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BIOS Actors
Creative Team
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Jareb
Dauplaise (Grainger)
Plays the character Grainger in Archangel Films’ first feature Robbery
101: A Common Man’s Guide to Armed Robbery. Grainger is the unstable
youngest member of a gang of marginalized kids. He continually claims
“I’m not a psycho: I’m just manic-depressive”. Jareb is a natural for
this role: he is excitable, spontaneous and a trained improvisational
actor. Jareb’s childhood has similarities to the role he plays as
Grainger. He considers his brothers to be somewhat marginalized and he
continually pulled on their experiences to drive the character forward
both in an amusing, yet emotional and quite disturbing way.
Jareb has significant theatrical acting experience from his education
and degree from Florida School of the Arts. He has several professional
theater credits ranging from Shakespeare to Christopher Durang. He has
feature film experience starring as Adam in Night Terror and being cast
in Tigerland where he learned from the rising star Colin Farrell. He
has also featured in the television shows Sheena and in five episodes as
Oswald Manning in Making the Grade on Orlando’s UPN.
Jareb also loves to fight. He has fight choreographer experience in 3
independent, 7 theatrical features, and co-coordinated the fight
sequences in Robbery 101. He has also starred in over 10 commercials --
local and regional -- including Mercedes Benz.
Jareb does not lack confidence as was witnessed by the producer and
director when he came into rehearsals on the first day. When asked “if
we have to change scenes and the call sheet due to weather or something
else, how comfortable would you feel?” he replied “not a problem”. And
then to the follow-up question “And how will you be with your lines” he
answered, without hesitation “Flawless”…
He was right.
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Jalen James Acosta (Carlos)
Plays the role of Carlos, the older, adopted brother in a
gang of three marginalized kids who go on a crime spree in Robbery 101:
A Common Man’s Guide to Armed Robbery. Jalen has significant experience
in both the music and film industry. Jalen has shared the stage with
many high profile superstars, among them Enrique Iglesias whom he
considers a great friend and a major contributor to his success. He
likes to go to the drive-through at McDonalds and embarrass Enrique by
pointing out to the server that Enrique is trying to keep a low profile
in the passenger’s seat. This usually sets McDonalds alight…
Jalen is first and foremost a musician. His music is on
the soundtrack to Robbery 101 and can be described as a fusion between
hip-hop, Latin, rap-influenced rock. His Latin band ‘Toque de Keda’ has
just been signed by the record label ‘PNC/Liberes’. Toque de Keda
starts their world tour in their hometown of
Miami
on 10/01/02, which coincides with their live performance on the
Univision television show Caliente. They will be playing in numerous US
venues such including South and North Carolina and Massachusetts. Jalen
then continues his world tour going to most of the typical European
destinations such as Spain (Madrid) and Italy (Milan) and then onto most
of South America including Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, and “a bunch
of places: I can’t even remember where I’m supposed to go. I just go
and play… Cool, eh?” This attitude typifies his approach to life and is
perfect for the way he portrays the character of Carlos in Robbery
101.
The non-continuousness of Torque de Tore’s 8 month world
tour allows him to return to the
US occasionally and
follow his other acting and musical interests. Jalen has also been
offered a spot on the Latin equivalent of American Idol, only this time
for Latin rappers… 24 people in a mansion in Old San Juan,
Puerto Rico… At this time, he is still contemplating this
offer
Jalen was born and raised in Queens NY and lived part of
his life in the
Dominican Republic
where his parents are originally from and have now returned to live. He
arrived in South Florida quite recently to boost his music career but
fell on difficult times. He had nowhere to live and was down to his
last $5, which he spent on a bus ticket to get to an audition. He
didn’t land the role but landed a job as a ‘Stand-In’ for Will Smith,
Mario Van Peebles, and Jamie Fox in the movie Ali. One of the crew gave
him a temporary place to live and the rest is history.
Jalen is a strong believer in fate and of the old adage
‘follow your heart’. It seems to have worked.
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Glenn Argenti (Kyle)
Has bArchangel Films Production m he’s worked as an extra including
Robineen involved in the entertainment industry since he left college
in 1998. His desire to star in a feature length film became a reality when
he was cast as Kyle in the Robbery 101: A
Common Man’s Guide to Armed Robbery. He takes inspiration from the many
film stars around who Williams
(Birdcage), Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Michael Madsen (Donnie Brasco),
Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon (Wild Things) and John Leguizamo (Pest).
