Based out of both San Francisco and Los Angeles, TILAPIA FILM has created documentaries, corporate videos, music videos, EPKs, book videos, and interstitials for clients as varied as: PBS, Sundance Channel, HDNet, ABC, Comedy Central, Fox, Channel 4 (UK), Arista-Nashville, Capitol Records, Noggin, Current TV, Penguin Books, PG&E, and Youth Radio.

TILAPIA FILM consists of filmmakers, Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer, and Josh Kurz who travel to unseen corners of America in search of the bizarre, fascinating, and unexpected.

CHRIS METZLER (Executive Producer, Director, Producer, Camera)
After graduating from USC with a degree in business and cinema, Chris' film career has taken him from the depths of agency work, to coordinating post-production for awful American movies seen late at night in Belgium.  His film directing and producing work has resulted in frequent partnerships with Jeff Springer, where together they've criss-crossed the country with the aid of caffeinated beverages and made their way in the Nashville country and Christian music video industries, before finally forsaking their souls to commercial LA rock n’ roll.  These misadventures eventually culminated in their winning a Billboard Magazine Music Video Award.

His feature length directorial debut was the offbeat environmental documentary, PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, which was narrated by legendary counterculture filmmaker and "King of Trash" John Waters.  A cult favorite, the film was released theatrically in the United States and broadcast nationally on the Sundance Channel. Chris is currently traveling the film festival circuit promoting Tilapia Film's new documentary, EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and screened at SXSW.

JEFF SPRINGER (Executive Producer, Director, Editor, Camera)
Jeff Springer was born in an abandoned town in the California desert, raised in Hawaii, and educated at USC Film School.  After living for a winter in Russia, he returned to Los Angeles and began editing for NBC, Lucasfilm, Fox, UPN, Capitol, and Geffen Records.  Burned out and hungover on WWF and bad R&B, he fled to San Francisco to start work on the documentary PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA with co-director Chris Metzler.  After months in the desert and a couple of cameras lost to salt and sun, the film went on to win 37 awards for Best Documentary.

Springer has gone on to edit several feature documentaries, including EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE about the legendary rock-ska-funk band Fishbone.  The film features interviews with Flea, Gwen Stefani, Tim Robbins, George Clinton, Les Claypool, and is narrated by Laurence Fishburne.  He also frequently serves as cinematographer and director on a wide variety of documentary, commercial, corporate, and music video projects, including directing numerous short documentaries for HDNet's World Report.  Recently he returned from Afghanistan, where he was editing an hour long documentary, IN-JUSTICE, about Afghan women in prison for "moral crimes."

JOSH KURZ (Director, Graphics, Editor, Camera)
Josh started out as an embryo, 53 times smaller than a US nickel.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, his attempts at an early age to fuse the abstract concepts of comedy and science through home video led to many nights filming in the basement.  Eventually this passion (and the desire to leave New York) drew him out to sunny California where he became educated at USC Film School.  Four long years without a car turned out to be hell and soon after graduation, with a longing for subways, Josh returned to New York and began directing offbeat interstitial segments for Comedy Central, ABC, Fox, and Noggin.   The segments ranged from an explanation of cloning using large balls of Jell-O to an infomercial that explained how the ancient pyramids were built.  Determined to reinvent children’s television programming, he has returned to the West Coast (with car) and currently lives in the megalopolis that he now loves, Los Angeles.  Josh can whistle in German and lives by the motto: “Always smell your food before you eat it.”