Eureka moment:  People ask me all the time, “What is a producer and how did you become one?” I have to say that answering the second part of the question is my “Eureka” moment,” but it happened over a very long period of time. I started in art school and learned to make movies (my own movies) with some of the greatest filmmakers around, including Roman Polanski, Ed Pincus, and many more resident filmmakers. It wasn’t until fifteen years later, after working on many other people’s movies, that I started to realize that I am now back making my own movies again. Oddly enough, how I became a producer was by doing every job on the set until it was the only one left. I sort of backed into the position of producing and there was no question that making movies was what I was meant to do. There are many types of producers in the business, but I will always be one that is all about the material, and when I realized that, it was a moment that took me full circle.

Career path: I went to film school back in the mid 70’s and worked with many extraordinary filmmakers around the world making their films, and mine. I graduated in 1976, and immediately got a job in public television at the local PBS station where I shot and edited a 13-part series on the arts. It was a great experience and it led to my increasing desire to make documentaries for the next 8-10 years.