I’m a creative video producer— a writer, director, story producer and editor — specializing in unscripted/non-fiction storytelling.
I often work as a story producer in TV & Documentary, for on-air network programming and shows in development. When I’m not story producing, I’m helping agencies, businesses, arts institutions, museums and non-profits realize their core stories — with video concept development, script and treatment writing, and soup to nuts video production & post.
I really enjoy interviewing — especially a long-form exploration of a deep topic. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people, from famous authors and musicians, to CEOs of global corporations, to a US Air Force four-star General. On the healthcare side, I’ve talked with physicians, nurses, patients, clinical researchers and hospital administrators on subjects ranging from trauma surgery to teen health.
Editing is my other passion — stories come together in the edit. It’s a bit like music that way… it’s all about finding the right notes.
I was about sixteen when I first looked through a TV camera. It was in a high school journalism class, so we must have been doing what passed for a news program. I remember standing behind the camera as I framed and focused on a classmate, thinking that I felt completely natural. It somehow seemed intuitive to look at the world through a camera lens, within a frame.
But my first love was the stage, a very different frame; so I went to New York University for theater instead, where I came to study acting with the great Lee Strasberg. But that’s another thread.
There, a roommate (who went on to have a solid screenwriting career in Hollywood) spoke of his respect for the craft of Billy Wilder, Paddy Chayevsky, William Goldman, Robert Towne, and others. I can still remember him handing me the screenplay to The Apartment, saying “this is the most perfect script you will ever read.”
It seemed that film and television was back, but in a different way. 18 months later, I enrolled in film school at Temple University, where I picked up a motion picture camera again.
The camera feeling was there again — natural, just like coming home. And the story part, that came too…
You don’t necessarily need a script
D.A. Pennebaker
or actors to tell a compelling tale.
Finding a person at a key moment in his life,
and rendering the truth as you see it —
that’s the truest form of drama.
Today, I develop and produce high-quality programming for cable TV, media publishers, distributors, and brands. The majority of what I do is in an unscripted/documentary format, although scripted has its role.
My expertise covers writing, directing, story producing, and editing — this may seem like a lot of hats, but I see these four skill areas as interrelated, like four spokes on a wheel. And with them, the story engine is always engaged, no matter which of the four spokes is working.
Story and emotion come first, and honing them is a real craft. (If you haven’t guessed already, I’m a big fan of Walter Murch.)
I also emphasize content strategy/concept development.
As a writer and story producer, it’s all about the scene beats, and keeping an audience engaged. I also watch all the footage — everything. Because I learned long ago that’s often where the gems are found.
As a director, early on I developed an interviewing approach emphasizing the dynamics of an ordinary conversation. I’m a big proponent of active listening when interviewing. The goal is to get deeply lost in a subject, so the subject forgets the camera entirely. This goes for the famous and not-so-famous.
As an editor, I think about story of course, but I also think a lot about rhythm. I’m a musician on the side, so that has a big influence. As Murch says, “in a sense it’s like a dance.”