| Jeffrey J. Kripal |
| Author, Producer |
Jeffrey J. Kripal is a historian of religions by training (Ph.D., University of Chicago). He holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University, where he also chairs the department. He is the author or co-editor of over fifty essays and ten volumes of technical scholarship, including Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (2010), Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (2007), The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (2007), Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (2001), and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna (1995), all published by the University of Chicago Press.
His areas of interest include the comparative erotics of mystical literature, the history of American metaphysical religion, the history of Western esotericism, particularly as this complex has encountered and incorporated Asian practices and ideas in the modern period, and, most recently, the interface between the paranormal and American popular culture. |
| Scott H. Jones |
| Writer, Director |
| Director Scott H. Jones is a partner in XL Films, Ltd., a film production company based in Richmond, Texas. He is a 1983 graduate of The University of Texas film school, and during the subsequent twenty-six years has directed and photographed hundreds (thousands?) of productions across myriad disciplines—documentary, narrative, advertising, and marketing. Most recently he has directed films on behalf of The Methodist Hospital, CenterPoint Energy, and Rice University. "This is Sam", a short documentary he directed, recently won Best Documentary at the Gulf Coast Film & Video Festival, and the Audience Choice Award at the Houston Halloween Film Festival. He's directed, photographed, or otherwise been involved in numerous award-winning short narrative films. |
| Ken Kosub |
| Producer/Cameraman |
| Kosub has been a professional storyteller for more than 23 years. Ken is technically savvy with an eye for details, well organized with a passion for creating great work. As a 1986 graduate from Sam Houston State University film school, Kosub has produced films in nearly every media. He has produced projects for agency and corporate clients alike, traveling both domestically and into numerous foreign locations. In 1995, Kosub formed Pinnacle Films, a production company producing marketing communications and inter-active multimedia projects. Over the next 8 years, Ken would team up on projects with longtime friend, Scott Jones who was running his own company, Jonestreet Media Arts, producing broadcast advertising spots. In 2002, Kosub and Jones merged their companies together to form XL Films, Ltd. With a larger company and more resources, it has enabled them to pursue their real passion to produce independent documentary films. |
| Bruce Ingram |
| Designer |
Bruce Ingram has been, for the entirety of his adult life, a professional Creative in one form or another. His work as spanned a wide spectrum of disciplines, from illustration to advertising. The earliest days of his career focused on the comics industry where he worked as an illustrator, art director and occasional self-publisher. In 1998, as an art director, Bruce help build up from the ground floor Penny-Farthing Press, an independent comics publisher still going strong today.
After several years working as a print, web, advertising and package designer, Bruce made the move out of the world of print and web and into the multi-media world as a concept artist (later production designer) for Archimage, an innovative multi-media firm that had just expanded into computer gaming. There he helped develop and design their first two flagship titles. In 2005, Bruce joined XL Films as an animator and designer and continues on there, having expanded his role into editing, visual effects, color grading and IT lead. |
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