About Us
The Cinema Connoisseur
a publication by Paradise Theater
To further the awareness and advance the experience of the private cinema, sharing personal stories, informative articles, news and inspirations. To enhance the lives of those who admire the private cinema, the experience nonpareil.
About Paradise Theater
Paradise Theater provides comprehensive private cinema design, engineering and project management. Dedication to the creation of excellence and beauty in the realm of private cinemas is our driving force. Paradise Theater is a full-service organization, comprised of a team including project managers and cad designers, architectural and interior designers, acoustic and electronic engineers, who share this passion. Collectively, we exist to deliver the finest, most compelling private cinema experiences in the world to each and every Paradise Theater Client.
Contributors
Sam Cavitt
Sam is the founder and Chief Vision Officer of Paradise Theater®, a company renowned for comprehensive luxury private cinema design, engineering, and project management. Sam focuses his efforts on sustaining Paradise Theater’s superlative standard of excellence and in sharing the pleasures of fine private cinema with the industry and the world. Sam has founded and spearheads Cinema Connoisseur®, an initiative to build a community of enthusiasts - “cinema connoisseurs” - both professional and public who embrace and enhance the world of private cinema and film. Sam also publishes The Cinema Connoisseur a publication dedicated to enhancing the awareness, appreciation, and destiny of luxury private cinema.
Tayloe Stansbury
Tayloe Stansbury has more than 35 years of experience building scalable technology platforms and organizations across a number of leading companies. Prior to Kaleidescape, Tayloe served as interim CEO of Watermark Insights. Before that, he was executive vice president and chief technology officer of Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), where he was responsible for all product engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and information technology. Tayloe also previously served as executive vice president of Ariba, where he led product management, engineering, hosting, and customer support. Tayloe currently serves on the boards of Coupa (NASDAQ:COUP), TCV Acquisition Corp, Watermark Insights, and Trelly; previously he served on the boards of Shutterfly, BlueJeans Network, and Harvey Mudd College. Tayloe graduated with honors in applied mathematics from Harvard University.
Keshav Nelavai
Keshav is the lead acoustical engineer at Paradise Theater where he finds immense satisfaction in engineering and calibrating the finest high performance listening environments. As lead engineer, he works on researching new innovations in acoustic modeling, and developing methodologies that lead the industry through a continually refined engineering process. He is a part-time music producer, mixing/mastering engineer, record label owner and YouTuber. On his YouTube channel, he creates educational videos for music producers and audio engineers to help take their craft to the next level. It should be no surprise that Keshav has an obsession with sound, music, and everything related.
Andrew DeCristafaro
Supervising Sound Editor Andrew DeCristofaro, who joined Sony Pictures in 2019, has supervised sound for more than 130 projects, spanning feature films, episodic television, IMAX films and documentaries. He earned an Academy Award nomination in 2015 for Unbroken. He is also the recipient of five MPSE Golden Reel Awards, alongside 22 nominations, and has five Giant Screen Cinema Association Awards. His many credits include Clifford the Big Red Dog, Yes Day, Lady and the Tramp, Bad Boys for Life, Ghostbusters 2016, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Iron Man 3 and 2018 Academy Award Best Picture winner Green Book. He also created sound for the Netflix series The OA.
Doug Dushan
Business Development Manager, Echo Systems – 23 Years specializing in the luxury sector of residential AV and previous experience as an art consultant, Dushan emphasizes aesthetics in driving a higher standard of excellence for the industry. His dedication to high performance two-channel audio and luxury private cinema has honed his discernment for accuracy and detail and driven his success advocating solutions to clientele and trade partners using experiential presentations over a typical product centric approach. A method Dushan has successfully implemented with his team at Echo System’s industry leading experience center in Omaha.