Glenn, as a born and bred South Floridian, understands the
marginalized-kid environment, which remains all too common in the Miami
metro area. Glenn also brings a lot of intelligence to the role of Kyle,
the gang leader. He graduated from Barry University with a 4.0 GPA in
Communications. He then became mesmerized by the entertainment industry
after leaving school and has worked for the leading Miami Radio station in
marketing and promotions, supplementing his income as a model and has
starred in several TV commercials.
Glenn has had several brushes with greatness, before they were great. His
parents worked with John Depp Sr. in local government in South Florida.
This was long before Johnny Depp became a household name. He was also one
of fifteen people almost cast as Robin in Batman Forever. He beat out over
5000 people in a nationwide cattle call.
Glenn has experienced some devastating events that have helped shape him
into the young man he has become. He witnessed the death of his best
friend and stepfather, Harold Argenti and had the love of his life leave
him immediately after proposing to her.
To be taken seriously as an actor, Glenn decided to live in Florida, as
opposed to California or New York since the movie industry in South
Florida is once again really beginning to thrive. His favorite quote comes
from the song ‘Superman’ by Five for Fighting: “It’s not easy being me.”
Glenn has been known to have what some call a hero complex. On one
occasion, he was driving home from a date and noticed a car accident on
the side of the road. He pulled over at 4a.m. to help. It turns out the
person he was helping was a Miami Dolphin. Glenn wrapped the unconscious
player’s severed hand up in a T-shirt. He then waited for the proper
authorities to take over and now that player will possibly be able to play
thanks to Glenn’s quick thinking.
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Robin
Wilson (Jackie)
Stars in her first feature length film Robbery 101, A Common Man’s Guide
to Armed Robbery, playing the character of Jackie, a beautiful, sexy yet
manipulative woman in her mid to late twenties. She claims to be an
ex-stripper who, as an avid videographer, has a fascination with
chronicling life’s events. She has become involved with a gang of
teenagers and has convinced them to videotape their day-to-day
activities and to tell ‘their story’.
As a child, Robin was heavily involved with theatre and art: “I’ve
always been an artsy type of gal”. After attending the Pinellas County
Center for the Arts for piano and dance in her hometown of St.
Petersburg, Florida, Robin decided to go straight into acting and landed
several roles in television including TV shows such as SeaQuest, Thunder
in Paradise, Fortune Hunter and ABC’s soap opera, Loving. But she found
it highly competitive: “I had to distinguish myself from every other
tall blonde bimbo. I knew I was more well-rounded and intelligent than
the average model: I just had to prove it.” Robin decided to attend
the University of Florida where she graduated from with a Bachelors of
Fine Arts degree in Dance Performance. “Now I’m an intelligent tall
blonde bimbo,” she claimed, with a wry smile. She is currently working
towards her Masters degree in Liberal Studies with a focus in Performing
Arts. She plans to continue with her
doctorate specializing in theatre and modern dance. “Dr. Robin Wilson:
has a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’, about it, don’t you think?”
Robin is trained in theatre and has performed in musicals such as Hello,
Dolly!, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, On Your Toes, Kiss Me Kate, and
Cabaret. After finishing with Robbery 101, she returned to the theatre
world as an assistant director of movement for the play Six Characters
in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. “I think directing has to
be my favorite part of theatre. It certainly helps my acting; and
acting experience helps with directing.” Robin is also trained in
dance, specifically ballet. She didn’t always want to dance: “I was a
star soccer player until I was 16 years old. Then I did a ‘Billy
Elliot’ and switched.” She hasn’t looked back since and now hones her
skills on modern dance. She is currently teaching dance at Florida
Atlantic University.
Robin is a sports freak. As an avid Gator fan, she attends as many home
football matches as she can. She’s a self-professed ‘face-painter’.
“On one side I have an orange football and on the other I have ‘UF’. I
hoot and holler with the best of them”. Maybe this is why she was so
well liked and respected in Robbery 101’s male dominated cast and crew.
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Bill
Russell (Producer)
Had precious little experience in the film industry before producing
Archangel Films’ first feature film entitled Robbery 101: A Common Man’s
Guide to Armed Robbery. Bill is the president of the Miami-based
production company, Archangel Films, LLC that he co-founded in the
summer of 2001. He is responsible for leading the business development,
operations and financing.
