Brian Amyot was born on January 18th, 1982, in Memphis, TN. It was his parents' seventh wedding anniversary. Around the age of two, his family moved to Liverpool, NY, a town just outside of Syracuse, where Brian grew up. From an early age, he loved movies. He has fond memories of seeing E.T. in theaters and wearing out his VHS copy of Empire Strikes Back by watching it too much.

He graduated from Cicero North Syracuse High School in 2000 and enrolled in Hofstra University as a Film Studies and Production major. In his four years at Hofstra, Brian accomplished a great deal. He worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant and equipment room supervisor for two years. His proudest accomplishment, however, is co-founding the Hofstra Filmmakers Club, a student run production company. During that time Brian worked on over 20 film and video projects. He has directed five short films of his own, "The Next Day," "Infatuation," "All-Nighter," "Train Stop Wendy," and "18 Candles."

Since graduation in May 2004, he has worked for Hal Hartley's Possible Films and was the gaffer on the feature entitled Play It By Ear and Like a Springsteen Song. He currently lives in New York City and looks forward to working on many films in the future for Ragtag Productions.

Steven Tsapelas
Watch "Be My Valentine, Franny Canada"
Contact: steve@ragtagfilms.net

Steven Tsapelas graduated from Hofstra University in 2003 with a degree in Film Studies and Production. While at Hofstra, he made sure to leave his mark in the School of Communications. He was president of the classic movie loving club Popcorn Flik and a founding member of the Hofstra Filmmakers Club. He served as the resident writer of “HFC” churning out such masterpieces as “Beer Run,” “Train Stop Wendy,” “18 Candles,” “Wuss Fight Club” and “Action Junkie.”

He also wrote and directed the student film “Ragtag” which won 2nd Runner Up in the 6th Annual Hofstra Student Showcase, and his thesis film “Be My Valentine, Franny Canada” which won Best Director and Best Picture in the 7th Annual Hofstra Student Showcase. “BMVFC” went on to play at the Long Island Film Expo and the Palm Springs Short Film Festival. It was picked up for international distribution by the company Big Film Shorts.

After graduation, Steven co-founded Ragtag Productions, and went on to write and direct its first short “It’s Fun to Help Poor People, Franny Canada.” He has since written and directed the after-school-special-gone-wrong “Teenage Superhero Pregnancy Scare” (which has played Dragon Con and the Coney Island Film Festival). He is currently working on a second draft of his feature length “Beer Run” and a third draft of his feature length “It Might Be Cancerous, Franny Canada.” Steven currently resides in Forest Hills, New York, where he tries to see how many times he can reference the movie “BAPS” in a single day.