Punk’s Not Dead is a 100% DIY independent film project created by a small team of very dedicated individuals who are passionate about punk music and have been for years.
Since the inception of the project, the filmmakers have received hundreds of letters and emails from punks around the world who want to want to more know about us and how our documentary came about. So, if you’re one of them, read on and find out the real story behind who we are and what we do.

SUSAN DYNNER

Director/ Producer Susan Dynner fell in love with punk rock as a teenager after attending a Minor Threat show in the early 80s. Susan was inspired to document the people, faces, and places that made up the DC scene. By the age of 15, Susan had photographed such legendary punk bands as Black Flag, The UK Subs, GBH, Minor Threat, The Exploited, Circle Jerks and many more. An established photographer while still in high school, by the time she entered film school at the University of Wisconsin, Susan’s photographs had found their way onto numerous album covers, liner notes, band t-shirts, fliers, and zines.

Susan has maintained close friendships with members of many bands punk bands over the years, and even today you can expect to find a touring band or two crashed out in her living room.

Susan recently co-produced the film, Brick, (2006) winner of the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It was released in 2006 by Focus Features and is now available on DVD. Prior to Brick she worked for Charlie Sheen and Nick Casavettes’ Ventura Films as VP of Creative Affairs, before leaving to join Steve Herzberg as a Producer and VP of Development/Production for Prairiefire Films. Dynner began her career working for Richard Donner Productions, and then for Wolfgang Petersen’s Radiant Productions. Currently, Susan Dynner has several other projects in various stages of development.

TODD TRAINA

Todd Traina, producer and founder of Red Rover Films, has consistently produced unique and varied product and focused on independent films of all different genres. Traina recently served as Executive Producer on the Sundance Audience Award-Winning drama Grace Is Gone, starring John Cusack. Grace Is Gone was sold to The Weinstein Company in a lucrative deal and will premiere in Summer 2007. Traina also served as Executive Producer on Ascendant Pictures and Cheyenne Films’ feature Timber Falls, a horror/thriller directed by Tony Giglio. Traina is an Executive Producer on Ascendant Pictures/Capitol Films’ thriller Blackwater Transit, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Based on the novel by Carsten Stroud, Blackwater Transit is being directed by Samuel Bayer and also features Sophie Okenedo. In 2006 Traina produced the feature film My Suicide, starring Gabriel Sunday, Brooke Nevin, David Carradine, Nora Dunn, Mariel Hemingway, Tony Hale, Joe Mantegna and Harry Shearer. The film is currently in post-production. Traina recently produced Rhino Films’ feature film What We Do Is Secret, starring Shane West, Bijou Phillips and Tina Majorino. The film centers on the life of infamous punk-rock icon Darby Crash and his exploits with his band The Germs. Also in 2006 Traina produced Punk’s Not Dead, an in-depth feature-length documentary based on the Punk Rock movement. The documentary features music and extensive interviews with over 100 bands, and will be released in 2007.

Traina is in pre-production on the comedy The Woody, which he co-wrote with Frank Dietz. Traina and Dietz also partnered on the comedy spec script Without A Hitch. Traina will produce and has acquired the rights to 2 novels to be adapted for the screen and directed by George Hickenlooper ("Factory Girl," "The Mayor of the Sunset Strip," "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.") Those novels include Morning Spy, Evening Spy by Colin MacKinnon and Griffin & Sabine, by Nick Bantock.

Prior to forming Red Rover Films, Traina was president of Lampedusa Films, where he developed and produced Stanley's Gig, a feature film starring William Sanderson, Marla Gibbs, and Faye Dunaway. Stanley’s Gig won several film festivals and enjoyed strong success on the Starz Network. Traina also co-produced the feature film Skeleton Woman starring Daphne Rubin-Vega and Serena Scott-Thomas. Traina served as Executive Producer on director Paul Feig’s debut feature Life Sold Separately. Traina has also produced a variety of other documentaries and cooking and lifestyle shows, including La Bella Vita, an international food and travel show starring the late Vincent Schiavelli, and most recently Restauranteur, featuring Adolfo Suaya.

Traina began his career with producer Douglas Cramer at NBC Productions working on the Danielle Steel Movies of the Week Secrets, Heartbeat and Palomino. Later Traina was a partner at BigRock Pictures where he developed the comedy spec Woodstuck, written by Frank Dietz, which was sold to John Davis at 20th Century Fox. Traina was born and raised in San Francisco and is a graduate of Connecticut College.

PATRICK NELSON BARNES

Editor/ Co-Producer Patrick Barnes shot and edited his first films on Super-8 film as a teenager. After a passion for politics led him to become the youngest paid staff member on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and later a White House intern, he went on to study under experimental filmmaker David Sherman and sound designer Richard Beggs (Apocalypse Now, Lost in Translation) in the film/video/performance department at the venerable California College of the Arts.

Like Susan, Patrick Barnes channeled an interest in music and subculture into many of his early projects, including Civil, an experimental documentary in which he followed a San Francisco graffiti artist over rooftops and onto ledges to document this clandestine urban art form, arguably risking his personal safety and the possibility of arrest. As an editor, Barnes has worked on a range of independent projects including documentary and fiction features and shorts. As the Editor/ Co-Producer, Patrick has been instrumental in many aspects of Punk’s Not Dead. Aside from distilling the film from hundreds of hours of raw footage, Patrick has contributed immensely to the film’s overall visual style.

PROJECT HISTORY

Director / Producer Susan Dynner is the visionary responsible for Punk’s Not Dead. Susan got the idea to make the documentary when she saw an ad for Inland Invasion: 25 Years of Punk Rock, sponsored by Levi’s and realized just how big punk had become. Making a documentary about punk was a natural for Susan, who had worked extensively in film and had maintained a lifelong connection to the punk movement through her friendships with the various bands she had photographed over the years. The foundation of the project was in the books—literally. Susan had stacks of photo albums crammed with thousands of photos of punk kids and bands from her years in the punk scene.

Producer Todd Traina, inspired by Susan's passion and energy, decided to help make her dream a reality. Particularly inspired by his late brother Nick Traina, who had beem the lead singer of two successful Bay Area Punk bands, Todd joined on as the Producer with Susan. The two of them went full-steam ahead. After a while the logical step was to bring on a talented editor who could start sorting through the many hours of footage that they were getting. Todd immediately thought of Patrick Barnes, who he had worked with in San Francisco.

After seeing the incredible material in Susan’s photo collection, Patrick Barnes knew that they had the potential for an amazing film on their hands. Within days, he had packed up and left San Francisco to move to LA to team up with Susan and Todd to create their vision. Five years and hundreds of hours of footage later, they have managed to create a punk documentary like no other.

HOW WE DID IT

True to the D.I.Y. spirit of punk, the documentary film Punks’ Not Dead was created totally outside the Hollywood system and financed independently by the filmmakers themselves. How’d they do it?

Punks Not Dead has been fortunate to attract a production team who grew up listening to punk—and still do! “Everyone who works on this film has done this as a labor of love,” explains Director/ Producer Susan Dynner, who works a day job to support the film.”It has been paid for entirely out-of-pocket by the producers who believe in the film’s message.”

In fact, every band that appears in the film has donated their time because they believe in the project, and some have gone out of their way to donate their personal photos, punk fliers, home videos and other memorabilia to help facilitate this incredibly unique and unforgettable D.I.Y. film.