PRODUCT DESIGN
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Meet the Filmmakers
Equal parts imagination and execution, this team's work has taken them across multiple continents to deliver single videos and entire series. From LA to Very Large Array, to creating a Bollywood scene atop the Taramati Baradari in Hyderabad, India, they can, and have, shot anywhere.
The core team is a group of friends and seasoned filmmakers who have created award-winning documentary and feature films, branded video series, and advertising that drives awareness, education, and delight.
DONNA CRAIN
Director & Producer
Donna is a storyteller, Creative Director and former second baseman on a boy's Little league All Star baseball team.
In 2024, at the end of a dozen years in consulting, and many before with an award-winning career with big brands and startups across retail and tech, she thought about what she would do if she could do Anything. She's now following this path in midlife.
Donna first heard Eros' story on a memorable night in Italy sitting across the table from him with Jay and a glass of wine. She found the tale of his win on Mont Ventoux charming, romantic, and inspiring, and thought a lot of other people would too.
The 30th anniversary of his win became the perfect convergence of where she was in life and timeliness to tell the little known story that became GRINTA! film.
DEAN DEL CALZO
Director
Dean started as a copywriter working for a number of advertising agencies way back when a campaign was more than 280 characters on Twitter.
During that time as a creative director he created a number of campaigns for McDonald’s, KIA, Deloitte, Audi, The North Face, and Oakley to name a few. His work was acknowledged with a number of awards by what is regarded as perhaps the most ego-driven industries: the advertising community.
His film experience comes from a steady stream of TV commercials, longer form branded content, and the occasional documentary.
As it would turn out, directing was a natural next step. Fast forward to today and well over a hundred productions later, he still gets weak-kneed at the sight of a well-stocked craft services table.
JED MORTENSON
Producer
Jed fell in love with filmmaking thanks to his parents’ Super 8 camera, homemade pyrotechnics, and minimal parental supervision.
That obsession led him to USC Film School, where he learned how to turn popcorn dreams into actual movies. He cut his teeth in L.A., working with cinematic titans like James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd.
He spent 15 years in LA working on commercials and feature films until 2007, when he traded smog for mountains and moved to Boulder, Colorado. There, he launched Waypoint Films, a production company that makes commercials look like mini-blockbusters.
Today, Jed’s still doing what he loves: telling great stories, making beautiful stuff, and occasionally getting to blow something up on camera.
JAY CRAIN
Executive Producer
In the past five years, Jay has ridden his bike over 30,000 miles.
Jay also makes things. Beautiful things. From scratch.
Since college, his life has been comprised of entrepreneurial pursuits. He has an ability to visualize, then create something where nothing had been before. Jay doesn't just tell a story, he comes up with it too.
Now in midlife, cycling has been a path to rediscovery, resilience, and pushing past limits.
So his combination of vision, experience, and passion for cycling were a natural fit and guiding light for bringing GRINTA! film to life in a way that rings true for cyclists and also offers an engaging, motivational story for people who've never even seen a stage of the Tour de France.
JOÃO CORREIA
Executive Producer
It's no small wonder that João found his way to making a film about cycling.
He is a colorful character in his own right. Spending his childhood in New York before settling in California, yet never straying far from his roots in Portugal, where he was born and now lives once again.
His favorite lunch continues to be Arroz de Cabidela, a traditional Portuguese dish of chicken cooked in its own blood.
And he has also been known to don a tuxedo to go to dinner alone, "just because".
His path to filmmaking included a career in publishing, time spent as a professional cyclist, and more recently, as proprietor of the luxury travel company inGAMBA, and as founder of Corso Sports Marketing.
João's creativity and fearlessness paved the way for GRINTA! to go from crazy idea to its realization as a film that is both exciting and endearing.
BROOK AITKEN
Director of Photography
Brook is an Academy and Emmy Award-winning cinematographer of commercials, TV, sports, and documentaries.
As versatile as he is intrepid, he has has shot (and been shot at) in the Colombian cocaine fields, hung from helicopters, and dangled off 80-foot waterfalls.
He brings ingenuity to every shoot, whether he's on the jagged ocean cliffs of Japan, the snowy peaks of Patagonia, the holy lands of Jerusalem, or in studio.
Brook's adventurous spirit extends to his time as an NCAA ski racer, professional freestyle kayaker, and motocross racer.
Aitken is a second-generation DP, following in the footsteps of his father Len. He earned a BFA in Film Production under noted professors Jerry Aronson & Stan Brakhage at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
