience. Winner of the Los Angeles International Liszt competition in 2011, Noack holds degrees from Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London), University of Southern California, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Lazerbeak

Original Music

Aaron Mader, known professionally as Lazerbeak, is a Minneapolis-based artist and producer. Over the past decade he has worked with a wide range of artists including Doomtree, Lizzo, Matt and Kim, Trampled By Turtles, Dessa, GAYNGS, P.O.S, Speedy Ortiz, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In addition to original production and songwriting, Beak also works musically behind the scenes on commercials, movie trailers, films, TV shows, and remixes.

Evan Anthony

Colorist

Based in New York, Evan is one of the most sought-after color correction and conform editors in the industry, working with top directors such as Albert Maysles, Liz Garbus and Roger Sherman. He has completed three of Irene’s films, and his work is regularly featured at Berlin, Sundance and during Academy Awards season.  

Lance Limbocker

Sound Designer

Lance Limbocker is a sound designer, editor and musician who has created the soundscape for most of Irene’s films, garnering him an Emmy (and two nominations) for best sound and score.   Lance was the mastermind behind Quasi Una Fantasia, the end-credit song for Moonlight Sonata, and he runs one of Portland’s premiere commercial sound studios, Limbocker Studios.