Crew

 

Jan Bender - Host

Jan grew up in southern Indiana working on his family’s grain farm. He enlisted in the Marine Corps just out of high school and was trained as a combat correspondent. His first duty station was in Japan where he watched as coalition forces pushed through Iraq. Eager to join the fight to help fellow Marines in combat, Jan requested orders to an infantry division and a year later was deployed with Regimental Combat Team 1 to Camp Fallujah, Iraq. After months of patrolling the outlying areas with various units, Cpl Bender was attached at a fire team level to 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, India Company for the assault through the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. While operating as a rifleman he maintained his duties with the camera capturing powerful footage of the house-to-house fight. Jan’s footage was used by many of the major networks, giving the world a window into the lives of Marines in the thick of the fierce battle.

Jan was honorably discharged in 2005 after which he enrolled in Ball State University to study video production. Recently he took a leave of absence from school to be the host of In Their Boots. “Originally I was looking to work behind the camera, but things just kind of evolved. Hosting In Their Boots will expose me to a lot of courageous and inspiring people, who I know I can relate to. I’m excited for the world to hear their stories.” Jan currently lives in Culver City, California with his wife, Julia.

 

Richard Ray Perez - Co-Executive Producer

Rick Pérez co-produced and co-directed the seminal political documentary Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, which The Los Angeles Times called “a riveting story about the undermining of democracy in America.” Unprecedented was an official selection at over 50 international film festivals, and winner of nine festival awards.

Most recently Mr. Pérez was the co-executive producer of The Freedom Files, Season II, a 9-episode documentary series that reveals the impact civil liberties violations have on the daily lives of real people. The Freedom Files is currently broadcasting on PBS Stations across America.

Rick Pérez was also the director and the supervising producer of Sierra Club Chronicles, a hard-hitting, half-hour documentary series of environmental stories that was also produced by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films. Sierra Club Chronicles recently broadcast on The Sundance Channel during its primetime “Green” programming.

Mr. Pérez also photographed the highly acclaimed documentaries Uncovered: The War in Iraq and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and co-produced and co-directed the documentary, Crashing the Party: The Democratic National Convention.

In addition to his documentary work, Mr. Pérez has produced projects for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and best-selling author Arianna Huffington. Before making documentaries Mr. Pérez worked as Technical Director for the Fox Broadcasting Company and an Assignment Editor and Field Producer for KCBS-TV News in Los Angeles.

Richard Ray Pérez earned a bachelor of the arts degree, cum laude, in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University and is a native of San Fernando, California.

 

Sandi Williams - Line Producer/Production Manager

Sandi Williams is a Line Producer and Production Manager of Documentary Films. Recently, she was privileged to work on the Brave New Films and ACLU production of the series, “The Freedom Files: Season 2.” Other credits include “When Medicine Got It Wrong,” the award winning PBS series “Craft In America: Community, Landscape and Memory”, the American Masters show “Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned”, and “Black Sky: The Race For Space.”

Ms. Williams graduated from the University of New Orleans with a degree in Filmmaking, with a focus in Film as Social Practice. While attending the university, she was heavily active in school government and as a victim’s rights advocate in the community. After graduation, she produced and directed a series of short films shot in and around Paris.

A native of the Gulf Coast, she looks forward to eventually returning to New Orleans, to dedicate her talents to telling the stories of the southern United States. Sandi comes from a family with a strong military tradition, and she is honored to be a part of a project that advocates and honors veterans.

 

 

Amanda Spain - Real Stories Producer

Amanda Spain has worked as a producer in various documentary projects. Before coming to In Their Boots she was a Producer/Director on The Freedom Files where she tackled the subjects of the death penalty, sex education and gay rights. She was also a Story Producer on The Sierra Club Chronicles, a series that captured the lives of everyday Americans that were being negatively impacted by the destruction of the environment around them. Other Story/Segment Producer credits include Iraq For Sale, Gimme Sugar and Buy Ohio. She attended the University of Southern California where she received a degree in Gender Studies and a minor in Theater. Amanda is currently looking for her own pair of boots.

