Our Team.
Executive Producer
Howie Bierbaum
For over 35 years, Howie Bierbaum has celebrated and supported artists and the arts. Most recently he was Executive Director of the Portland Saturday Market. Bierbaum began his career as Executive Director for Portland’s Echo Theatre/Do Jump!. He then went on to head the Portland Area Theatre Alliance, Portland Symphonic Choir, Third Angle New Music Ensemble and Oregon Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. In 2004 he co-founded and managed Wonder Ballroom, leaving that position in 2008 to become Tour Manager for the band, Pink Martini. He currently serves as a markeing/pr consultant for “Beyond Van Gogh-The Immersive Experience”. As an impresario, Bierbaum has presented works by Quentin Crisp, Ari Shapiro, Storm Large and Eve Ensler. Howie has served as a grants panelist for RACC, OAC and the Oregon Community Foundation. He presently volunteers for the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project and the QDoc Film Festival.
Director/Producer
Joanie Fox
Joanie Fox is a writer/producer/director living in Portland, Oregon that began a career in the arts at the age of 11 dancing with Ballet West. At 17, she moved to Boston to train and dance professionally before moving to New York City to perform on Broadway at Radio City Music Hall with "The Wizard of Oz, Live".
From there, Joanie went on to do national tours and off-Broadway productions before studying acting and moving to Los Angeles, where she landed a recurring role on the hit TV Series ER, along with numerous film and TV appearances including Grey's Anatomy, JAG and The Fighting Temptations.
Joanie produced the North American premiere of "Wedding Dress" at Theatre 40 in Los Angeles after being granted the rights by the family of Nelson Rodríguez, Brazil's most prolific writer, poet and playwright. The play received numerous Ovation awards and began her journey into producing. Fox is also the writer of "Skater Boy" with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films and her original screenplay, "Arranging Mia" was an official selection and award winner at the LGBT Toronto Film Festival 2017.
Fox is the director/producer of the award winning short film documentary, "The Joy Block" and the director/producer of RISE, a music video for the newest single from Pink Martini's, China Forbes. Joanie is currently directing and producing “Beatlore”, a feature documentary about Derek Rieth, late percussionist with Pink Martini who died by suicide in 2014.
Producer
AJ Gordon
AJ is an organized and reliable film-nerd evoking the entrepreneurial spirit. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon as a fan of the outdoors, film, live music, film, sports, film, and movies. After earning a bachelor’s degree in digital media production, he immediately moved to LA to pursue a career in entertainment. Gaining years of professional experience on national commercial and A-List special events before re-relocating back to Portland to be involved in its ever-growing motion picture community. He founded Loaded Image Entertainment in 2010.
Co-Producer
Jen Tate
Jen has worked her way through the world of media. From student films at Stanford to a documentary about karaoke - from educational videos for Sesame Street to instructional videos for Silicon Valley. She has written, directed, produced and fundraised along the way. She served as Executive Director of the Portland Area Theatre Alliance, and Producer of Oregon Documentary Camp, and is fully committed to arts & media nonprofits. In 2019, she founded Oregon Media Lab with Jackie Weissman. During the COVID pandemic, her documentary short, Karaoke People, made the rounds at online film festivals from NY to LA. Jen's goal is to bring people together, to make things happen and to keep it professional & fun along the way.
Director of Photography
Madison Rowley
Guided by honest and curious observation, I seek out the moments that bring life to the eyes, emotion to the heart and excitement and joy to my subject.
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, studied film, photography, and theatre in Midtown Manhattan, the mountains of Montana, and the International School of Film in Paris. I shoot and promote the use of celluloid whenever I can, to keep this beautiful art form alive and the organic process of capturing an image, a modern practice.
Executive Producer
Heather Rieth
Heather was born and raised in the Portland/Vancouver area with her brother, Derek. She has been a nurse for 19 years, specializing in Mental Health, Leadership, and chronic diseases. Her nursing career started in Vancouver, after working as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant and Phlebotomist for several years. She returned to the Portland area after 13 years in Colorado to focus on filming for the documentary and to be closer to her mother and long time friends. She has two amazing daughters and son-in-laws. Her oldest daughter, Kim, is a Deputy for King County, and her youngest daughter, Chloe, is a winemaker in Colorado. Heather is newly married after meeting her husband, Branden, one day after returning to Portland. She has gained 3 wonderful children through her marriage to Branden: Kelsey, Alyssa, and Zachary. She and Branden love music of all kinds, cooking, travelling, rockhounding, and spending time with family and friends through adventures of all kinds!
Co-Producer
Jackie Weissman
For the past 25 years, Jackie Weissman has worked as a media producer, director, editor, and educator. Rock N Roll Mamas, her documentary featuring Zia McCabe of The Dandy Warhols, Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses, and up and coming hip hop mc, Ms. Suad, has shown around the world to sold-out audiences. Her award winning documentary, The Gorilla and the Piker, was featured on WNET, Channel 13 in New York, as a part of its Reel New York series. She is a founding board member of Women In Film-Portland and served as Board President for two years. Jackie is also a founding organizer of Oregon Doc Camp and has been the Director of the program since 2016. She received her MFA in film and video production from Columbia College-Chicago and lives in Portland, Oregon. In 2019, she founded Oregon Media Lab with Jen Tate.
Production Accountant
Robin Hewitt
Robin Hewitt is an independent production accountant with over 25 years of experience in the film industry. Robin’s film accounting career started in Los Angeles as a Controller for live-action film production companies with an eventual shift to VP of Finance for an animated film and television studio (producing Duckman, Rugrats, Wild Thornberries, Rocket Power to name a few) including a commercial division and record label.
Upon moving to Portland, Robin continued working on animated films and television series for a Los Angeles studio with clients including Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, DC Comics, Disney, MTV Networks, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Turner Networks. She worked on Portlandia Seasons 2 through 8, as well as Documentary Now!, the Comedy Central animated series Jeff and Some Aliens and various Warner Bros. live-action productions for The CW Television Network.
Producer
Sascha Fix
An innovative Producer raised in the Santa Monica Mountains of California. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Portland State University and cut her production teeth on music videos for directors such as Hype Williams and Paul Hunter. She spent two years as an Executive Producer at an agency mainly working on projects for Nike, Rubbermaid and Columbia Sportswear. In her 17 years of production she has worked as a Script supervisor, Production Manager, Locations Manager, Health and Safety Manager and Producer for Netflix, Hulu, Sony, Warner Brothers, NBC and Disney. Her passion is to connect the artists and the storytellers with the creators that can bring these visions to life for others to see and experience. She resides in Portland, Oregon, listening to loud music with her partner, daughter and a couple of pets.
Director of Photography & Editor
Jacob Pander
Jacob Pander is a Portland, Oregon based filmmaker and graphic novelist. Pander specializes in narrative, documentary, music videos and brand content. Dramatic narrative work includes his award winning feature film, SELFLESS. Currently, Pander is freelance producing for Oregon Public Broadcasting's long running TV series, Oregon Art Beat, profiling Northwest artists. His recent segments on independent filmmaker, Vu Pham, and painter Roll Hardy, were nominated for NW Regional Emmy Awards. Pander also collaborates with his brother, Arnold, working together as the Pander brothers. The two have collaborated on notable comic books and graphic novels including Batman: City of Light (DC Comics), Dissident X (Dark Horse Comics), GirlFiend (Dark Horse Comics), and Matt Wagner's Grendel: Devil’s Legacy (Dark Horse Comics) soon to be an original Netflix series.