About US_______________________________
Production Team
Rick Stout
Director/Co-Producer
Rick Stout is an award-winning filmmaker. Though born in Southern California, he grew up in Japan where the "national pastime" was photography. Since the age of 10 years old, he had his own darkroom, and was taking pictures of everything, all the time. Perhaps even more defining for him as a filmmaker, however, was his learning to observe, synthesize, and function within multiple cultures.
Rick received a Bachelor of Arts in 1989, as well as a Masters Degree in 1991. His diverse body of studies included cultural anthropology, and using "participant observation" methods to conduct original research, and to synthesize meaning from very diverse, and complex social situations. For Rick, photography and cultural analyses became the basis for an acute style of script writing, shooting, directing, and editing of films.
Rick has focused mainly on documentary films and biographies, but he has produced award-winning training and marketing films, as well as music videos, and specialty videos for celebrities.
Steven E. Smoot
Co-Producer/Executive Producer
Steven E. Smoot works in financial and economic research and development as President of Excel Investment Corporation and is a member of the National Congressional Committee Business Advisory Council.
Steven Smoot is also President and Founder of Family First Foundation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to supporting organizations and efforts that strengthen the family and bring awareness of the family’s importance to the world. Steven has been a speaker and delegate through the Family First Foundation to numerous international conferences, such as The World Congress of Families, held in Geneva, Switzerland; Mexico City, Mexico; and Warsaw, Poland.
Steven Smoot is also the executive producer of two documentaries that illustrate the importance of the family and encourage a positive birth rate called "Demographic Winter" and "Demographic Bomb".
Barry McLerran
Co-Producer
Barry Mclerran is devoted to developing humanitarian causes, particularly as they impact families. He is the past Director of the National Crisis Center for the Deaf and the Virginia Relay Service for the Deaf, and as Director of Humanitarian Aid for Family Action Council International, directed a quarter of a million dollars worth of tents and sleeping bags to earthquake victims in Gujarat, India and more than $60,000 worth of coats to war-time refugees in Afghanistan. He is currently serving as Executive Director of Family First Foundation, a foundation dedicated to helping organizations and efforts that strengthen the family and bring awareness of the family’s importance to the world.
Though Barry has past film experience as an actor, he most recently brings his passion for humanitarian and family causes to the making of films that do good in the world. He is Executive Producer of the feature film Christmas Jars, adapted from the bestselling book by Jason F. Wright, showing in theaters fall of 2008 – a project designed to have a tremendous humanitarian impact. He was also a producer of Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family and Demographic Bomb: Demography is Destiny, where Barry brought his experience with Family First Foundation to film, accessing experts from many different fields to illuminate the importance of the family to the world and to warn of the dangers facing society and the economy as the family disintegrates.