Meet the Filmmakers
Jim McSilver
Executive Producer, Director and Editor of Oakland Originals
Jim McSilver is a documentary director, producer, and editor whose work centers on artists and advocates working for social change and environmental justice. Since 2014, he has directed and produced six Oakland Originals short documentaries, spotlighting the voices and visionaries of Oakland, California. His directing credits also include the short comedy Head to Head, as well as branded and nonprofit video work for USA Hockey, the Autism Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Francisco Department of Public Works, East Bay Regional Parks Foundation, Intel, Oracle, CamelBak and others.
As an editor and co-producer, Jim’s credits include the NAACP Image Award finalist and Webby Honoree Judging Juries (Apple TV+), a searing look at racial bias in jury selection. He also edited Weathering the Future (PBS/NOVA), a feature documentary highlighting communities employing ancient wisdom and innovative solutions to climate resilience, and Waging Change (PBS/international), which focuses on the fight for a living wage for tipped restaurant workers. His editorial work includes multiple award-winning documentaries for PBS and global broadcast, including Manifest Destiny, The Split Horn, and films for CNBC, Lucasfilm, Smithsonian Network, and History Channel.
Jim has been passionate about telling Oakland stories since 2010 when he founded the Oakland Originals documentary series. Now, as he and the team finish their seventh profile of artists, thinkers and do-ers, Jim admits there’s no end to captivating Oakland stories that deserve to be told.
J.P. Dobrin
Director, Cinematographer and Co-Producer
J.P. Dobrin is a multiracial Korean American documentary filmmaker based in San Francisco, California. He’s a two-time Emmy-winning/nominated producer and director of photography who often collaborates with news outlets, documentary production companies, and corporate clients.
J.P.’s projects have revolved around themes of immigration, wealth disparity, and criminal justice, often portrayed through the experiences of ordinary individuals. Notably, he co-directed the Al Jazeera Witness documentary “Irse – Leaving Venezuela” in 2020, delving into the Venezuelan exodus by focusing on the narratives of two expectant women. In 2022, he directed “The Lookout,” his latest film presented on World Channel/PBS, offering an Asian American outlook on deportation issues.
His directorial work has been supported by SFFILM, the Berkeley Film Foundation, the Center for Asian American Media, the Video Consortium, and the Asian American Journalist Association. He’s been commissioned to make documentaries for Verizon, Capital One, Voice of America, and Vox / Eater.
His educational journey led him to study photojournalism at the Academy of Art San Francisco before pursuing documentary filmmaking at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Cava Menzies, Composer (Asiya Wadud, Vanessa “DJ Agana” Solari Espinoza documentaries)
Cava Menzies is a Jazz Pianist and Music Educator based in Oakland, CA. She is a founding faculty member at the Oakland School for the Arts and chairs the Music Department at OSA. Cava performs regularly throughout the Bay Area with her instrumental quartet, and recently released an album, “Moment to Moment” that received 4 stars from Downbeat Magazine and national acclaim.
To learn more about Cava and her music, go to: www.cavamenzies.com
George Gousis, Composer (Tim Monroe and Michael Christian documentaries)
George Gousis has established himself as a versatile, dynamic composer with an impressive list of credits and accomplishments.
Originally from Athens, Greece, George attended the world-renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied Piano and Orchestration. After college, George relocated to San Francisco where he opened and managed a multi-media production company and recording studio. There he composed and recorded original music, developed songs with a songwriting team, and collaborated with successful local artists including The Greg Kihn Band.
Since 1997, George has scored numerous productions including films, documentaries, TV series, commercials, and other multimedia projects. He is working with clients in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as in Los Angeles, New York, and the U.K. George is represented by Joel Turtle of Riot Media.
Philip studied art and motion graphics with David Foster and Robert Mullen (Univ. of Oregon, UOP) and was mentored by “Blue” Gene Tyranny in music composition and performance. He played in many rock, country and experimental music bands and was a member of The Residents performance ensemble 1979-84, as well as serving as their cinematographer and lighting designer. He has released 18 albums of his own work 1979-2014 on the Fun Music, Artifact and Captured Tracks labels, and was a member of The Bifurcators with Scott Fraser 1990–2008. His music, audio and radio works have been heard on NPR, CBC, European, Australian, and Japanese radio networks in addition to hundreds of local stations around the world. Perkins has mixed hundreds of film and video productions from Hollywood feature films to indie documentaries. Film directors he has worked for include Errol Morris, Oliver Stone, John Korty, Nancy Kelly, Jesse Dylan, Finn Taylor, Debra Chasnoff, Bill Couturie, S. Leo Chiang, Rob Nilsson, Albert Maysles, Debbie Lum, HP Mendoza, Emiko Omori, Roger Sherman, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman, David L. Brown, Gene Corr, Dyanna Taylor and many others. Since 2011, Perkins has advised the Alonzo King/Lines Ballet on the audio aspects of many new ballets and video projects.
IMDB: http://imdb.com/name/nm0674030/
Dave has been working in motion graphics in the Bay Area for 25 years, initially as an art director at Video Arts digital media studio in San Francisco and currently through his own studio, Spectacular Opticals. Having studied experimental film in college, Dave found it exciting to apply many of his ideas using digital media, especially during the early years of computer graphics. He co-directed, shot, and edited the comic documentary LIVERMORE, which aired on PBS’ Independent Lens in 2003.
Read the rest our profile on Dave here.
Hobbyist musician by night and global sales director by day, Simon has been working with music in his spare time for years. He has composed and recorded numerous genres of music, released songs on iTunes and Amazon, has played in several bands and had been interested in composing music for film and television. A few years ago he won a songwriting contest in San Francisco after entering one of his compositions, which was then published on Beatport, a hub for electronic dance music. Read the rest our profile on Simon here.
Simon’s music can be heard at Electronica Tracks and Singer/Songwriter tracks
