As a kid, Laura Merians Gonçalves would play around with a Super 8 camera and make visual collages. She got her first film job working as best boy electric on Bully, directed by Larry Clark and shot by Steve Gainer. Laura eventually moved into the camera department, shooting short films, documentaries, reality TV and music videos. Laura's most recent film, Pacified, takes place in the favelas of Brazil and won Best Cinematographer’s Debut at last year's Camerimage International Film Festival.

J.D. Dillard's movie, Sweetheart, is a horror/thriller starring Kiersey Clemons (Hearts Beat Loud, Dope) as a woman who is stranded on a desert island and stalked by a mysterious monster. J.D. discusses the difficulties of shooting on a small island in Fiji, on a short time schedule, while being entirely outdoors and subject to the whims of nature. As a black filmmaker, he feels like it’s important to put people who look like him in genre films such as fantasy and horror.

Stefan Ciupek was one of the first adopters of digital camera technology, and became an early digital imaging technician (DIT) and colorist. He helped pull off an amazing achievement with 2003's Russian Ark, a 90 minute film shot entirely in one take, in one location. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle found him and the two worked on several projects, including 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire. As digital technology grew more technical, Stefan decided he wanted to be more involved in the creative process and returned to cinematography. For Guns Akimbo, Stefan read the script and immediately knew how he would shoot the over-the-top action movie.