Mark W. Travis & Elsha Taya Travis

Our mission is to:

► Meet our team of gifted and highly accomplished directors

Jon Amiel is a director/writer/producer with an illustrious career in theatre, film and television. After 10 years working his way from fringe theatre to the Royal Shakespeare Company, he moved to television and a career with the BBC that culminated in the multi-award-winning SINGING DETECTIVE. Over the next 15 years Amiel directed a number of major feature films including; SOMMERSBY with Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, COPYCAT with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, ENTRAPMENT with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE with Bill Murray, THE CORE with Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank, and CREATION with Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.

Since then Amiel has focused largely on television. He directed the pilots for “EYES”, REUNION, WEDDING BELLS, and DAMAGES, and has directed and produced episodes for shows as diverse as THE TUDORS, THE BORGIAS, HALT & CATCH FIRE, 7 SECONDS, AQUARIUS, OUTSIDERS, AMERICAN GODS, THE CLEANING LADY, CARNIVAL ROW and THE WALKING DEAD.

Los Angeles, California

As a television producer and director, Pasetta has overseen multimillion dollar budgets and holding pivotal roles responsible for orchestrating and overseeing the production of television content and events, ensuring alignment with the creative vision, brand guidelines, and strategic objectives.

He has specialized in Live Events for twenty-five years where there is only one opportunity to execute flawlessly, and that is what he does best.  He gets it right the first time. This is one of the key reasons CBS has trusted Pasetta with some of their most unique high-budget live projects. Pasetta works often with A-List stars and C-Suite corporate clients.

Pasetta has directed over 250 hours of live television, 800 episodes of multiple camera television episodes and ten years of single-camera scripted content.

Criss Angel hired Pasetta to direct and produce his new series “Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars for 2023.

When George Clooney decided the time was right to reintroduce American television viewers to live drama by producing and starring in the live production of “Fail Safe” on CBS, he called Pasetta to direct the live broadcast for this landmark production.  The results: Statues in 4 categories for technical and artistic excellence.

In December of 2022 Pasetta was the Showrunner & Director for the very successful Smosh Live “Under the Mistletoe”.  In 2017, his live Smosh special won the Streamy Award for Best Live Show of the Year.  It is still the most watched comedy in YouTube space history.

Pasetta directed 200+ episodes of @Midnight for Comedy Central.

Pasetta has been recognized for his work as a television director with multiple nominations for Emmy Awards.  He was nominated for Outstanding Direction for Motion Picture for Television for “Fail Safe” as well as for the prestigious Director’s Guild Award. Starring George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel, Brian Dennehy, and Sam Elliot, among others, “Fail Safe” was the first movie to be shown live on American television in 39 years.

Pasetta was nominated for Best Director Special Class Emmy for his work on “Trial by Jury.”  When MTVE needed a top professional to make web-casting history in Europe, they called Marty Pasetta, Jr., winning the Promax Gold Award for the webcast, “The European Music Awards…Live and Online.”

Pasetta has shot music performances for more than 200 groups including Ariana Grande, Khalid and Ricky Martin for NBC.  He directed the Latin Grammy Person of the Year special and the live Pre Tel for the Latin Grammys for four years.

Website: https://www.pasetta.com/

Anna Ditges is a screenwriter, director and producer, and a member of the Filmbüro NW and the Verband Deutscher Drehbuchautoren.

A fierce and dedicated student of The Travis Technique, she completed the 16-week Intensive Travis Technique Director’s Lab in 2021 and now serves as the Travis International Film Institute’s official representative in Europe.

Her multi-award-winning documentary, I Want You – Meeting Hilde Domin (2008) was shown at numerous international film festivals and was viewed by over 33,000 visitors in German arthouse cinemas. In 2015, her second cinema documentary film, “Who owns the city – Citizens in action” was also successful at international festivals, generating a great deal of social debate on the subject of democracy and codetermination.

Anna’s films and screenplays have gained her many awards, including:

• Emden Screenplay Award – Finalist 2020-2021
• Deutsche Film- und Medienbewertung (FBW) – Rating Commended 2020
• Förderpreis des Landes NRW – New Talent Award Film 2009
• German Film Prize – Shortlist 2008
• Image-Art-Editing Award Documentary Film – Nomination 2008
• DEFA – New Talent Award 2008
• Cologne Media Prize – Category TV 2008
• Biberach Film Festival – Documentary Film Prize 2007

“For me, making films is like stopping time. Examining a life under a microscope. Observing a strange world up close. Empathizing. I can say in real life: Stop! Look here – a life, which could be yours.”

~ Anna Ditges

Vasco Maria Basto Viana is a Portuguese-born film director, writer and editor, based in Prague and Porto, who is passionate about collaborating with other creative minds to tell intimate and truthful stories which explore the nuances and contradictions in the search for human connection.

Vasco graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from ESAP, Escola Superior Artística do Porto in 2013, with a concentration in Fine Arts and Multimedia, and completed his Masters in Contemporary Art in the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, in 2015.

From 2015 to 2018, Vasco lived in Barcelona, where he discovered his passion for cinema and completed a one year post-grad in Film Directing, in Nou Prodigi. It was in Barcelona that he wrote and directed his first two short films, The Spinning Wheel and The Labyrinth.

In 2018, he moved to Prague to study directing in the Master’s program at FAMU, Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic.

From 2018 to 2023, Vasco directed over ten short films, music videos and a theater play, and is completing his first feature, his graduation film The Smetanovo 5, a fake documentary about four international flat mates stranded in Prague during the pandemic. His short film Split Leap (2018) placed finalist in several film festivals, and won the Milan Gold Awards.

In 2020, he founded the Grand Acting Studio, a workshop for amateur actors, where they explore various techniques in directing actors for film. There, he directed five short films, including two with Ukrainian refugees, in the scope of the pro bono project “Acting 4 Ukraine.”

In 2022 he co-founded Sizzle Real, a company dedicated to shooting showreel scenes for up and coming actors in Prague.

In 2023 Vasco graduated from his FAMU Masters, and got accepted into the Midpoint Series Development Programme with his new series Behind the Wall. His short film Fantasma recently got nominated for FEST in Espinho, and CURTAS in Vila do Conde.

Website: https://www.vascoviana.com/

Mary Angiolillo is a theatre director and acting coach. She teaches a variety of film courses at FAMU, (the Film & Television Academy of Performing Arts), at Prague Film School, and at the Anglo-American University of Prague.

Since meeting Mark and Elsha Travis at the 2015 CILECT conference on Working with Actors in Munich, Germany, she has been exploring the Travis Technique with directing and acting students from around the world. Mary and her students are excited by the effectiveness of this approach and often wonder: Why aren’t more directors working this way with actors?

Calgary, AB, Canada

Visual communicator dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration, Codrut has a passion to forging the visuals through constant fine tuning in Graphic Design, Photography, Videography, Web and UX Design. Collaborations with filmmakers, storytellers, musicians have opened doors and perspectives to new horizons.

Website : https://p2211.com/