Tom Wilhite is a former head of production for Walt Disney where films he green-lighted include TRON, the first extensive use of computer graphics, and Splash, then Disney’s biggest live-action hit. He later served as executive director of Sundance Institute and its Film Festival. Over the years Wilhite has supported early work by numerous directors including Tim Burton, Ron Howard, and John Lasseter. A graduate of Iowa State University and voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, he began his entertainment industry career at the Rogers & Cowan public relations firm before joining Disney as publicity director.

Willard Carroll is a writer, producer, and director whose films include all-star drama Playing by Heart with Sean Connery, Angelina Jolie, and Gena Rowlands, and romantic musical comedy Marigold starring Ali Larter and Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, produced entirely in India. Previously, he directed his adaptation of Philippa Pearce’s classic novel Tom’s Midnight Garden starring Joan Plowright and Penelope Wilton, and The Runestone with Peter Riegert and Alexander Gudenov. A graduate of USC School of Cinematic Arts, Carroll has assembled the world’s leading collection related to The Wizard of Oz and published three books on the subject.

Jesse Groening is a producer, director, and cinematographer of reality series and youth-and-family television and video programming. He is currently directing and photographing three Food Network series, Restaurant Impossible, Restaurant Revisited, and Restaurant Impossible: Back in Business. His other credits include Weird But True (Disney+); Moonshiners (Discovery Channel); feature documentary, We Could Be King; Rickie Fowler (Yahoo! Sports); and Nature Parade (YouTube). Groening graduated from the University of Maine and began his non-fiction filmmaking career as a video reporter for Bangor Daily News.