Doggie Dream Productions
Tim Bartell
Writer, Director, Producer
Tim Bartell is a writer-director-producer. Born and raised in Wisconsin, he later moved to Los Angeles to begin his film and television career. As a young actor he had a long list of TV and film credits. Early on, Tim was developing his comedy chops at The Comedy Store and in the improv group The L.A. Connection.
He later turned to writing & directing, starting with his 2005 award winning short film, First Date Meltdown. The film debuted at the Hollywood Arclight in the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, and went on to play in 22 film fests. In 2008, Tim wrote and directed his satiric comedy web-series, Fun with War Crimes. The eight-part series was featured by site editors on YouTube, Jib-Jab, and Democratic Underground.
Dirty Beautiful (2015) was Tim's feature film debut as a writer-director. It World Premiered at the 25th Cinequest Film Festival and played in 67 U.S. and international festivals, winning 48 awards, including 15 Best Narrative or Best Comedy trophies. The film received distribution and can now be seen on Amazon, Tubi, Vudu, and other platforms. Tim's style of filmmaking has been likened to that of Alexander Payne and Billy Wilder. His L.A. based company, Doggie Dream Productions, has several projects in development.
Jeff Solema
Producer
Former VP of Magic Elevator LLC and one of the Producer’s of its ventures. He helped managed Magic Elevator’s International Sales and Marketing Department at most major film markets such as Hong Kong Film Market, Cannes Film Market, AFM, EFM, and MIPTV.
Former founder and Former Director of Filipino International Film Festival L.A. Producer of over 20 feature films such as “Jaguar”, “Downside of Bliss”, “Ghost Goggles” “The Broken Ones” and “Monster & Me”.
His films have been distributed in almost 30 countries around the world.
Melinda Augustina
Creative Producer
Melinda Augustina is a creative producer on our Los Angeles team. An actress, author and creative producer of books, blogs, videos, film, web-series, stage productions, education events, comedy shows ~ almost every form of media ~ Melinda brings a depth and breadth of entertainment and business experience to our team.
Her BA degree is in theater, and her acting and producing experience ranges from Shakespeare, new American plays, improv, sketch comedy, films, children's entertainment, videos, audio programming and 8 years of quality social content. Her first film THREE-FIFTY won numerous awards in over 40 film festivals, aired on Canal Plus, NBC Universal and SYFY channels around the world for 7 years.
With Doggie Dream Productions, Melinda contributed to the success of Fun With War Crimes, Dirty Beautiful and San Francisco Sound.
Following Sarah Bernhardt's business model (Don't wait for someone to give you permission.) Melinda produced her first stage productions before she was 9 years old. Surrounded by co-stars (8 brothers and sisters), an opera singing mother and a Hollywood-handsome father, everything looked like a production opportunity to her. And everything STILL looks that way.