Taryn Stickrath-Hutt
co-writer, co-director
Chicago, IL
Taryn is a filmmaker, queer feminist, and exhausted mother with experience in costuming, theme park design, children's theater, and education. She met her longtime collaborator, Dan Lund, while working at Walt Disney Imagineering where they contributed to the Frozen Ever After attraction in Orlando. She earned a Themed Entertainment Association award for her work on Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway (Orlando).
She wrote and directed the short film Double Feature in 2019, inspired by her love of old screwball comedies and theaters that still project 35mm. Taryn is also a musician and painter, and her personal essay about being a queer Buddhist was published by Lion’s Roar in 2024 as a featured article for Pride Month. She was raised in Orange County, CA and now lives in Chicago, though her heart will always belong to Los Angeles.
Dan Lund
co-writer, co-director, editing, animation
Los Angeles, CA
Dan is a veteran effects animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios, known for his mastery in traditional hand-drawn effects. With a career spanning over three decades, he has played a crucial role in shaping the visual magic of some of Disney's most beloved films. Lund joined Disney in the mid-1990s, working on classic Renaissance-era films such as The Lion King and Pocahontas. More recently, he is one of the lead designers for the Frozen films and Wish.
Beyond his studio work, Dan is an independent filmmaker with a eye for stories that live outside the traditional animation sphere. He directed the short film Aria for a Cow, based on the never-before-heard song from Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, and co-directed the coming-of-age Coaster with Amos Sussigan.
Peter Kavanaugh
music
New York, NY
Peter is a BMI writer and publisher who has created scores for multiple directors inc. Double Feature by Taryn Stickrath (short film), O. Henry’s Guide to the Present by Stephen Gregg (theatrical score), and Time Warp (Discovery Channel).
“Taryn and Dan wanted to anchor the score with ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ associated with 1800s men’s clubs, to reflect the male-dominated world the protagonist navigates in 1970s academia. She’s both respected and stuck in the role of a ‘trad wife.’ I used harps, female voices, and a whistler to convey her inner dream world, and a rigid harpsichord for the patriarchal institutions that constrain her. When a mentor appears from an unlikely place, violins evoke her suburban stagnation, then build to a dark, pulsing orchestra and ominous Latin choir. As she finally accepts her own merit, her voice transforms to a defiant garage-rock anthem.”
Website IG: @peterkavanaughmusic
Gabriel Guy
re-recording mixer
Los Angeles, CA
Gabe has been involved with sound at The Walt Disney Company for over 25 years. He started his career at Skywalker Sound, eventually moving to LA working at Disney Digital Sound Services, before transitioning to mixing at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2007. He has won three Cinema Audio Society mixing awards for Motion Picture Animated (Frozen, Big Hero 6, Encanto) and been nominated nine times in that category along the way.
He has a long history in animation sound. His first film credit was for Toy Story 2 (1999) and he has mixed two Academy Award winning animated short films (Paperman [2012], Feast [2014]). He is currently working on Disney’s Zootopia 2, his 12th Walt Disney Animation Studio feature film as re-recording mixer.
His true love in life is sound and music (guitars, guitar pedals, synths, electronics) but after a week in the studio you’ll find him out hiking, biking or golfing.
Lauren Miller - titles & graphics
Jeremy Scott Olsen - supervising sound editor
Zack Hetlage - color timing
Michelle Sharp - technical advisor
Ethan Bennett
sound editor
Nashville, TN
Ethan Bennett earned his B.S. in Audio Engineering Technology in Spring of 2025. While completing his last semester of college, he joined The Finger Wife crew as the first sound editor, laying the sonic foundation of the film. He is pursuing work in video game sound design and animation sound design/mixing.
“I was extremely lucky to join this project through a personal connection as it was known that I have interest in working in audio post production. My initial role was to create a rough audio mix using the picture and recorded dialogue by adding sound effects, recording foley, editing dialogue, and mixing it all together. During this time, I was putting all of my free hours into this film so that I could do my best. At one point, I was in the Foley studio with a kitchen knife chopping a bunch of different vegetables. Once Jeremy and Gabe joined the project, my work was used as a reference point to take things further. I loved being able to really dive into the world and put all my knowledge to use.”
Luis Mathison
compositing
Los Angeles, CA
Luis Mathison is an animator and film director with a love and appreciation for indie projects full of heart and injection of personality and style. He works as a CG generalist currently for Frame48, and holds credits as an FX artist/animator for Disney Animation Studios in the productions of Moana 2 and Wish, as well as on-set VFX for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Alongside career projects, he enjoys assisting in short films and passion projects where the vision and art statements align with his own, as well as directing his own films. He has 2 short films under his name currently and a project in which he VFX supervised entering the Manhattan Film Festival.
“Dan Lund is an animator with so much soul and passion for his work and craft, and the moment we got to chatting about movies, career paths, and methods and saw that interests aligned, it was an easy ‘yes’ when he asked if I was interested in helping bring this project to life.
I was tasked with bridging some technical aspects of the project, in integrating practical plates for the BG and compositing them into the puppet’s performance. It was a fine line of action technical artistry and making sure the vision aligned with Dan’s!”
IG: @luis.mathison