Steve Golin (born March 6, 1955) is the founder and CEO of Anonymous Content LLP, a multimedia development, production and talent management company and co-founder and former CEO of Propaganda Films.

Golin and partner Joni Sighvatsson launched Propaganda Films, a talent management and advertising and video-production company, in 1986. They built Propaganda into the largest music video and commercial production company in the world, winning more MTV Video Awards and Cannes Palme d'Or Awards than any other company and quickly became a home for the most sought-after young music video and commercial directors. One of its first discoveries was David Fincher, then an unknown video director. Not long afterward, a young filmmaker showed up with a reel containing a Donny Osmond video and a spec Coke commercial. Golin watched the clips and told Michael Bay, "Nice to meet you. You're hired." After seeing a couple of skateboard videos he liked, Golin brought Spike Jonze into the fold. Other discoveries included Antoine Fuqua, Gore Verbinski, and Alex Proyas. Golin and Sighvatsson sold the company to Polygram. But when Polygram was sold to Seagram in 1998, Golin lost control of the company and exited in 1999.

David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, comic book artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery, and meticulous sound design. The surreal, and in many cases violent, elements to his films have earned them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences.

Born to a middle class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. Deciding to devote himself more fully to this medium, he moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. Then being employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, he proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was highly critically acclaimed.

Laura Elizabeth Dern (born February 10, 1967) is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk (1985), Blue Velvet (1986), Fat Man and Little Boy (1988), Wild at Heart (1990), Jurassic Park (1993) and October Sky (1999). She has won awards for her performance in the 1991 film Rambling Rose, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Actress in a Leading Role". She was awarded a Golden Globe Award for "Best Supporting Actress — Series, Miniseries or Television Film" for her portrayal of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris in the film Recount (2008). As of February 2012, Dern was starring in HBO’s Enlightened, for which she has won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress — Television Series Musical or Comedy".

Dern was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, and the great-granddaughter of former Utah governor and Secretary of War George Dern. Scottish-American poet, writer, and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish was her great-uncle. Laura Dern's film debut was a cameo in her mother's film White Lightning (1973). She also made a brief appearance in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), one of Ladd's signature roles. Her mother objected to her 13-year-old daughter's presence on the set of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, but Dern sued for emancipation.

Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English film and television director and writer. He is most famous for his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the TV series Spaced, and for directing the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and co-writing Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat.

Wright was born in Poole, Dorset, but grew up predominantly in Wells, Somerset, after his family moved there during his childhood. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wright directed many short films, first on a Super-8 camera which was a gift from a family member and later on a Video-8 camcorder won in a competition on the television programme Going Live. These films were mostly comedic pastiches of popular genres, such as the super hero-inspired Carbolic Soap and Dirty Harry tribute Dead Right (the latter of which was eventually featured on the DVD release of Hot Fuzz).

After graduating from Bournemouth Arts College he made a spoof western, A Fistful of Fingers, which was picked up for a limited theatrical release and broadcast on the British satellite TV channel Sky Movies. Despite Wright's dissatisfaction with the finished product, it caught the attention of comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who subsequently chose him as the director of their Paramount Comedy channel productions Mash and Peas and Sir Bernard's Stately Homes. During this time he also worked on BBC programmes such as Is It Bill Bailey? and Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round. In an interview with journalist and author Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life, Wright cites his edgy and comedic style in his love for An American Werewolf in London:

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 American black comedy-fantasy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictional version of himself. The film depicts Craig Schwartz (Cusack), a puppeteer who finds a portal that leads into Malkovich's mind.

It was nominated for the 72nd Academy Awards in three categories: Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Keener, Best Director for Spike Jonze and Best Original Screenplay for Charlie Kaufman.

Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is an unemployed puppeteer in a forlorn marriage with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz). Gaining a file clerk job through Dr. Lester (Orson Bean) at LesterCorp, in the strange Floor 7½ low-ceiling offices of the Mertin Flemmer Building in New York City, he develops an attraction to his co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener), who does not return his affections. Schwartz discovers a small door behind a filing cabinet which he enters, finding himself in the mind of actor John Malkovich; able to observe and sense whatever Malkovich does for fifteen minutes before he is ejected and dropped into a ditch near the New Jersey Turnpike. Schwartz reveals the portal to Maxine and they decide to let others use it at $200 a turn.