Adora Lo
After earning a Masters in Architecture from UCLA, Adora’s career has been comprised of an eclectic variety of positions. Adora worked with LEGO creating large scale models and ultimately served as the model shop manager responsible for designing and building models for Legoland locations internationally. She has served as project manager for an AEC Software developer where she managed programmers, artists and QA as well as helped in developing it’s architectural workflow. Her diverse experience also includes a stint as project manager developing trade show displays including a record-breaking video game diorama. Adora brings a creative and multi-talented dimension to Team Paradise where she contributes as an architectural designer and senior project manager coordinating the design and construction of the finest luxury private cinemas.
Ron Rouse
VP of Sales for Wisdom Audio, Rouse is a veteran of the audio industry for over 32 years. His specialty is working with top integrators designing, engineering, and calibrating some of the most amazing distributed audio, 2 channel audio, and luxury private cinema audio systems around the globe. Ron’s passion for extraordinary audio and unparalleled experience make him truly a master sommelier of sound.
Tim Sinnaeve
Tim Sinnaeve is responsible for Barco’s Residential Group, part of Barco’s Cinema Business Unit, and oversees Barco Residential’s global strategy to fulfill its mission of creating Architectural Digital Canvases that enable the most immersive entertainment and cultural experiences for customers to share with loved ones in the comfort of their homes. Tim has extensive international experience and has lived and worked in Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, Australia and Canada. He holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics from Erasmus University College, Brussels (Belgium) and a Master’s Degree in International Law & Politics from the University of Hull (United Kingdom). He is currently based in Atlanta, GA.
Jon Herron
Jon Herron brings over 50 years of experience in the consumer electronics industry, with a focus on high-performance audio and video. Over his career, he has worked in both small and large retail operations, as a manufacturers’ representative, and as a manufacturer. Since 2016, Jon has focused on developing Trinnov Audio’s presence in the Americas. Previously, Jon held positions at Wisdom Audio, Madrigal Audio Laboratories (Mark Levinson, Proceed, and other brands) and Snell Acoustics In 1990-1991, Herron participated in the launch of Home THX® with Lucasfilm. His unique combination of technical expertise and sales experience make him a perfect match for the sophisticated technologies found in Trinnov products. Jon has degrees in both economics and religion from Dartmouth College.
Chuck Back
With nearly 50 years of experience in the field of high-end audio, Chuck Back has been an active contributor to the evolution of home entertainment from the days of speakers and a turntable in the living room to today’s luxury private cinema. He is actively involved in the design and calibration of high-performance systems in his roles as co-Managing Director of Trinnov Audio’s U.S. subsidiary and as a partner in speaker manufacturer Procella Audio. Previously, for over 20 years, he was EVP and General Manager of Miller & Kreisel Sound. During his time with this innovative speaker maker, Chuck was an early evangelist for home theater, working not only with dealers but also with developers that include Dolby and Lucasfilm. His abiding passion is for great sound.
Eric Alvarez
Eric is a Project Engineer at Paradise Theater, a position that allows him to apply his experience in mechanical engineering, AV installations, and graphic design. This career provides the fortunate combination of his formal education and his love for music as an avid percussionist. The industry is constantly evolving, and the challenges are always unique- a great match for his passion to discover and create. Producing the finest theaters in the world has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and Paradise Theater has provided the framework for success.
Logan Katsoufis
Logan is an acoustical engineer at Paradise theater that enjoys the design of specialized rooms where art and science meet. Growing up with a building planning and music background, acoustics and audio design presented the obvious career path. Working previously on recording studios and larger performance venues, Logan now works on rooms that inspired him to get into acoustics in the first place; private cinemas. Logan approaches each room design at Paradise Theater by envisioning possibilities.
William Erb
William Erb is a home theater owner and music lover who feels he “has to pinch himself” every time he listens to a great immersive music recording in his theater because the experience can be so vivid and enveloping. William wants to spread the word so that other home theater owners who love music can hear for themselves how lucky they are to be able to enjoy this emerging art form from the comfort of their theater seats.
