Key Players
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players
-William Shakespeare
Theodore A. Adams III
Mr. Theodore A. Adams, III is President and Founder of Red Zeppelin Productions LLC. He is also President and CEO of Unified Industries Inc. (UII), the company his father started in 1970. Mr. Adams has a legacy of community service, having served on the Board of Governors for St. Stephens and St. Agnes School and on various not-for-profit boards including: the Northern Virginia Urban League; the Parren J. Mitchell Foundation and the Retired Military Officers Association. He is also co-founder of the Stan Lee Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting literacy, arts and education. UII has an outstanding reputation of providing high-quality consultation services and products to government agencies and commercial customers. Dedicated to excellence, UII expands client knowledge, efficiency and effectiveness in the areas of program management, logistics, quality assurance, metrology and constructions skills training. Mr. Adams has also made a commitment to harness the capabilities of portal technology, wireless communications, knowledge management, and automatic identification tools to the service of customers across various industries. In the 1990’s, Mr. Adams was the co-founder and President of Pyrocap International Corporation, a chemical manufacturing company that was one of only two African American owned firms that were listed on the American Stock Exchange at that time. Pyrocap earned international acclaim for its innovative technology. As President of Pyrocap, Mr. Adams was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Adams is founder and Chairman of Unified Empowerment Inc, a non-profit AbilityOne registered organization dedicated to finding technical employment opportunities for people with severe disabilities. Mr. Adams was born in Heidelberg, Germany and was raised in Northern Virginia. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University and his Masters of Business Administration from UCLA. Mr. Adams also completed post graduate studies at the Yale-China Program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School. Mr. Adams is a two time Ironman Finisher and is a USAT Level 1 Certified Triathlon Coach. Mr. Adams is a registered member of the Writers Guild of America East.
Tara Kathleen Gorman
Tara Kathleen Gorman focuses her practice on hotel acquisitions, operations, development and finance, general commercial real estate transactions, including commercial real estate acquisitions and sales, and office retail leasing. Tara prepares and counsels clients, both domestically and internationally, regarding hotel acquisitions, financing, operations, development and finance, condo-hotels, hotel management agreements, license and branding agreements, restaurant management agreements, water park and casino agreements, real estate finance documents, purchase and sale agreements, property management agreements, corporate formation, business improvement districts, vendor agreements, marketing management agreements, website service agreements, telecommunications license agreements, and commercial office and retail leases. Tara has represented institutional investors such as life insurance companies and pension funds in connection with their real estate investments, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental agencies with respect to their real estate holdings.
Russell Williams II
Multiple Oscar and Prime Time Emmy Winner and Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, American University SOC
This seasoned veteran of the motion picture world has spent more than thirty years plying his trade on all but two continents and in forty-six of the fifty United States. His career has spanned the Watergate Hearings, radio production, theatre, multi-track recording, film documentary and feature-film sound recording. His quest for perfection has garnered him two Academy Awards and two Prime-Time Emmys.
A native of Washington DC, Mr. Williams received an Inter-Disciplinary Bachelor’s Degree in Film Production, Art History and Literature from American University in 1974. Soon after that, he worked at WRC/NBC TV as an engineer during the week and co-managed “Spirits Known and Unknown,” a radio workshop on campus for minority communication students in the DC area, that was unique in the public radio network on weekends. The motto of the workshop was “each one, teach one.” And so they did, even after Mr. Williams moved to the Los Angeles area in 1979. Considering the times, Williams feels this was his greatest achievement because of the scores of students that passed through the WAMU-FM studios and went on to grow their own professional careers.
While in Los Angeles, Mr. Williams built a reputation for getting to the “aural center” of the scene and preserving it as well as “marrying it to the visual.” Said Williams to a very prominent director, “… if it doesn’t work for me as radio, it’s probably not working visually either.” Starting in 1995, Mr. Williams took his many years of experience in the industry and applied those lessons to producing, a career he is very passionate about. He worked jointly with Isis Films director Bobby Holland on videos, commercials and behind-the-scenes documentaries for music industry clients like Quincy Jones. In 2002, Mr. Williams relocated to Washington, DC where he serves as the Distinguished Artist-in-Residence in the School of Communication Film & Video program where he teaches a graduate-level course on Developing Fiction Films.
Elizabeth Martins
Elizabeth Martins is an accomplished professional in the fields of film/television production, interactive marketing and creative content development. A Texas native, Elizabeth graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in the Radio/TV/Film program, where she began her extensive resume as a production assistant on the legendary live music show Austin City Limits.
Initially Elizabeth worked as a Producer at the Sicola Martin ad agency, where she managed print, TV and new media campaigns for hi-tech clients, IBM and Dell Computers. Dell recruited Elizabeth to work in-house with their web marketing team. Elizabeth helped establish the startup Thinkwell, a local Austin company that produces web-based interactive textbooks for colleges and universities. In 2002 Elizabeth moved to New York City to follow her first love- film and television production.
Based in Manhattan, Elizabeth spent 13 years working in film and television production for major studios and networks to include, HBO, FX Networks, The Weinstein Company, ABC, and NBC. Elizabeth’s extensive work with HBO included such television shows as the Emmy Award- winning series Girls (Seasons 1-4), the quirky comedy Bored to Death (Seasons 1 & 2) starring Jason Schwartzman and the acclaimed mini-series Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet. Other television series credits include seasons 1 & 2 of the dark drama Damages starring Glenn Close, ABC’s Castle, and the newest NBC hit Blindspot.
Feature film credits include the Weinstein Company’s Factory Girl starring Guy Pearce, Adrienne Brodie’s indie thriller Manhattan Night, and the most recent sports drama TRI. Elizabeth’s extensive production management experience in NYC proved invaluable to the TRI team from pre-production to the distribution and marketing for this award-winning festival favorite.
Having recently relocated from New York City, Elizabeth currently resides in Alexandria Virginia with her husband Dan who proudly serves in the US Navy as a helicopter pilot. Elizabeth is a member of Women in Film & Video in DC and is currently working with DC-based Red Zeppelin Productions where she is instrumental in project development for the upcoming slate of feature films, television series, and the Capital International Media Market.
Jai Jamison
Jai Jamison grew up in Richmond’s vibrant film and arts community. He attended Hampton University as an English major, where he devoted much of his free time to making short films and screening them in Richmond at Project Resolution. While at Hampton, he was awarded a scholarship to study film at Oxford University during the summer before his senior year.
Upon graduation, Jai was named a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellow and granted admission to American University’s MFA Film program. At American University, Jai distinguished himself early on as a stand out narrative filmmaker. He graduated summa cum laude and his thesis film, Speak Now, screened in festivals around the country.
Jai has worked on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, served as the supervising producer and editor of Hampton University’s “The View from Hampton U,” and recently worked as the visual effects assistant on season 2 of AMC’s TURN.
Jai’s latest project is the award winning feature film, TRI, an inspirational sports drama focused on the world of Triathlons. He was recently selected by Shoot Magazine to be in their 2016 New Director’s Showcase.
Theo Adams IV
Theodore A Adams IV (born June 29, 1992), known professionally as Theo Adams IV, is an American actor and producer best known for playing Jason Wilson in the 2017 film Othello-san, Red Zeppelin's highly acclaimed short film. Adams rose to prominence in his native United States of America after spending eight months living in Japan learning the language and culture.
Besides producing films for Red Zeppelin, he is also their head of social media.