Third Mind Blues

The Filmmakers

William Tyler Smith - Producer, Director, Cinematographer

William Tyler Smith is an independent filmmaker, still photographer and educator. Smith holds an MFA from the prestigious UCLA Graduate Film & Television School.  He has directed five feature films and numerous short films across many different genres. His films have won awards at international festivals and have been broadcast, streamed and distributed on DVD all over the world.

His narrative feature, Kiss Me Again, premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and enjoyed a very successful international run.  His first feature documentary, The Third Mind, concerning the artistic collaboration between Ray Manzarek and beat poet, Michael McClure, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, screened at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel. His second documentary feature, Imagine a School...Summerhill is enjoying a successful video-on-demand run. Third Mind Blues is the second film Smith has done with Manzarek. Smith's next film, The Incredible Flamin Groovies Movie, which he is co-directing with Kurt Feldhun, is currently in post-production. It's a modern-day "spinal tap" which follows the nefarious rock and roll band's comeback after having been apart for 30 years. Smith is about to begin shooting his next feature documentary on an up and coming comedian.  

Smith is also a film directing instructor held in very high esteem at the New York Film Academy. He was recently named one of the "15 Most Notable Art Professors in New York City" by The Art Career Project. 

emma broomhead - producer, additional camera

Emma Broomhead is a television producer and director.  She produced Smith's feature documentary, Imagine a School...Summerhill, about A. S. Neill's Summerhill School and its battle for survival against the Labour Government. Emma has enjoyed a very successful career in reality television.  She was a director and senior producer of the hit show Say Yes To The Dress from 2009-2013.  Emma also worked as a segment producer on Wife Swap and Make Me a Supermodel. 

kurt feldhun - editor

Kurt Feldhun is an award winning director, editor and composer.

He directed and edited Bernie Whitebear: A Modern Warrior, which won the American Indian Film Institute Award for Best Short Documentary. He also produced and edited the Emmy nominated Building One House, narrated by Robert Redford and featuring the music of Pearl Jam. He has also directed music videos for the legendary band, Bad Brains for Nocera’s hit song Let’s Go.

Feldhun and Smith are currently co-directing and are in post-production on The Incredible Flamin’ Groovies Movie about the enigmatic rock band The Flamin’ Groovies. 

Chuck Braverman - Consultant and sales agent

Chuck Braverman is a filmmaker who has directed and scripted both fiction and non-fiction films. He was nominated for an Oscar and won the DGA award for best feature documentary, runs his own production company, was a senior studio executive, and is now producing a series on documentary production at Westdoc Online. He can be contacted at chuck@westdoconline.com.

RICHARD O'CONNOR - ANIMATION

Richard has produced and directed animation for many documentaries you should have seen but haven't and a few you were better off not watching at all. Some that you should see include David Grubin's The Buddha, Penny Lane's Nuts!, Stanley Nelson's Freedom Summer and American Masters presentations of Gail Levin's Cab Calloway: Sketches and Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides. 

He's made several short films, most recently Ontario, Quebec & Me based on a song by Billy Bragg. His previous short My Friend Nearly Killed Patti Smith was made during a year-long exile in Ireland. 

Currently, he's making a bunch of films with StoryCorps and developing a 20 minute short about a dead cat and psychiatry. You can see his work at www.aceandson.com.