Forum Session: "Nuts and Bolts of Producing"
Premier of "echostop" (see the trailer to "EchoStop")

Justin graduated from Cornell University in 2002 with a degree in Theatre Arts and Film. He graduated cum laude for the completion of his honors thesis, "Towards a Spiritual Cinema: The Films and Philosophy of Andrei Tarkovsky." Also while at Cornell, he directed theatre productions of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," and three other plays. He also served two terms at Cornell as the president of IFMAC (Independent Film Makers at Cornell), two semesters as a staff writer at the Cornell Daily Sun newspaper, and he wrote and directed four narrative short films on 16mm.

He now attends UCLA's Graduate Directing MFA program, and his first film there "Solo" has recently been selected into the 2004 Newport Beach Film Festival, the 2004 Desert Reel Film Festival, and the 2004 Valley Int'l Film Festival. It will compete in the "Best Short Drama" category. (You can read a biography of "Solo" authored by his lead actor Geoffery Gould!)

Justin's newest film is "echostopo" which he wrote and directed; Quyen Tran his colleague and classmate, was cinematographer. He is heavily influenced and inspired by two master storytellers; Yukio Mishima, the Japanese writer; and Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.

Justin will assist us in our Production Session. He has provided advice to filmmakers on our CreateSF program and the making of "God Bless." He will also be working with young directors who will work along side him during his next production.

About "echostop"

Synopsis: After Anna’s longtime boyfriend leaves her, she spins into a day-long spell of denial and hysteria. She pretends that he is dead, misplaces her only picture of him, and sees him everywhere. A journey through the imagination of Anna as she comes to terms with the fact that he is gone and she needs to escape a destructive cycle of bad relationships.

"echostop" is Justin’s second film he wrote and directed at UCLA. He says that “the film is a day-long journey through the interior of a woman who has lost someone close to her; a twenty-four hour period in which we get to be with Anna as her mind unravels, goes into denial, plays tricks on her, and ultimately, allows her to find an opportunity to move on. Her experience follows the same emotional path that I recently went through in my loss of someone close to me and my subsequent move to Los Angeles.”

Justin Lerner and Quyen Tran on "echostop"

Principle Cast:

Hope Taylor (Anna). Hope Taylor was born in Palo Alto, California and has since lived in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Carmel, and Grass Valley. In addition to appearing in several episodes of MTV’s “Undressed,” she studied at Joanne Baron/D. W. Brown Studios and has been a member of Tim Robbins’ Actors Gang Theatre Troup for three years. Hope is currently working on several political art projects, and she has just finished filming a pilot in London.

Jona Newhall (Boyfriend). Jona Newhall was born and raised in Reno, Nevada and attended the University of California at Davis, where he earned a dual degree in Theatre and English. On the professional stage he has played Hamlet and Marquis de Sade.

After a brief stint as an investment banker in New York City and as assistant manager at Wordsworth Books in Harvard Square, Jona decided to become a director, attending UCLA’s graduate film program. His new film is about two people talking in a tent.

Production:

Director of Photography: Quyen Tran. Quyen received fine art and photography training at the University of Virginia and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and has spent the last three years as freelance photographer and photojournalist for organizations including the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Associated Press in New York City.

Earlier this year, Ms. Tran shifted her focus to making films. She shot the short comedy 20 Floors Under the Sea, which recently appeared in the Malibu, Silver Lake, and California Independent Film Festivals, and Human/Nature, a new film by Indian director Geeta Malik. Ms. Tran has also recently completed principal photography on her second film, the 16mm short film Tuesdays After, based on her experiences on 9/11.

Ms. Tran was one of only two people selected this year for both the Directing and Cinematography Masters programs at UCLA’s famed Graduate Film Program. Quyen is Vietnamese-American, and ECHOSTOP is her first collaboration with writer/director Justin Lerner.

Production Designer: Jennifer Fulmer
Costume Designer: Molly Rasmussen
Sound Designer / Editor: Phil Van

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