documentary

25 years of experience in documentary production for television and web broadcast, educational distribution, corporate image building, and nonprofit outreach. Includes field producing and directing; writing scripts, treatments, and proposals; researching content; acquiring and licensing archival materials; scouting locations; managing budgets and accounts payable; hiring crews; supervising interns.

 

Producer / Director / Camera   

The Activist independent 12 min 2017

A victim-rights advocate describes the fight she led in 1985 to prevent the parole of Indiana’s most notorious murderer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pblJKy1t6IA

 

Producer / Director / Camera   

The Storyteller independent 17 min 2015

A former newspaper reporter recalls the trial of a woman and four children for the worst crime in Indiana history. YouTube upload on the 50th anniversary. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6USKF2bnTBQ

 

Field Producer   

Pioneers Turned Millionaires NDR / arte 5x52 min Gebrueder-Beetz Productions 2008–09

Biographies of five German immigrants who built their business empires in America: Levi Strauss, Henry Steinway, John Jacob Astor, William Boeing, and Henry Heinz.

https://gebrueder-beetz.de/en/production/

 

Field Producer

100 Years Of Hollywood: The Carl Laemmle Story SWR / arte 78 min Gebrueder-Beetz Productions 2008

Examining a century of Hollywood history via the life story of Carl Laemmle, a German immigrant who founded Universal Pictures and brought Dracula, Frankenstein, and Phantom of the Opera to millions of moviegoers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVU0tRpi5y0

 

Archival Researcher   

Earth Days PBS American Experience 102 min Robert Stone Productions 2008

Birth of the modern environmental movement in America, described by nine activists whose ideas helped galvanize 20 million people across the country to celebrate the first Earth Day in 1970.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/earthdays/

 

Researcher  

How To Live Forever theatrical 90 min Wexler’s World 2007–08

A meditation on growing older by Mark Wexler, who weighs the advantages of calorie restriction, cryonics, brain workouts, elder porn, and longevity hot spots in Okinawa, Iceland, and Loma Linda, California.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/movies/how-to-live-forever-review.html

  

Producer / Director / Camera   

Hunting The Zodiac independent 63 min 2007

Inside the subculture of amateur detectives who are obsessed with solving the Zodiac Killer case from the late 1960s. German television broadcast in 2003. Premiere at 4-Star Theatre in San Francisco in 2007. Web distribution in 2010. 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7671284

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/apr/15/usa.world

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/04/BAGPHOF7B41.DTL

http://columbustelegram.com/news/zodiac-killer-obsession-lives-on/article_121c8a80-dd06-5509-95d6-b27794e6a624.html

 

Archival Researcher / Production Assistant  

Good Ol’ Charles Schulz PBS American Masters 90 min Lumiere Productions 2006–07

First-ever biography of the shy, melancholic cartoonist who created “Peanuts” and drew from personal experience to color in the lives of Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Snoopy.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/charles-schulz/filmmaker-interview-david-van-taylor/89/

 

Producer / Segment Director   

The Meaning Of Food PBS / Oregon Public Broadcasting 3x56 min 2003–04 

Series of short vérité and narrated films about the relationship of food and culture in America. Stories include: a kolache bake show in small-town Texas, a roving lunchtruck for African cabbies in Chicago, a booya cook-off between cops and firefighters in St. Paul, the preparation of last meals for death-row inmates, a long-lost cookbook written by women in a WWII concentration camp, the four-legged customs inspectors at JFK International Airport, an Italian family wedding in a southern California backyard, and Thanksgiving with the regulars at a diner in Chicago’s South Loop.

http://www.pbs.org/food/shows/the-meaning-of-food/

http://crossfilms.com/portfolio/pbs-diner/ 

http://scotopiapictures.com/the-meaning-of-food-fathers-and-sons/

 

Archival Licensing Manager   

Emerging Technologies Ninth House Network 2001 

E-learning program that focuses on innovative business applications for high-bandwidth technology.

 

Researcher   

Family Problem Partnership for a Drug Free America 3x15 sec 2001 

Three national PSAs in which teenage addicts and their families talk about the struggle to recover.

 

Writer / Associate Producer   

Robberies Of The Century Discovery Channel 60 min Michael Hoff Productions 2000–01

Cops and robbers tell the inside stories of four of the world’s biggest heists: Great Train Robbery (£2.6 million), Security Express (£6 million), Loomis Fargo ($18 million), and Gardner Museum ($300 million).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1492858/

 

Researcher  

Instant Millionaires Discovery Channel 60 min Michael Hoff Productions 2000

Profiles of ordinary people around the world who became rich overnight, with positive and negative consequences.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1601884/

 

Archival Research Coordinator   

The Rise And Fall Of Jim Crow PBS / WNET 60 min Quest Productions 2000

“Terror and Triumph,” the final episode of a 4-part series on American segregation laws, focuses on black activists who pushed for legal rights after World War II. Winner of Peabody Award.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/

 

Archival Licensing Manager   

The Next Big Thing PBS / KQED 60 min Quest Productions 2000

Overview of major technological innovations, followed by a detailed analysis of the potential benefits of using hydrogen fuel cells in cars and buildings to reduce dependence on oil, coal, and nuclear energy.

http://www.kqed.org/w/collaborations/nextbigthing/index.html

 

Production Manager   

What’s Up In The Universe PBS 60 min 1999–2000

A gallery of artistic ways to understand and map the universe, using tools such as ballet, oil paints, and Hawaiian navigation to express key concepts of astronomy. Funded by National Science Foundation.

http://piccom.org/programs/whats-universe#aboutContent

 

Associate Producer   

Life Beyond Earth PBS / KCTS 2x56 min 1997–98

Science-based search for extraterrestrial life, showing how extremophile organisms, extrasolar planets, habitable zones, and the Drake Equation all point to the existence of life throughout our galaxy. 

http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/

 

Archival Researcher  

A Week Without Violence Spellbound Productions 15 min 1996

Promotional video celebrating the National YWCA’s first annual Week Without Violence, a nationwide grass-roots campaign to eliminate all forms of violence in American communities. 

https://ywcaweekwithoutviolence.org/

 

Production Assistant  

On The Road Spellbound Productions 30 min 1995

Corporate-identity video for General Magic, an innovator in technologies that helped pave the information superhighway and create the multibillion-dollar industry for mobile devices. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQymn5flcek

 

Researcher   

Jack: The Last Kennedy Film CBS Entertainment 90 min 1992–93

All-archival review of the life and career of President John F. Kennedy, narrated by the people who knew him best: friends, family, colleagues, lovers. Winner of two Emmy Awards. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEXacBJYbzU