Meet the Team

Ryan Verrill started the Disc-Connected podcast and YouTube channel in 2021 and in a short time has brought together film lovers and physical media collectors from all over the world. His interviews include boutique label heads, film critics, and filmmakers including Sean Baker, Joe Lynch, Lucky McKee, Richard Beymer, JT Mollner, and Bill Plympton. Verrill has expanded the Disc-Connected universe with Someone’s Favorite Productions, the Shelf Shock Rewind Awards Show, and The Physical Media Advocate magazine. He is a skilled editor and producer, and also works as a disc producer for Terror Vision/Graveface Films.

Verrill was involved in the southern California punk scene as a teen, where he was introduced to horror masterpieces like Evil Dead and Zombie. He quickly developed a love for films in all genres, from all eras and countries. With the Disc-Connected, Verrill has fostered a DIY community of physical media fans in the digital age.

Will Dodson is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Media Studies at UNC Greensboro, where he teaches film and media studies, rhetoric, and literature. He is also affiliated faculty with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. He co-edits the book series Foundations of Horror Studies (Manchester University Press) and The Anthem Series on Exploitation and Industry in World Cinema (Anthem Press). He is co-editor of American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper (University of Texas Press, 2021).  His work has been published in Film International, Quarterly Review of Film & Video, Monstrum, and numerous essay collections.

Dodson’s cinephilia began in 1996, when he stumbled across a VHS tape of Slumber Party Massacre II, and subsequently took a part-time job at a video store, where he systematically rented every film in each section of the store. After graduating college, he worked as a Communications Director for a non-profit media and advocacy organization and facilitated a punk rock music venue. As an academic, he focuses on writing accessible film history and broadening students’ knowledge and tastes in cinema.

Erica has contributed towards supplemental features to Vinegar Syndrome, Error 4444, Terror Vision, Fun City Editions, Severin Films.

Billy Ray was born and raised in rural Alabama before heading to the West Coast in 2013. While in Alabama, Billy Ray founded Theatre Downtown, a cutting-edge theatrical production company specializing in original works; created short films with his producing partners; and dabbled in the film festival world. After moving to Los Angeles, Billy Ray wrote and directed the award-winning genre film, Show Yourself; wrote and directed the award-winning Hollywood Fringe play, “A Beast/A Burden”, which enjoyed an Off-Broadway run at the SoHo Playhouse; and directed the award-winning, “Son-of-a-Bitch”, for Hollywood Fringe also.

Additionally, Billy Ray has founded both Make Believe Seattle and Shindig: A Southern Celebration of Queer Cinema, two boutique film festivals; programmed for Slamdance, L.A. Film Fest, Skyline Indie Film Festival, Chattanooga Film Festival, and more; and served as Managing Director for Seattle’s Three Dollar Bill Cinema from 2021-2023. His charitable event series, Scripts Gone Wild, has been featured at Fantastic Fest, and pops up periodically in and around Los Angeles, featuring celebrities like Joel McHale, Perez Hilton, Barbara Crampton, Diedrich Bader, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Amy Seimetz, and more.

As a podcaster, Billy Ray can be heard frequently on the popular Screen Drafts podcast (just enjoyed 2M downloads), and has previously hosted both The Incinerator Podcast and Movie Mixtapes.

In 2024, Billy Ray launched Make Believe Productions, a stage and film production company.

Dr. Clayton Dillard completed his PhD in English at Oklahoma State University in 2021, where his dissertation examined space and anti-realism in contemporary European art cinema. He has taught courses in rhetoric & composition, film, and literature at numerous universities since 2013. His research interests include theorizing genre cinema, affective responses to music, and political modernism. He has also written as a film critic, interviewer, and columnist for Slant Magazine since 2012. He contributed an essay on The Mangler to American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

Maya Haston is a filmmaker with over eight years of experience in directing and screenwriting. She has directed several short films, including N’Oublie Pas de Vivre (A Carmichael Studios Production), Always & Forever, and Carassius Auratus (which has been officially selected for festivals worldwide). As president of Carmichael Studios, a student-run production company at UNC-Greensboro, she produces all the short films students make each semester. Maya co-founded M.E.T. Productions, an indie production company with Tiana Howard and Emma Welborn. Her collaborations with SFP include directing #RestoreTheWynorskiverse feature on Popatopolis, and directing an interview with Joe Bob Briggs for Terror-Vision’s forthcoming editions of Gator Bait and Gator Bait 2: Cajun Justice.

John is an efficient and entertaining editor of trailers and special features for various outlets. He has completed editing work for Terror Vision, Graveface, BFI, Wicked Vision, and more. His work is continuously expanding and his style is infectious.

Siera is a multi-hyphenate creative with experience in filmmaking, writing, editing, and (most boringly) office management. Before graduating from college with a degree in Media Studies, Siera worked on the documentary film This is My Home Now which aired across the country on PBS affiliate stations. An aspiring novelist, her work is yet to be globally published, although she did win first place in her local Reading Rainbow Young Writers competition at the age of 5. She is currently in the depths of editing her fantasy novel and working on a nonfiction book that will be published by Bloomsbury sometime in the future. She is an avid crafter, history enthusiast, classic film fan, random fact collector, and always on the lookout for a good ghost story. 

Budd Wilkins is an internationally published film critic and film historian. He has contributed to Slant Magazine, Little White Lies, Video Watchdog, Screem Magazine, Film International, Movie Mezzanine, Not Coming To A Theater Near You, and Acidemic Journal of Film and Media. Mr. Wilkins has written chapters for two anthologies: an essay on the films of Juan Lopez Moctezuma for Intellect, Ltd.'s Global Fear: International Horror Directors, and a piece on Walerian Borowczyk’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne for Boro, L'Île d'Amour: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk. Mr. Wilkins has interviewed cult film icon Alejandro Jodorowsky, documentary legend Frederick Wiseman, Academy Award winning actor and director Albert Brooks, cult film director Lucky McKee, and Bruce Goldstein, programming director of New York City’s famed repertory theater The Film Forum. Mr. Wilkins provided press coverage for the 2012 and 2014 Cannes Film Festival for Slant. He also provided press coverage for the 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Mr. Wilkins’ review of The French Connection is required reading for a film class at The University of Southern California entitled “Cinema of the Streets.”