Unsolicited.tv

Michael LaVoie

Michael LaVoie is a commercial director at 19AD4. He is a NY based narrative DP whose clients include NBC-Universal, Ted.com, Vice, Google, Buzzfeed and others.

Michael is also a co-producer and co-writer at SavingHome.tv Michael has shot over 10 feature films and written over 9 feature screenplays. You can view Michael's narrative work at his website www.mlavoiedp.com

Michael began his career as a cinematographer shooting independent films for producers and directors in the NY area. Those feature and short films have gone on to play in festivals around the world.

"Often filmmakers will look for their creative team before they have the funding necessary for their film. Many wonderful scripts would come my way that I was excited to shoot but the filmmakers couldn't raise the capital to fund the project.

Sometimes a film I've shot would turn out wonderfully but struggle to find distribution because the film has no recognizeable faces or names in the cast"

Those painful lessons learned early on were cautionary tales that led Michael to researching the formation of a development company where new filmmakers could find a home with interesting projects and a solid well funded development team could bring the necessary elements together, ensuring the films were distributed and earned a sizeable financial return.

Rafael Feldman

Rafael Feldman is the owner of C&R Productions and is a co-founder of SohoMuse. He has been a content creator for the American Heart Association as well as the Mona Lisa Foundation.

Jeff Steele

Jeff Steele is a noted film financier, turned social entrepreneur, who specializes in independent film finance, 3D printing, media technologies and social-enterprise startups.

As a full-time lecturer in the Business & Entrepreneurship Dept, Jeff teaches The Business of Film; Executive Management for Film & Television; Entrepreneruship; and Strategic Planning.

Jeff is the owner of the entertainment consulting firm Film Closings and is publisher of the film finance blog, FilmClosings.com. Most recently, Jeff was the executive producer of "Dark Tide" ($25-million feature film, starring Halle Berry) and "About Cherry" (starring James Franco). Jeff was also CFO of Los Angeles based Magnet Media Group, a $30-million equity fund (for investment, production, and distribution of mainstream independent features).

Since moving to Chicago, Jeff helped launch The 3D Printer Experience (in April 2013) -- a 3D printing pop-up in Downtown Chicago, which relaunched (in October 2014) into its flagship location in River North, with three-times the space. 3DPX (an IL Benefit Corp.) is a high-tough B2B print studio, whose mission is to educate and accelerate adoption of 3D printing technology, to create a new hyper-localized manufacturing economy within local communities.

Prior to Magnet, Jeff worked as the Director of US Film Finance for Screen Capital International, a leading entertainment financier and founding shareholder of Aramid Entertainment (a $300-million debt financing fund), where he focused on gap, pre-sale, tax credit, and bridge funding, for mainstream independent films. During Jeff's tenure, 17 films were financed in the US, with budgets from $10-$40 million, each.

On the producing side, Jeff was a partner at Plinyminor, a production company, where they produced the hit eco-documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and released theatrically in the top 50 markets), as well as the creature-feature “Mammoth” for NBC Universal’s SyFy Channel, which was somehow nominated for an Emmy.

Jeff got his start in Los Angeles, working for the likes of Tom Freston, Mike Medavoy, and Lynda Obst to name a few. He is a frequent panelist for film financing forums and he’s known for telling audiences what they need to know, but don’t want to hear.

Craig Kessler

Craig began his entertainment career in 1990 as manager for the Billboard Magazine Modern Rock Top Ten recording act, Cliffs of Dooneen, from Boston Massachusetts.

After graduating from law school in 1997, he worked as in-house counsel for best-selling author Stephen M. Pollan before becoming Director of Business and Legal Affairs for Troma Entertainment, Inc. where he was Production Counsel on the indie cult hit Toxic Avenger IV – Citizen Toxie and later served as Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for the Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation (American Psycho, Wall Street) and held the same position at Mandate Pictures (50/50, Young Adult, Harold and Kumar).

He currently has his own practice, consulting for companies such as Red Bull Media and Amazon Studios, and also represents actors, writers, directors, and producers on both film and television projects.

We have an excellent International Sales Manager with an equally strong background in film finance who is interested in being part of our core team. She will be joining Unsolicited contingent upon financing.