Tippy Bushkin
As a documentary director, Tippy has brought to life award-winning and impactful projects with world-renowned visionaries. Tippy started in music videos in New York after graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her work as Head of the Documentary Division at Lucasfilm, provided the opportunity to work with director George Lucas, and direct the documentary feature Within A Minute chronicling the making of Lucas’ last Star Wars film. While at Lucasfilm she directed A Musical Journey for Sony Classical with 5-time Oscar-winning composer, John Williams. Tippy has been involved in stewarding projects for Annie Leibowitz, with her America Masters documentary Life Through A Lens. Her work with filmmaker Rob Stewart led to the documentary Sharkwater, which won over 40 International documentary film festival awards, creating a ban on shark finning around the world. Tippy then produced and directed the hit PBS eco-series, Building Green. She has recently founded Imaginal Media and is developing several projects, both documentary and scripted series, returning her to the world of music and scripted storytelling.
Norma Garcia-Muro
Norma Garcia-Muro is dedicated to entertainment experiences and the technology that fuels them. She brings a contagious passion for film, broadcast, theatrical exhibition, and cinema to the United States and abroad. As vice president of marketing at Kaleidescape, Norma draws upon her extensive foundation in film marketing to propel Kaleidescape’s growth and revolutionize the home cinema experience. Prior to Kaleidescape, Norma drove strategy and marketing at Paramount Pictures. At Lucasfilm Ltd. as head of international marketing, providing strategic oversight of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, marketing and distribution of the Emmy® Award-Winning series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and the launch of George Lucas’ NAACP Image Award-Winning biopic Red Tails.
At National CineMedia, Norma oversaw top technology partner accounts and established a consultancy firm to aid companies in adapting to emerging technologies. Joining Dolby Laboratories, she led global marketing efforts to support Dolby Cinema. Later, at THX Ltd., her work included overseeing the launch of THX Ultimate Cinema. Norma is a consummate motivator and mentor, with a passion for empowering young women and women of color within the industry.
She serves as a mentor for UNIC Women’s Cinema Leadership Program and is a member of both Women in Tech and Women in Film. She was the Founder of the Latino Employee Network MUNDO under Dolby’s Diversity and Inclusion program and the Founder of #WomenCOLLAB, a resource-sharing association connecting female entertainment and tech professionals in the Bay Area with the mission statement, “We Rise by Lifting Others.” Norma serves as an advisor to the Mill Valley Film Festival and was named one of the Top 50 Women in Global Cinema in 2021 and 2020.
Mark Mangini
Sound Designer Mark Mangini, winner of the Oscar for Mad Max-Fury Road and Dune and nominated for five others, has spent his 45-year career in Hollywood imagining and composing altered sonic realities for motion pictures. Mark is well known for his work, including Blade Runner 2049, Star Trek (I, IV, V), The Fifth Element, Gremlins and Raiders of The Lost Ark. He is a frequent lecturer, an outspoken proponent for sound as art and a guitarist/songwriter with compositions in Sex, Lies and Videotape, Star Trek IV and others. He is a member of S.A.G, SMPTE, and ASCAP. Today he works at the Formosa Group in Hollywood, CA continuing his work as a Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Designer and Re-recording mixer on such recent films as DUNE and The Accountant.
Todd Astill
Todd is the Founder and President of Nerve Inc, a custom integration firm catering to a very niche clientele interested in unique cinema and multi-sport simulator rooms. Based in Park City, Utah, for over two decades, Nerve has delivered its clients’ dream rooms and systems with projects in the United States, Central America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Todd’s background in photography and videography and his expertise with the latest residential technologies help Todd realize the expectations of Nerve’s discerning clientele and envision inspiring designs. Encompassing themed and contemporary cinema, lighting, and impressive technology integration in the home. Notably, Todd invented and patented a three-screen system that allows any space to transform into a multi-sport simulator. Todd’s team transforms even the most challenging spaces into incredible gathering and entertainment environments.
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