Meet the Team

The team behind Assemble has a multitude of experience across the breadth of the Indie film community in the UK, US and around the world. Working with many Documentary and Fiction projects for a number of years the team is completely familiar with the unique challenges of indie film.

James Franklin

James Franklin is a Graphic Designer. He has a specialism in creating identities, web sites, outreach and distribution tools for independent filmmakers. Over the years he has worked on the releases of over a hundred films incuding The End of the Line, Burma VJ and most recently Ping Pong. He is also the Creative Director at BRITDOC, working across all aspects of the foundation's presentation and design on and off-line. James enjoys making the process of promoting a film and finding an audience online easier and more efficient. James founded Assemble - the result of everything he has learned so far. His favourite recent films are Ping Pong and Brother Number One.

@jamesfranklin

Jess Search

Jess Search is CEO for BRITDOC, the foundation which funds feature documentaries like Hell and Back Again, Afghan Star and The Yes Men Fix the World. She is also a co-founder of online filmmakers network Shooting People. She was previously a commissioning editor at Channel 4 and has a Film MBA from Cass Business School. She is helping Assemble with strategy and finding amazing films to help. Her recent favourite films are documentaries like The Arbour, How to Survive a Plague and Searching for Sugar Man.

Saskia Wilson-Brown

Formerly the head of outreach and development for the participatory television arm at Current TV, Saskia Wilson-Brown has worked as a consultant and strategist for a number of film projects and companies, including the pioneering P2P distribution site Vodo. Devoted to education and access, she has co-produced several of Lance Weiler's DIY Days. Her writing on film has been published in Filmmaker Magazine and Workbook Project, and she programs documentary features for Slamdance Film Festival, while running Cinema Speakeasy, an independent film screening series in California. Her favourite recent film is Shunka.

@saskiawb

Kieran Masterton

Kieran Masterton is a developer, tech advisor and strategist working where code meets film. He owns and operates 88MPH, a technology company focused on helping creatives build products and overcome digital problems. For the past 14 years, Kieran has worked as a coder and technical architect for Internet Service Providers, international broadcasters and major magazine publishers. He also built indie film distribution platform OpenIndie and is currently engaged in research for his PhD which explores the impact of crowdsourcing on film distribution.

@kieranmasterton

Rosaria Gandar

Rosaria Gandar is a Graphic Designer. Having previously worked in Marketing and Advertising agencies, Rosaria works closely with James to create the branding, identity and key-art needed for the films on Assemble such as Pussy Riot: The Documentary and Open Heart. She's passionate about documentaries, especially ones with social justice causes. When she's not working, she can be found curled up with a great film. Her favourite recent film is Calvet.

Ollie Rattue

Ollie Rattue is a web app developer and Blogger. Ollie has experienced all sides of the tech industry with work ranging from small companies to corporate clients, bootstrapped startups and the open source world. Mixing his passion for film Ollie has worked with independent filmmakers for 5 years using innovative technology to market, campaign, and sell 'films for social change' in the new online era. When he's not at work he can often be found hanging off an Andalusian cliff or shivering his way up an Andean mountain.

@ollierattue

Kos Korolev

What Kos doesn't know about HTML and CSS isn't worth knowing. And when it comes to JavaScript he wrote the book. Kos makes sure that everything we do works seamlessly on the front end whatever browser you are using.

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