About Us
The studio was built on a simple idea: that filmmakers did not have to sacrifice their passion in order to be successful…
They met at different moments during their time at the University of Miami (FL), but as they connected and collaborated on a handful of promising short films, this group of guys realized how well they could mesh to make really, really cool things happen. Storytellers at heart, movie lovers and self-proclaimed adventurers, these six began to explore their collective promise.
Fast forward a few years and you’ll find Pros and Cons Studios, not just another Los Angeles-based production company, but a creative team led by the passion and ideas that originally bound them, a team that continues to work alarmingly well under any circumstance, knowing that they are stronger together.
Pros and Cons Studios is more than your one-stop-shop for video production needs. While we specialize in superior-quality, low-cost content for web, TV, and film, we continually develop and produce our own creative narrative material. A full-service production house, a hired crew, a creative force – we can take any idea from script to screen with efficiency, imagination and technical competence. Mobile and dynamic, the Pros and Cons team seeks out clients who can utilize our low-cost, new-media sensibilities.
Above all, we are a team of friends who love what we do, a band of artist-professionals who challenge the status quo. We live to work together, and to do it well.
Peter Saroufim
President
Growing up in Boston, MA, Peter was brainwashed into a film obsession at a very young age. By ten years old, Peter’s favorite actor was Cary Grant and he could list his top five Billy Wilder films in one quick breath. At the age of 12, Peter stumbled upon some amateur editing software, and with this fresh outlet for his cinematic passion his life took a drastic change. Just a couple years later he was running his high school television station and at the age of 16 he worked on his first short film – his older brother’s thesis project for Boston University. At 17, Peter enrolled as a VideoFilm major at the University of Miami with a minor in Business Administration. While at UM, Peter found his niche while balancing countless short films and directing Newsvision, the University’s award winning newscast that broadcast throughout Coral Gables. Shortly after graduation, Peter fulfilled a lifelong dream by moving to Los Angeles and pursuing his love of film on a professional level.
Mark Zuckerbrow
Production Manager
Growing up on adventure movies like “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, Mark knew that he wanted two things in life – to be Indiana Jones, and to make films like these. He eventually came to terms with the fact that he would probably never become a famous, crime-fighting archeologist; however, he did discover many opportunities to explore the world. He first ventured abroad in high school as an exchange student to Prague. Completely immersing himself into a different culture and way of life opened his eyes to endless places and possibilities, and his lust for travel grew from there. Since then, he’s wandered Europe several times, and most recently spent a half-year volunteering in a small city in Israel. Back in LA, Mark has reunited with his film team from the University of Miami, hungry to create. Whatever the story, wherever the place, Mark is working to continue making each day his own adventure.
Austin Lazek
VP of Sales and Acquisitions
Austin hails originally from the burbs of Memphis, TN. He has drifted since, to Miami for school where he met his Pros and Cons cohorts, studied film and religion, and beyond to the Atlantic coast, where he spent 10 months doing service work with AmeriCorps NCCC. He now finds himself on the west coast making movies and drinking hoppy beer. He prefers mountains to the beach, but wouldn’t oppose a mountain on the beach, which is more or less a cliff, something he would undeniably dive off.
Andy Bryant
VP of Marketing
As a compulsively nostalgic child, Andy constantly remarked at the passing of time, coming to discover first-hand the concept of life-as-narrative. For this reason he drifted towards film, theater, music, and everything else that facilitated his involvement in the storytelling process. Later in life, he would discover that this process, above all else, is key to self-understanding and that self-understanding is key to human progress. Ergo, movies kick ass. He does not have a home in Colorado, nor does he have a lovely wife and two dogs.
Stephen Interrante
Creative Director
Stephen Interrante is a New York native who, however reluctantly, transplanted himself, his Spiderman paraphernalia, and far too few pairs of socks to Los Angeles in order to continue his work, now six years worth, with the gentlemen in the pictures both above and below him — collectively, Pros and Cons Studios, né Studio 411 — where he is eager to safely keep storytelling as a passion rather than a job, harness the group’s spirit of adventure for collective and personal growth, and come to terms with his affinity for long-winded, multi-commad’d, and (please forgive him) parenthetical inundated sentences.
Adam Severi
Chief Technology Officer
Adam was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. As a member of his highschool crew team, Adam spent his time afterschool rowing at least 12 miles a day on the Schuylkill River. Whenever he was not training for national level regattas he was down the shore surfing and sailing. Severi then attended the University of Miami where he majored in Video/Film and Psychology with a minor in Art Photography. As an avid rock climbing in Miami, Adam became president of the recently formed UM Rock Climbing club. Whenever he was not on set shooting he devoted his time to sharing the sport of climbing to hundreds of students including guiding numerous outdoor trips throughout the Eastern US. Adam enjoys extreme outdoor sports from snowboarding to spearfishing. Emergency Medicine is also a hobby of Adam’s after spending 5 years as a veteran Ocean lifeguard for Long Beach Township Beach Patrol and an active EMT and former Sergeant on the Beach Haven First Aid Squad. A hybrid between MacGyver and a Grizzly Bear you may catch Adam shooting his Canon 5D MKII at the top of a mountain, filming a surf session with an underwater 3D GoPro HD cam or simply slacklining across your neighborhood park with a local craft brew in hand.