“Becoming a producer was a fairly easy transition for me” he told
Channel 10 (Miami’s ABC affiliate) on the first day of shooting Robbery
101. “I just pulled on my variety of experiences in business,
academics, coaching and organizing. It seems pretty much common sense
to me. The secret is to get people to do things and to develop good
chemistry amongst the crew, the cast and all the other people involved,
like the police, the folks who own the locations, etc.”.
His background is rather unorthodox for film production, yet he seems to
have developed the right skill sets in his former life… Bill spent over
2 years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he gained
experience in business strategy, organization and operations. His
experience includes generating and evaluating strategic options for
Fortune 100 clients and developing and implementing business-building
strategies for start-up companies. This work involved building and
refining business models, assessing market and competitive landscapes,
developing rigorous financial models and writing business plans. His
organization and operations experience focused on budget management and
cost-reduction strategies: managing and designing systems for tight
control over budgets.
“This helps me with the investors. I know how to speak to them and what
they need to hear. They want someone with business nous to take care of
their money -- keeping a tight control of the budget and being,
essentially, frugal. This comes naturally to me anyway, since I’m
Scottish.”
Dr. Russell spent eight years as an academic on the faculty of Columbia
University in New York and the University of California, Berkeley. He
is trained as a rocket scientist. He is also a former international
athlete having played for, and coached the USA National Rugby Team where
he led and managed high-performing teams for several years. “My
experiences with the USA Rugby team help me enormously when cast and
crew members started arguing. I seem to sort this kind of sh*t out
quite quickly and get everyone on the same page. I find that part of
movie producing the most fun”.
Bill holds a
Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering from the
University of Virginia and a B.Sc. (with Honors) in Mathematics from
Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. He is Scottish and a major fan of
directors like Guy Ritchie, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and David Mamet.
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Rafael Gomez-Cabrera (Writer/Director)
Wrote and directed Robbery 10: A Common Man’s Guide to Armed Robbery
for Archangel Films, a production company he co-founded in the summer of
2001. Rafael is at the nascence of a dynamic career in the motion
picture industry: Robbery 101 is his first foray into a new school of
neo-noir filmmaking, which explores modern day issues with a dark,
satirical perspective. When asked his specific goals, he was concise:
“to create entertaining films that have a stylized and intelligent view
of modern issues.”
In his writing, Rafael draws upon his experiences as an attorney to deal
with issues of crime, redemption and their legal ramifications. He has
written two other screenplays, .357 Mambo and Counterfeit, which explore
the dark side of the human psyche as well as modern issues such as
domestic espionage and anti-government militias. Rafael is of Cuban
origin although a born and bread American: his family escaped from Cuba
in the early 1960’s. Currently living in Miami, he is well positioned
to write about the Cuban subculture and anti-government sentiment and
activities that dominate the landscape of
South Florida. .357 Mambo and Revolucion are both stories with a
very heavy Cuban influence. For more information on these screenplays,
please visit the Archangel Films website at
www.archangel-films.com.
On top of his creative abilities, Rafael has a very strong business
background. He was the Director of Marketing for a high-tech camera
company in
Zurich,
Switzerland where he
was responsible for the company’s businesses and marketing activities
throughout Europe. Before that, he was a consultant at McKinsey &
Company, where he developed several areas of expertise including
marketing and strategic growth. It comes as no surprise that Rafael was
therefore heavily involved in the pre-production and production of
Robbery 101 and was of great value during this process. Casting the
movie was especially enjoyable for him as the scheduling became
extremely complex (given the accelerated timeline of pre-production and
production) and in less than a month, he had single handedly identified
and signed every member of the cast. “It helps to know exactly what you
need: and what you’re looking for…” he quipped, on completing this task
two weeks before the shoot date.
Rafael prefers to pursue the opportunities in the feature film industry
of South Florida than those in his hometown of Chicago. But should he
wish to return, he is licensed to practice law in the state of
Illinois. This may be a bit too much to ask of him: writing,
directing, producing and taking care of all the legal work. He’d be
more than capable of succeeding: he holds a Juris Doctoris (with honors)
from Harvard
Law School and an A.B. in Finance and Economics (Summa Cum Laude) from
the University of
Illinois
– Urbana/Champaign. He also studied economics at the University of
London – UCL.
