productions
Title: Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire
Length: 13 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: To be announced in 2008
A thirteen hour series shot in HD examining the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. With extensive costumed re-enactments, special effects and stunts, Rome examines the deep-seated causes of the Empire’s decline and eventual collapse. The series suggests fascinating parallels, as America becomes the only super power in the world—as Rome once was.
Title: Barbarians II
Length: 4 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2007
Four new episodes in the popular Barbarians series shot in HD for The History Channel. With large-scale re-enactments, extensive stunts and special effects, Barbarians II continues the saga of the great barbarian invasions of Europe.
Title: Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2007
A two-hour special shot in HD for PBS exploring medieval Spain during that period of history in which Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in relative harmony, until Christian and Muslim extremism brought it to a tragic end through forced conversions and expulsions.
Title: Da Vinci and the Code he Lived by
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2006
A two-hour documentary Marquee Special for The History Channel shot in HD, examining the life and times of the greatest artist and thinker of the Renaissance. With extensive, large-scale costumed re-enactments and location footage of Italy, the special looks deeply into the politics of the time in which Leonardo lived, and the powerful forces that formed him as he made his mark as a painter, military engineer, anatomist, and inventor.
Title: The Plague
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2005
A two-hour television documentary, produced for The History Channel and shot in HD as the Halloween Special of that year, exploring the worst biological disaster in the history of mankind. From Italy to Iceland, the Black Plague cut an incomprehensible swath of destruction: nearly one out of every two persons died. Using large-scale costumed re-enactments and photographed in HD videotape, the documentary takes the viewer into a pivotal point in medieval history, when medicine was handicapped by the strictures of the church and religious hysteria became rampant.
Title: Barbarians I
Length: 4 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2004
Four one-hour historical documentaries for the History Channel, presented as Marquee Specials. The series examines the invasions and conquests of the great Barbarian hoards who lay waste to every civilization that opposed them. Using extensive costumed re-enactments and stunts, the series explores not only the violence and military actions of these peoples, but their tribal lives as well. The series was the second highest rated special in the history of the History Channel.
Title: Arab and Jew: Return to the Promised Land
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2002
David K Shipler returns to Israel to revisit some of the people featured in the 1988 award-winning Arab and Jew — Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (based on his Pulitzer Prize winning book) and to explore the fundamental conflicts and tensions that have continued to divide this weary land. In the intervening years, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have put each other through the twilight of peace of Oslo and the increasingly violent twilight war of the second intifada. Mr. Shiplet and director Robert Gardner return to reexamine the deeply symbolic and emotional issues that have been the most difficult to resolve — among them the right of return, the holy city of Jerusalem and the West Bank Jewish settlements.
Title: Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2002
A one-hour documentary film biography of the Nobel Peace Prize winning writer and witness against cruelty and injustice, Elie Wiesel. The film examines the people and events which shaped Wiesel’s life and the psychological landscape that so deeply informs his writing. Produced on super-16mm film for PBS and Lives and Legacies Films and narrated by Academy Award winner William Hurt.
Title: Islam: Empire of Faith
Length: 3 Hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2001
Islam: Empire of Faith is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley. The three-hour program tells the spectacular story of the great sweep of Islamic power and faith during its first 1,000 years from the birth of the Prophet Muhammed to the peak of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Historical re-enactments and a remarkable exposition of Islamic art, artifacts and architecture are combined with interviews of scholars from around the world to recount the rise and importance of early Islamic civilization. Produced on Super 16mm film and shot across North Africa and the Middle-East.
Title: Warnings From the Ice
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1997
Shot on location in Antarctica this story examines the huge ice sheets that may be in the process of collapse, ultimately triggering a catastrophic rise in sea level that will inundate the most populous regions of the world. The production battled extreme weather conditions in Antarctica with NOVA scientists as they gathered data that will revealed new insight into the nature of global climate change. Winner of the Science Journalism Award, 1998 from The American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Title: Mesopotamia, Return to Eden
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: NBC
Broadcast Date: 1995
Hosted by actor Sam Waterston, this one-hour broadcast documentary special takes the Bible as a starting place to explore the Mesopotamian civilizations Babylonia, Assyria and Sumeria. Shot on location in Bahrain, Iraq and Israel, the program works backwards in time to identify the very roots of civilization. Produced by Time Life Television for NBC’s Lost Civilization series. Broadcast in the summer of 1995, the series won a Prime-Time Emmy.
Title: Egypt, Quest for Immortality
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: NBC
Broadcast Date: 1995
Hosted by actor Sam Waterson, this one-hour broadcast documentary special examines the lives of ancient Egyptians through the eyes of early discoverers and the modern scientists working to understand how Pharonic Egypt really worked. Produced by Time Life Television as the opening episode in its Lost Civilization series, broadcast as a prime-time series by NBC in 1995. The series won a Prime-Time Emmy.
Title: Search for the Lost Ark
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1992
An insightful thirty-minute broadcast documentary which was developed and produced for the National Geographic Explorer series. It examines the quest for the unattainable: the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Shot on location in Ethiopia, Egypt and Israel, the film profiles a British investigative reporter who believes that he has solved the greatest mystery in the bible. It is a mystery framed in a fragile web of archaeological and biblical clues, examined through the imperfect prism of obsession.
Title: Lost Empire of Tiawanaku
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1992
A thirty-minute broadcast documentary which unveils the Tiawanaku culture of Bolivia, a pre-Incan civilization considered by the Smithsonian Institute to be one of the three most important archaeological sites in the world. The film examines the ancient culture and its modern descendants, the Aymara Indians, and how the work of an American archaeologist is changing their lives. Produced for the National Geographic Explorer series.
Title: Desert Warriors
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1991
A thirty-minute broadcast documentary about the largest and most sophisticated practice battlefield in the world: the one-thousand square mile section of the Mojave desert that is the U.S. Army’s National Training Center for desert warfare. Produced for the National Geographic Explorer series.
Title: Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1989
A two-hour television film based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by the acclaimed New York Times correspondent and former Jerusalem Bureau Chief, David K. Shipler. The film explores the relationships, perceptions and tensions between Jews and Arabs living inside the territory controlled by the state of Israel. Broadcast on PBS in June of 1989, it won an Alfred I. duPont - Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award in the network category.
Title: The Triumph of Memory
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1989
One-half hour broadcast documentary about four European resistance fighters who were sent to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Broadcast on PBS in 1989. Commentary by Arnost Lustig.
Title: Courage to Care
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1986
A thirty-minute broadcast film about people who risked their lives to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust. Broadcast on PBS in 1986 and narrated by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, it was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Short Subject, 1986. Winner of the National Emmy for Directing, 1987.