Christine Fugate - Producer/ Director
Christine is an award-winning producer and director whose work has been screened in theaters and broadcast on channels around the world. She has produced pilots and programming for networks including Discovery, VH1, Disney, A&E, Sundance, Travel Channel, PBS, and HBO. She has also spent time interviewing celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Julie Andrews, and Anne Hathaway. For her unscripted work, she was named one of Showbiz's Top 100 Directors.
Before working in unscripted, she spent years working in feature films as a Senior VP of Creative Affairs at Pacific Rim Productions and Schroeder & Hoffman Productions at Sony Pictures, and as a 2nd Unit Director at Five Star Productions in Bangkok, Thailand. She has also spent time filming in Fiji, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Malawi, and Thailand. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Documentary and Narrative Film at Chapman University.
As someone diagnosed with EDS, an invisible disability, Christine was drawn to tell Moorea’s story of living with William’s Syndrome and give a voice to youth with disabilities.
Eileen Keighley - Co-Producer
Eileen hails from Scotland, before moving to London, where she worked in marketing agencies at Brave Marketing and Talented Marketing. She became a partner in Form and Function, an office design company, where she oversaw the branding. After moving to the States, she started an eco-company, Cool Water Barrels, that performed well in the Northwest.
Eileen's essays have appeared in Laguna Beach Magazine, the Holiday Digest and the literary journal Beach Reads. She also reviews restaurants for The Laguna Beach Independent. After selling her eco-company, she joined Cake Plate TV to merge her marketing and storytelling background with television and other forms of media.
When not writing or producing, Eileen trawls food shops, is an avid bread baker and has launched her own local gin, Two Shores Gin.
James Utt - Executive Producer
James Utt, Executive Producer is a fifth generation Orange Countian. After graduating Chapman Univerity he went into the US Army then taught high school social science for 35 years. The last 33 at El Toro High School in Lake Forrest.
Jim wrote Heart Talk, a column about life in Orange County that ran for three years in Laguna Beach Independent.
“I believed that the story of Moorea was heart warming and inspirational. Something that people should know about. And I believed Christine was the right person to tell it.”
Riani Singgih - Camera
Riani Singgih is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer telling stories from the Southeast Asian community. Riani has directed and produced documentary films that have won over 35 awards and screened in over 50 film festivals worldwide, such as Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and Palm Springs Short International Film Festival. Her student work at Chapman University was a semifinalist in the 2018 Student Academy Awards. Recently, her latest project “A Sonorous Melody” was selected to be a part of the IF/Then Southeast Asia Lab and Pitching Forum Initiative by Tribeca Institute.
Kate Amend, ACE - Consultant Editor
Kate Amend is the editor of the Academy Award-winning documentary features The Long Way Home (1998) and Into The Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2001) for which she received the American Cinema Editors' Eddie award. She teaches fiction and documentary production courses for USC.
Amend edited the 2001 Oscar-nominated documentary On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom and the Peabody Award winner Beah: A Black Woman Speaks. She is a frequent advisor at the Sundance Institute's Documentary Storytelling Lab and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers' Academy.
Amend is on the Board of Directors of the American Cinema Editors and is a Governor in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In 2005, she received the inaugural award for Outstanding Documentary Editing Award from the International Documentary Association.
Melvin Metcalfe III - Editor
Mel III travels around the United States and globe, filming documentaries, live events, corporate videos, life style promos and branded content. Capturing the story untold, from a remote jungle location, to an inaccessible office cubicle.
While not on location, he teaches domestic and international filmmaking boot camp for students from high school to university, and am an adjunct professor for Chapman University International Documentary Scholarship Program.
M’Daya Meliani - Editor
M'Daya Meliani is an LA-based editor whose career spans over 17 years in television and documentary film. Emmy-nominated for her work on the award winning A&E docu-series Born This Way, her documentary credits include 30 for 30 short documentary: Wrestling the Curse; Peter Berg's QB1 Netflix documentary series; and short documentary Red Lake, which premiered at the 2016 LA Film Fest and was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2016 IDA awards. M'Daya was a contributing editor at the 2019 Sundance Documentary Lab.
A graduate of Hampshire College, her BA focused on post-colonial studies, creative writing and film. Born in Paris, France to an Algerian father and an American mother, life-long cross-cultural musings have informed her artistic path.
Melanie Lim - Editor
Melanie completed her Master’s at USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate program with a focus on directing and editing. Drawn to all things lively and vibrant, she loves creating content that demans your attention. Some of her works include the short documentary God Bless the Cook, a musical short called Laurie’s Song and a short period piece entitled Magnolia Bloom.
Tessa Germaine - Assistant to Christine Fugate
Tessa Germaine graduated from Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts with a BFA in Film Production and a minor in Leadership Studies. While in college, Tessa worked for Blumhouse Productions (Get Out, Insidious), Voltage Pictures (I Feel Pretty, Hurt Locker), and New Republic Pictures (Rocketman, 1917) in both development and sales. She is currently working as the producer’s assistant at Cake Plate Productions while following her short film Rosie in festivals around the world.
Prior to working behind the camera, Tessa began her career as a child actor, appearing in shows such as CSI, Punk'd, and Close to Home. She has also assisted casting directors, worked in talent management, and continues to mentor young actors working in Hollywood through the Actors Fund’s Looking Ahead program. Tessa currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.