Our Marmot who art in Marmot ...

The Black Marmot team is a group of artists enamored with storytelling. With specialties as diverse as digital design, contemporary poetry, and critical theory, we wrestle with narrative ferociously. We boast no formal training in film theory, production, or criticism; rather, we have adapted our interdisciplinary foci in an attempt to distort the traditional boundaries of visual narrative -- and we wear capes while doing so. That's right. Capes.

Our strength is in our tenacity, in our perception, and in our swashbuckling work ethic. We make movies, you watch them.

Rima Abunasser, Ph.D.

continuity editor

When not researching the minutiae of eighteenth-century British travel narratives, writing articles on the self-fashioning of identity, or otherwise cavorting with critical theory through postmodern fiction, Rima brings her scholar's sensibilities to visual narrative. With an acute eye for detail and uncanny foresight, Rima ensures that the other Marmots don't get carried away by their own creativity. Operationally, she participates as the last editorial bastion before our scripts go into production and then afterward, when the footage is in the computer, as continuity editor. Mistakes in our footage are almost always evidence of other Marmots not heeding Rima's orders.

Darin Bradley, M.A.

writer/director

Darin occupies himself most often by exploring speculative fiction. Whether it's by reading the progenitors of postmodern literature, writing chunks of steampunk prose, or disagreeing with misled theorists, Darin devotes his days to understanding the roles narrative plays in contemporary identity. With an ear to the rails of syntactic movement, he takes the malformed ideas of the Black Marmot think tank and beats them into scripts. Directing side-by-side with Jesse Gomez, Darin gives order to the madness of Team Marmot and tries his best to look as smart as everyone else.

Seamus Delmont, M.A.

producer

Every superhero needs a nemesis -- the Black Marmot's is Seamus Delmont. An expert in contemporary poetry and the state of the Irish novel, Seamus brings his critical expertise to the Table of Marmots like an angry locomotive. With writer's eyes of his own, he isolates the projects that are impractical, internally weak, or simply un-doable. His is the responsibility of finding ways to make things happen, which makes him simultaneously the most-loved and most-hated Marmot in the bunch.

Zach Delmont

principal actor

The most roguish of Marmots, Zach Delmont is abused more than any. Forced into such tortures as sword training, absinthe drinking, non-stop running, and whatever other evils the think tank demands, Zach meets each challenge willingly. Enthusiastic and dedicated, he takes direction unerringly and finds, in his performances, the happy middle ground between the Marmot's often over-psychologized stories and the no-nonsense tastes of our viewing audience.

Jesse Gomez

visual design/cg effects

Every think tank has its brilliant madman: ours is Jesse Gomez. With specialties in web design, digital theory, cinematography, sound design, 3D modelling, and, of course, storytelling, Jesse is the nuclear reactor powering the S.S. Marmot. His love is for the play of light along CCD's and the hope to be found in the hyper-reality of visual narrative. Working side-by-side with his greatest ally and most ruthless enemy, Darin Bradley, Jesse directs the gizmos that capture our movies. When not taking stories in whirlwind directions, Jesse tries to smother the Marmot with more ideas in a day than it could make in a lifetime.

Jason Grissom, M.A.

writer

Jason is the Marmot's most indispensible mad scientist. With scholastic interests in American Naturalism, Jason understands the finer points of the crushing evolutionary forces that degrade and dehumanize the individual. When he isn't busy with freelance Manga adaptations, Jason lurks in the hallways of Marmot Central, seizing those ideas with the clearest potential and dragging them into his back-alley laboratory. It is Jason's knack for development that alters the Marmot's stories into coherent, power-laden mutants. Without him, the Marmot would simply be another dreamy rodent.

Amelia Howard

wardrobe/makeup

Marmots need capes -- and a little bit of rouge. Luckily for Team Marmot, when Amelia Howard isn't studying eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British fiction, she indulges her creative impulses and sews, designs, applies makeup, and otherwise makes the Marmot presentable on camera. Equally talented in acting, Ame readily applies her work to herself when we ask her to step in front of the lens and put a face on our movies.

Aaron Leis, M.A.

music/sound design

The vagaries of sound are a mystery to most Marmots; Aaron Leis, however, specializes in nudging dials and arguing with waveforms to get the best sound possible out of our actors. When the shoots are over, Aaron takes his expertise in contemporary American poetry and applies it to, of all things, music and sound design. When not crafting verse of his own, Aaron locks himself in his computer-and-wire laden studio and composes the songs that link emotion to image. Furthermore, it is Aaron's poetic sensibilities that save the Marmot's stories from Darin's austere aesthetics and Jason's Machiavellian intrigues. If the Marmot had a muse, it would be Aaron.