The Filmmakers
Kathy Carlson, PHD, MFT
Producer
Kathy is a CA licensed psychotherapist with thirty years
experience working with survivors of child abuse, rape, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)
and trauma of all kinds. Profoundly conversant with the human cost of violence and the long
journey required to return to normalcy, Kathy created and directed several treatment programs
to aid victims, and taught regionally and nationally on the topic of trauma. In 1997, a year
after the cease fire in the Balkans, she was invited to Bosnia to work with women and child
refugees. Finding herself mostly without an interpreter, she generated other ways to connect in
a meaningful way to the war survivors. She traveled through the countryside, met former
combatants and experienced the reality of a former war zone still occupied by UN troops. She
combined all these work and life experiences with her extensive skills as an interviewer to initiate,
produce and creatively shape the content and structure of Common Sky, in partnership with
Anvil into Hammer Productions.
Jason Black
Executive Producer
Jason has been producing feature films, commercials, and music videos for ten years. Black was invited to join the Directors Guild of America union as a Production Manager in 2003, and on this foundation he built a production services corporation in Los Angeles called Blue Cactus Pictures. Blue Cactus was the production engine for fifteen feature films in four years. Black sold his half of the business in 2007 and moved home to San Francisco to develop and produce original content.
Black understands that it takes a careful balance of creative and financial forces to make a film successful. Black’s consulting company, Black Ink Entertainment, works with writer/directors to develop original content and specializes in business planning and financing strategies for independent films. Black was first hired as a business consultant for Common Sky in February 2009, coming onboard officially as Executive Producer in June that same year.
At age seventeen, Black enrolled in the Marine Corps for four years and quickly made rank as a Non-Commissioned Officer, leading troops through cold weather training in Norway and France, desert warfare training in Egypt, and joint operation training with Israeli, Turkish, Italian, and Spanish armies. Black holds a B.F.A. in film and digital media from the University of California at Santa Cruz, a two-year Associates degree in acting from Solano College Theater and an additional certificate in acting from A.C.T. in San Francisco. Black is happily married to the lovely and talented Kate Haisch. They had their first child, James West, in January 2009.
Yovel Schwartz
Director/Co-Producer
Yovel graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2001 with a degree in Film & Digital Media and a minor in Philosophy. He has directed six short films, produced several music videos, and been a producer and production manager for a wide variety of other projects including television programs and feature films. Having worked on productions of all sizes, from major Hollywood motion pictures to small independent films, Yovel has spanned his experience across every type of film production and has worked with a variety of established filmmakers such as Phil Kaufman, Chris Columbus, Arnold Kopelson and others. Yovel co-founded Anvil Into Hammer Productions, a San Francisco based production company, with a profound belief in the potential of cinema to motivate and inspire both psychological and social evolution. Since its creation, Anvil Into Hammer has partnered with associates in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Mexico City, to run productions across the United States.
Ryan Schubert
Editor/Co-Producer
East Coast native Ryan Schubert has been working in independent motion picture production in the San Francisco Bay Area since he graduated from San Francisco State film school in 2001. In addition to spending much of his time in motion picture development and still photography, he has produced and edited many different projects including several independent music videos and short films. This documentary marks the most recent in a series of collaborations with producer/director Yovel Schwartz with whom he co-founded Anvil Into Hammer Productions. This is his second feature as an editor.
Jeremy L. Wong
Director of Photography
Jeremy is a San Francisco-based director of photography who specializes in documentaries, music videos, and short narratives. He received a B.A. in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University in 2002, and has since made his way as a cinematographer. He works regularly in San Francisco and Los Angeles although his shooting assignments have also taken him to New York, the Deep South, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. Jeremy believes strongly in the balance between a cinematographer's responsibility to the narrative and his need to create beautiful imagery. He strives to display this balance in his work, and is a perennial student of photographic and artistic techniques and technologies. He has been working on Common Sky since 2005.
Producer
Kathy is a CA licensed psychotherapist with thirty years experience working with survivors of child abuse, rape, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and trauma of all kinds. Profoundly conversant with the human cost of violence and the long journey required to return to normalcy, Kathy created and directed several treatment programs to aid victims, and taught regionally and nationally on the topic of trauma. In 1997, a year after the cease fire in the Balkans, she was invited to Bosnia to work with women and child refugees. Finding herself mostly without an interpreter, she generated other ways to connect in a meaningful way to the war survivors. She traveled through the countryside, met former combatants and experienced the reality of a former war zone still occupied by UN troops. She combined all these work and life experiences with her extensive skills as an interviewer to initiate, produce and creatively shape the content and structure of Common Sky, in partnership with Anvil into Hammer Productions.
Jason Black
Executive Producer
Jason has been producing feature films, commercials, and music videos for ten years. Black was invited to join the Directors Guild of America union as a Production Manager in 2003, and on this foundation he built a production services corporation in Los Angeles called Blue Cactus Pictures. Blue Cactus was the production engine for fifteen feature films in four years. Black sold his half of the business in 2007 and moved home to San Francisco to develop and produce original content.
Black understands that it takes a careful balance of creative and financial forces to make a film successful. Black’s consulting company, Black Ink Entertainment, works with writer/directors to develop original content and specializes in business planning and financing strategies for independent films. Black was first hired as a business consultant for Common Sky in February 2009, coming onboard officially as Executive Producer in June that same year.
At age seventeen, Black enrolled in the Marine Corps for four years and quickly made rank as a Non-Commissioned Officer, leading troops through cold weather training in Norway and France, desert warfare training in Egypt, and joint operation training with Israeli, Turkish, Italian, and Spanish armies. Black holds a B.F.A. in film and digital media from the University of California at Santa Cruz, a two-year Associates degree in acting from Solano College Theater and an additional certificate in acting from A.C.T. in San Francisco. Black is happily married to the lovely and talented Kate Haisch. They had their first child, James West, in January 2009.
Yovel Schwartz
Director/Co-Producer
Yovel graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2001 with a degree in Film & Digital Media and a minor in Philosophy. He has directed six short films, produced several music videos, and been a producer and production manager for a wide variety of other projects including television programs and feature films. Having worked on productions of all sizes, from major Hollywood motion pictures to small independent films, Yovel has spanned his experience across every type of film production and has worked with a variety of established filmmakers such as Phil Kaufman, Chris Columbus, Arnold Kopelson and others. Yovel co-founded Anvil Into Hammer Productions, a San Francisco based production company, with a profound belief in the potential of cinema to motivate and inspire both psychological and social evolution. Since its creation, Anvil Into Hammer has partnered with associates in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Mexico City, to run productions across the United States.
Ryan Schubert
Editor/Co-Producer
East Coast native Ryan Schubert has been working in independent motion picture production in the San Francisco Bay Area since he graduated from San Francisco State film school in 2001. In addition to spending much of his time in motion picture development and still photography, he has produced and edited many different projects including several independent music videos and short films. This documentary marks the most recent in a series of collaborations with producer/director Yovel Schwartz with whom he co-founded Anvil Into Hammer Productions. This is his second feature as an editor.
Jeremy L. Wong
Director of Photography
Jeremy is a San Francisco-based director of photography who specializes in documentaries, music videos, and short narratives. He received a B.A. in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University in 2002, and has since made his way as a cinematographer. He works regularly in San Francisco and Los Angeles although his shooting assignments have also taken him to New York, the Deep South, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. Jeremy believes strongly in the balance between a cinematographer's responsibility to the narrative and his need to create beautiful imagery. He strives to display this balance in his work, and is a perennial student of photographic and artistic techniques and technologies. He has been working on Common Sky since 2005.