Month: November 2022

Mallory Chaudhry is the Director of Development at Committee Films. That means she is always digging into stories both wonderful and incredible – sort of like Dirty Dancing, which is her favorite movie. Her “super power” is her ability to connect with others and is tempered by a professionalism that can only be described as impressive. Not so impressive: The fact that Mallory hates ketchup. I mean, come on. Makes you wonder how she is so darn good with people doesn’t it?

Mallory hails from Kenilworth, Illinois and studied video production and film at Ohio University before launching into a career as a producer that took her to New York, LA and eventually to Committee Films. While she is a steady and thoughtful voice here, she frequently lets it all out while teaching High Intensity Interval Training classes where she literally screams for an hour. We can hear it now: “Lift those arms higher! Good! Now prep that camera!”

Her advice to her 10-year-old self would be: “There are many paths to where you want to go”. That checks out. She has walked many different paths in her time, allowing her to be the well-rounded and knowledgeable production force she is. Those paths have taken her all over the US and to India – her very favorite place in the world. Paths still on the list? Sicily, Mallorca, Prague, Hong Kong, and Hawaii. Yeah, that’s a lot of paths.

When not rocking all types of production Mallory enjoys the company of her husband Surge and her son Asa in their Minnetonka home. Side bar: She also has a passion for… mustard. That is NOT a typo. She loves it so much that she has plans to create her own mustard company in some yet-unseen-future. Mallory’s Mustard. The world could only be so lucky.

The first thing you need to know about Will is that he is the only person at Committee Films with a genuine British accent. This is because he’s from Boston. Confused? This threw us all for loop too until we looked at a map. Turns out there is a Boston, England. This is apparently the “original Boston” – just with a different accent. Who knew? At any rate, we spend a large part of our time here decoding the English vernacular, but it’s worth it.

Will is a producer here at Committee and has spearheaded projects for us all over the world due to his affable personality and attention to detail. He’s truly a cracking gent (great guy), and is able to connect with people anywhere. He’s responsible for getting all the odds and sods (bits and pieces) of a production together no matter where we’re filming and is always there with a solution when a spanner is thrown into the works (there’s a problem).

Whilst at home in Chanhassen (Minnesota this time, no English “original”) he enjoys spending time with his three daughters and watching football (soccer) and Star Trek (Star Trek) on TV. He’s a huge William T Riker fan apparently (please see Wikipedia if you do not understand this reference). When his girls kip down (go to sleep) he occasionally will relax with and Old Fashioned and a book, always on the lookout for a great story.

Whether or not we always understand what he’s saying there’s one thing we do understand: Will is an extraordinary producer and we’re lucky to have him on the team.

As a full-time production assistant at Committee Films, Ian frequently has to get weird. On any given day you can find him… anywhere. From keeping production materials organized and ready to working on any number of sets to loading and unloading the many and strange necessities of TV production from a box truck – he does it all. In a recent development he’s also developed into a development role, keeping scripts for new projects nice and crispy, updating and tracking projects, and doing research – the ever-present partner of development after all. A true team player here and on the ice – he was also a hockey goalie in an earlier life. Sort of similar duties in a way. Nothing gets by him.

Ian graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a double major in Digital Media Studies and Film Studies. He was born a fraternal twin so it seems like this double thing comes naturally to him. At St. Thomas he was also president of the Film Society and spent his free time analyzing films and editing various projects. What can we say? He’s a consistent guy, which probably explains why he’s also a fantastic bartender with a deep interest in mixology when he’s not working at Committee. This is a help to all of us after a long hard day of filming as well. We call that a win-win in the biz.

Ian was born in Brainerd, MN, which you probably guessed due to the hockey. During his life he’s moved upwards of 10 times – definitely NOT because he’s on the run from Johnny Law – but currently lives in Minneapolis, which Is quite lucky for us. The commute from Brainerd would be daunting.

If you took an x-ray of Lukas Medin’s torso you’d see all sorts of sprockets and gears, a sound drum, and a film gate because Lukas lives and breathes film. That’s a great thing for a post-production assistant, which, it turns out, he is at Committee. He was also a fencer in college, which isn’t as handy for post, but makes us all feel like we’ve got a better chance during an orc invasion (The Lord of the Rings trilogy is Lukas’s favorite book – hence the reference).

When not at Committee, watching films for review, Lukas loves watching films in the theater. Please see the part above about living and breathing film if you have questions about this. He’s a huge fan of Godzilla films in particular and hopes to one day zip line into Godzilla’s mouth. This is not a metaphor – apparently there is a hotel in Japan where you can do that, but then again there is a LOT of interesting stuff to do in Japan.

We’ve been told that Lukas is able to do a few really great impressions of certain film characters (go figure), but so far only have seen one impression – the great one he’s made on us. Wow. That was cheesy, but cheese… is for real, as is our opinion of Lukas.

Lukas currently lives in St. Louis Park with his dog Briley. While he’s certainly a household name there, he may soon be where you live too as his thesis film has recently been accepted into numerous festivals. Makes sense when you think about it.