Writer / Director / Producer
818.505.0968
Non-narrated Documentary
DGA, WGAw
Emmy Award (Investigative Reporting), Cable ACE Award (Documentary), Media Access Award (programming for the physically/mentally challenged).
MS Journalism, Columbia University. Member, Directors & Writers Guilds of America (WGA/DGA), Fellow, American Film Institute.
BY CAMILLE ROUSSEAU
There are those who say L.A. is a cultural wasteland, a glorified suburb, a cesspool of bad architecture. And then, thankfully, there are those who dedicate life and craft towards dispelling these untruths. The visionary Annenbergs fall into the latter category. I was invited to preview the Annenberg Foundation’s Space for Photography, a brand new space showcasing some of the city’s most iconic photographers and celebrating a “new cultural direction for L.A.”
The admission-free gallery is a beacon in cutting-edge technology and architecture. Every detail from the springy floor made of recycled tractor tires, the ceiling molded into a massive aperture and the gunmetal grey color palette is an homage to the Camera (capital C).
Aside from the magnificent photography, the space itself is interactive in an unprecedented way. In addition to a giant high-resolution screen, the prints are viewable on an infrared touch-screen. Crazy! The future is now!
The photography legends gracing the walls include Carolyn Cole, Catherine Opie, Julius Shulman, Greg Gorman, as well as various L.A. Times contributors. My personal favorites were Douglas Kirkland’s softly elegant celebrity portraits and Lauren Greenfield’s morose girls (check out Greenfield’s haunting documentary on anorexia, Thin). Though the subjects ranged from Marilyn Monroe’s lovely face to chilling wartime ugliness, the irrefutable thread linking the pieces together was humanity, rendering the exhibition all the more poignant.
The Annenberg Space for Photography is a boon for the community as well as an intriguing step towards the future of interactive art. In the apt words of Ansel Adams, it’s time we began looking into photographs, as opposed to simply looking at them.
The Secret Lives of Women, which debuted in December to record ratings (scoring the highest-ever WE original-series premiere so far), will be back with 12 new episodes in August. The one-hour show delves into the true stories of women from many walks of life and has so far featured women who are (among other things) shopaholics, anorexics, plastic-surgery addicts, late-in-life lesbians, transsexuals and sex-trade workers.
The high ratings for Secret Lives helped make January the highest-rated month in WE's prime time history in households, women 18-34, women 18-49, and women 25-54, according to Nielsen
Secret Lives is produced by KAOS Entertainment and executive-produced by John Scheer and Rob Englehardt.
DGA Director of 32 Episodes, Multicam Stage