A co-founder of Curious Pictures, Executive Producer Richard Winkler brings extensive hands-on production experience to the studio’s management team, where he supervises all long form content development and production and leads the company's activities in new media and diversification, including entertainment and branded content for mobile, broadband and interactive.

Among his most recent accomplishments are overseeing the studio’s collaboration with casual game leader Gamelab in the development of a new down-loadable game, “Out of Your Mind,” and the production of 30 minutes of motion capture animation for the documentary “Chicago 10,” which opened the 2007 Sundance Festival.  Richard is also an Executive Producer on Curious’ production of “Little Einsteins” for Disney Channel, “Codename: Kids Next Door” for Cartoon Network, “A Little Curious” for HBO Family and “Avenue Amy” for Oxygen Network.

An acknowledged authority on trends in animation and programming, Richard is a frequent speaker at media industry events, most recently appearing on panels at the Ottawa Animation Festival in 2005, the International Animation Artists Salon in Wuhan, China in 2006 and the Kidscreen Summit in 2007.

An embassy brat who grew up in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Richard went to high school in Rome and graduated from Dartmouth with a BA in Anthropology.  He began his film career overseas and has focused on special effects, mixed media, animation and large format projects.  He worked for a range of production companies in New York, producing documentaries, commercials, telefilms and large format films such as “On the Wing,” an IMAX film produced for the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum.  In 1987 he joined the New York animation company Broadcast Arts—the predecessor firm to Curious—where he served as Executive Producer for five years.

He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of St. Stephen’s School in Rome, Italy, his high school alma mater.  His interests include design, photography, architecture, travel, art, language, African Music and 20th century history.  He’s married and lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he actively participates in single player sports such as tennis, golf, bowling and long distance running.

Jonathan Paley is Managing Director/Partner of DCODE, the New York-based boutique ad agency.  A veteran of some of Madison Avenue’s best-known shops, Jonathan has created a business model at DCODE that combines the strategic and creative functions of a full-service agency with the nimble, project-oriented capabilities of a production company.  Since joining DCODE in 2001, he’s led the agency’s efforts for a wide range of media and consumer brands, including ABC’s Monday Night Football, ESPN, AOL, Modell’s Sporting Goods, Starwood Hotels, Travel & Leisure magazine and the National Football League.

In recognition of his accomplishments, in 2005 he was named a partner in Curious Pictures, the award-winning production house that is DCODE’s parent company.

Jonathan’s roots in the agency world began at WPP Group’s Ogilvy & Mather, where he started in the media department and worked on such accounts as American Express, IBM and Unilever.  He then transitioned to account management at the award-winning creative powerhouse Cliff Freeman & Partners, where he worked on its Little Caesars business and was a key player in successful pitches for Delta Airlines and Johnson & Johnson.  Before leaving he attended the prestigious Management Training Program at Saatchi & Saatchi, then the parent company of Cliff Freeman & Partners. 

Jonathan’s career took a new direction shortly thereafter when he left the agency world to join Voyeur Films, a commercial production company owned by advertising legend Bob Giraldi.   There he produced campaigns for Nike, DeBeers, Nokia and Miller Lite.  Prior to joining DCODE, Jonathan combined his ad agency and production company experience to launch the North American office of the London-based advertising and design publication shots, now owned by Emap Publications, where he served as Creative Advisor and Marketing Director.

Jonathan attended The University of Michigan. Married, he's the father of a boy (Justin) and a girl (Dylan).

Lewis Kofsky is director of computer graphics and visual FX at Curious Pictures. He guides all digital production at Curious, including film, studio services, and gaming. His team produced the mocap and keyframe motion for the hit game Rockband and more recently delivered eight minutes of mixed-media animation for Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden."

Lewis has a long history of marrying technology and artistry to create innovative new looks. He was producer of all the animation segments in the documentary film, "Chicago 10," which opened the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007 and showcases a proprietary animation look he was a principal in devising. Another standout style is the rotomation technique that he developed on the award-winning "Avenue Amy "- five years before the ubiquitous ipod dancers. Lewis went on sabbatical from Curious to work at PDI/Dreamworks on the animated feature films "Shrek2" and "Madagascar" as a visual FX animator specializing in water and fluid effects.

He's been with us since 1998, starting out as a CG Artist and VFX supervisor fluent in a variety of media. He has worked on film, commercials, TV series and pilots, music videos, and short-form content for a long client list. Lewis started his career in New York at R\GA and has experience at a range of large and boutique studios. Lewis is self-taught in the field of computer graphics and holds a BS in design from Stanford University.

Outside the studio Lewis created a popular class at the NYU film school in title design and digital FX. He can be spotted in his natural habitats tapping his Blackberry on chair lifts, planting trees in the rain forests of South America, or behind the wheel of his mutant vehicle at the Burningman Festival.