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Matthew C. Boyd (Director of Photography)
Loves the genre/style of Robbery 101: A Common Man’s Guide to Armed
Robbery and this was the main reason he agreed to take on the role of
Director of Photography. As a DP his creative drive comes from the work
of Cassavetes, Vilmos Zsigmond and Lazslo Kovacs whom he admires
greatly. Matt used a pseudo documentary, almost guerilla approach to
filming Robbery 101, which was shot on the Canon XL-1, and Sony PD-100A.
“This was the only way to go since the movie’s about filming the events
of a real-life robbery spree committed by a gang of marginalized kids in
South Florida. They wouldn’t carry around a 35mm Panavision to shoot a
robbery, now would they?”
Matt’s honesty and sense of humor, albeit sarcastic, was a high point of
the production, always keeping the cast and crew loose. “Can I shoot an
aerial shot from a helicopter as they enter the store in this scene? I
think that would look nice, what do you think Rafael?” Matt has a
multitude of technical qualifications and practical production
experience and was stretched throughout the production of Robbery 101
due to the low budget nature and the limited crew available.
Matt has worked as Director of Photography on several shorts, among them
the short Artwork and the cult iFilm.com short Homebase. He has also
worked on the Korean shorts, Luna and Show Me Your Tattoo. He has over
six years of experience in the film and video production industry and
edited and shot over 10 commercials in various formats including DVCAM,
16mm and 35mm working with directors such as Alex Kreuzer, Sunil Reddy,
Jennifer Wells and Frederick Chaignat.
Matthew was a Dean’s list graduate from The Academy of Art College in
San Francisco and continues to do freelance cinematography shooting
music videos, shorts, and commercials. He was recently selected to
shoot the first of a series of extreme sports videos for Life Flight
Productions. He is currently working on a cutting edge
bicycle-messenger documentary about the life (and death) of those who
brave the four seasons and the aggressiveness of
San Francisco’s
city streets. This is Matt’s true love and is a truly independent
venture – Matt has already managed to raise the required funding and has
distribution in place. “You have no idea what these guys go through on
a day to day basis”. On Your Left is a remarkable story of hardship,
loss, and lifestyle dedicated to the lives of bike messengers that died
throughout the two-year production.
In the nascent stages of a burgeoning career, he hopes to continue
exploring the extreme sports world of production while shooting
intelligent shorts and features.
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Christine Tille-Niemeyer (Production Design)
Agreed, with her first foray into the feature film world,
to take on the responsibility of Production Design and Art Director for
Robbery 101: A Common Man’s Guide to Armed Robbery. Christine (Tine)
wore a plethora of hats on this, the first of Archangel Films’
independent feature films. Tine is primarily an artist and lives by the
motto: “Art is vital”. She co-founded a group called “The Muse” which
is dedicated to promote self-expression in the
South Florida
community by providing a platform for people to express themselves. The
group’s event SLAM! has become one of the major magnets to attract
extraordinary individuals taking risks rather than following mainstream
principles of art. Two other founding members of “The Muse”, the
producer Bill Russell, and Rafael Gomez (the Director) had a great
impact on Tine’s career. They asked Tine to join them on the creative
team for Robbery 101 recognizing that Tine had two skills that are
rarely found together: creativity and outstanding organizational
skills. They instantly knew they had found the person who could create
the vision they had for the movie and also the ability to turn ideas
into reality, staying within budget, without sacrificing details.
As an artist she has had shows in
Portugal, Germany and
in her current hometown of Miami Beach. Her art is dominated by color
and stroke, which she uses to express the beauty of human beings and the
dynamic of nature.
Tine holds a Masters in German as a Foreign Language from
the Ludwig
Maximilians
University in Munich and holds a Bachelors equivalent in Business
Administration from the Fernuniversität Hagen, Germany. She has worked
as a teacher for the German House and the Universidade des Letras in
Coimbra, Portugal, as an editor for the United Nations in
Geneva,
Switzerland,
and as an editorial assistant for the German magazine Blickpunkt:Film.
Christine was born in Bavaria – which she likes to remind people is much
cooler than being from ‘Germany’.
During the
interview for her bio, Tine was as modest as always: “The only part of
working on this feature that I dislike profoundly, and at which I feel
most unlikely to succeed, is talking about myself and contributing to
this bio. The thing is this: once I achieve something it proves that I
can do it; it doesn’t seem to be very difficult any more and is
therefore no challenge to me. I lose interest and it no longer seems
important, remarkable or interesting. This is why I very much prefer to
prove myself through what I do, be it art, design, or creative input,
than what I write about myself.”
Her work continues
to speak for itself.
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