 

 

Sandra Keats - Associate Producer

Sandra Keats is a magazine journalist and recent transplant to L.A., in the process of getting her boots wet in the field of documentary production. After living and working in Jackson Hole, New York City, and Denver, the New Jersey-native finally made the leap to the West Coast to work as a researcher on “Madame President,” an independently produced documentary film and television series about the twelve current female heads of state around the world. She’s also worked as a production assistant and coordinator on various national commercials, and has written for magazines such as Skiing, National Geographic Adventure, 5280 (Denver’s city magazine), Delicious Living, Men’s Journal, and Jackson Hole Skier. She attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she developed her passion for in-depth nonfiction storytelling. Sandra is thrilled to be contributing to a project that’s exploring the crucial issues affecting our military and their families upon their return home. (She’s also happy to not be working on commercials.)

 

Lissette Roldan - Editor

Lissette joined Brave New Films in February of 2005 as an assistant editor for Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price and was later the asscociate editor on Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers. Since then, she has worked on several of the short viral pieces distributed online and is enjoying her new job at Brave New Foundation as the editor for In Their Boots. She strongly believes in, and respects, the work that her colleagues do and all they have achieved to inspire change.

 

 

 

 

Dave Ciaccio - Assistant Editor/Visual Design/Website Coordinator

In 2001 Dave Ciaccio walked away from a high-paying computer job to live in poverty as a free-lance filmmaker and he has never regretted the decision. Since then Dave has edited 3 feature documentaries including the award-winning "Up for Grabs", now available on netflix; "City of Baseball"; and the as-yet unreleased "Rabbit Fever".

Dave has worked as an animator for the movie Speed Racer; the Star Wars Episode III behind-the-scenes documentary "Within a Minute"; the independent feature film Kabluey; and a series of short animations written by Matt Walsh. He has also animated several of his own short films, some of which are available on www.gravyday.com.

Dave was the head writer for a cable-access sketch comedy show "Family Show", and now writes and performs sketch comedy and improv at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre in LA. He can also sometimes be found performing stand-up comedy at local dive-bar open mics.

Dave has acted in several short films and video sketches, and will be featured in the upcoming Cut Chemist video "(My 1st) Big Break".

Despite being extremely bright he has no idea what will happen if he rings that bell.

 

Jaron Halmy - Assistant Editor

Jaron Halmy spent the early part of his childhood gazing across the street at MGM Studios in sunny Culver City. Once he reached high school he joined the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts where he learned to direct and edit. His senior short film “Timothy Volt,” which he directed, edited and scored, was accepted into the 2001 Los Angeles Film Festival.

Jaron continued to create through college as he traveled from Santa Cruz to Holland and ultimately, UC San Diego. His first job out of school was in the photo lab on the lot at Warner Bros. in Burbank. Unable to sit still in a steady job, he decided to explore the exciting and spontaneous world of being self-unemployed.

Within a year, however, Jaron found himself deeply involved in the music industry (of all places). He was an engineer at ZenSeven Productions in Woodland Hills, a club promoter all over the LA area, and the manager of an emerging band named “Elevaters.”

Although successful, Jaron had begun a career in the wrong industry. In the summer of 2007 he dropped his music industry network and reconnected with his lifelong goal of becoming a filmmaker. Since then he has worked as a PA on numerous commercial, film and television sets, all the while developing an extensive freelance editor portfolio. Some of his work includes behind-the-scenes shorts for State Farm, Toyota and The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Jaron is honored to be a part of the In Their Boots team and looks forward to a long career that utilizes film to promote positivity and inspire action.

 

Alice Xiao - Communications Associate

Alice is the press person for In Their Boots. Prior to joining the team, she felt completely indifferent and unaffected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now she realizes how selfish she was and is excited about sharing our American servicemembers’ stories. Alice loves receiving and responding to emails and phone calls so you should definitely contact her for all media inquiries.

Alice attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where she double majored in Political Science and Sociology. She is an aspiring head shrinker and will be starting the MSW program at UCLA this September.

 

 

Alex Maldonado - Production Assistant

Alex Maldonado was born in Mexico City and raised in California. In 2007 he graduated from the Art Institute of Los Angeles with a Bachelors Degree in Digital Filmmaking and Video Production. He has worked for Brave New Foundation for a few months and just recently joined the In Their Boots team, where he hopes to help out as much as he can and keep learning as much as possible.