Leopoldo Gout was born in Mexico City and is based at Curious Pictures' studio in New York. He studied contemporary art in Central Saint Martins School of the Arts in London. He and his younger brother Everardo Gout started Calabazitaz (Tender Squash), an art group and production company 12 years ago. The brothers are directors, writers and producers. Now, Calabazitaz/Voodoo Post is known as one of the best production companies in Mexico with worldwide production experience. They have produced and developed commercials, feature films, animation, television and award winning documentary films and Everardo was nominated for a Grammy in 2007 for a music video for The Killers.

Leopoldo will publish his first novel, Ghost Radio, with Harper Collins in 2008. He is also collaborating with best-selling novelist James Patterson on a graphic novel and is a key executive with James Patterson Entertainment (JPE). JPE debuts a prime time series on ABC in fall 2007 based on Women's Murder Club book series and has numerous films and video games in development. Leopoldo manages the co-production deal between JPE and Curious to develop Patterson-authored young adult titles into animated motion media.

Leopoldo lives in both Manhattan and Mexico City with his wife and two children and their soon-to-famous Boston Terrier, Ramona.

Mary Knox is executive producer for our commercials division.

Before Curious, Mary had a varied career in journalism and advertising. Her very first job after graduating from Vassar was as a cub reporter on the obit desk of the Buffalo Courier Express. From there, she escaped to Washington, D.C., as the head of production for Foreign Policy magazine. Wanting to return to writing, Mary then moved to New York City, where she became one of the early reporters covering the burgeoning computer
business. The fact that she even knew what a modem was got Mary her first ad agency job, as a copywriter on the Datapoint business at SSC&B.

Mary went on to work at both Hill Holliday (One Show pencil for
Springmaid Sheets) and Young & Rubicam as a copywriter. She returned to journalism when offered the job as editor of what was then called "Back Stage." Mary oversaw the renaming of the paper ("Shoot" was her idea) and started the still-popular Street Talk section.

After Shoot Mary went to to become both a staff and an independent sales rep for production companies, edit houses and music companies--first on the West Coast and then back in New York.

She has a 10-year-old daughter who thinks it is extremely cool that her mother works someplace that makes toys, cartoons, and music videos.

John Cline recently joined Curious Pictures as head of production.

John’s career spans both the production and agency sides of the business. After years of line producing, Cline eventually became executive producer at the acclaimed boutique shop Optic Nerve. His work there encompassed live action and visual effects for commercials and promo networks, working with a range of clients such as Nike, Microsoft, HP, Reebok, ESPN, VH1, and MTV.

In 1999 John entered the agency world at a high level, as executive producer at JWT on the Merrill Lynch and Kellogg’s accounts. He moved on to Fallon’s New York office as executive producer. Two of his campaigns there for Virgin Mobile won silver and bronze awards at the One Show, and the Starbucks ad “Glen” was voted Spot of the Year in 2004.

After Fallon closed in New York John became head of production at Nitro USA. He was that agency’s eighth U.S. employee and while there was a key part of the management team that helped the office grow to 70 employees in less than two years. With Nitro John produced immensely successful campaigns for Dove Chocolate, Twix, and Healthy Choice, among others.

John is a graduate of Bard College. His short film, “A Letter To Jonathan,” was aired nationally on American Playhouse in 1989 and was nominated for an Emmy.

He lives with his family in New York City, where he manages his two sons’ baseball teams in the Greenwich Village Little League.

Prior to joining Curious Pictures as Head of Film and Television Development, Karina was a development executive at Starz Animation (formerly IDT Entertainment), where she optioned, developed and oversaw medium- to big-budget animated feature film properties targeted at family audiences, as well as lower-budget animation theatrical features targeted at teens and adults.

Karina served as a production and development executive on Everyone’s Hero (2006), upcoming Space Chimps (2008), Rob Zombie’s The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2008), and numerous other projects on the Starz’ development slate.

Getting her start in the development/production department at Miramax Films, Karina spent four years there working on projects that included Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Human Stain, Malena, Birthday Girl, The Others, Project Greenlight 2 and worked on the development of dozens of other script, book and film remake properties, in addition to covering theater and the NY comedy scene.

Karina is a graduate of the Cinema Studies Department of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

As curator of art + design at Curious, Dominie Mahl seeks out unique creative talent to work on our projects in 2D/3D animation, character development, games, and print. She also produces and art directs development pitches and pilots for the studio.

Before Curious Dominie spent six years at MTV Animation, starting as an artist and then becoming a coordinator on "Beavis and Butthead." She eventually became the production supervisor of the studio. During her tenure at MTV, Dominie was the art director responsible for all animated licensing and product development, including movie posters and cd packaging.

Dominie also is an illustrator and markets her own line of greeting cards. In her spare time, she is a mother of a young son.