LOUISE VANCE

Peabody and duPont Award-winning filmmaker Louise Vance brings more than thirty years' experience to projects she creates. Specializing in content-rich, real world stories, her producing, directing and writing achievements include seven national television documentaries, live national news and interview programs, educational docs, and high-end corporate communications.

After learning production at KOA-TV (NBC) in Denver, Louise headed to Atlanta as one of the first thirty journalists hired to launch CNN in 1980.There she produced a tour of network operations for its inaugural broadcast and spent the next three years producing daily, live news/talk programs: Take Two, a two-hour midday show, and Freeman Reports, CNN's prime time interview program. She produced for the network's 1982 midterm election coverage, and was writer/producer of the 20-part CNN series, Iran: In the Name of God.That same year, Louise produced, directed and wrote the landmark two-hour TBS documentary, Iran: Behind the Veil, which drew national attention as the first look inside Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Her efforts earned Turner Broadcasting's first duPont-Columbia Award, a Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, a Monitor Award for best network news documentary, and dozens of festival and journalistic honors.

Louise went on to earn a George Foster Peabody Award as Series Producer of TBS's landmark series Portrait of America with host Hal Holbrook. She wrote, produced and directed the "Massachusetts" and "Montana" hours, earning Emmy and ACE Award nominations. In 1987, Louise co-created and wrote the Smithsonian Institution's first interactive documentary game, Tropical Rain Forests: A Disappearing Treasure. She joined forces with The Working Group in Oakland, California as a producer on the national PBS documentary Not in Our Town II: Citizens Respond to Hate. In 1997, she was named Senior Producer of the public television series, Livelyhood, a look at the changing nature of work in America with humorist Will Durst. In 1999, Louise produced and directed the KQED/PBS special, Speaking Freely: An Evening with Remarkable Women, shot on location in a San Francisco coffeehouse.

In Spring 2000, she completed the educational documentary, INSIDE/OUT: Real Stories of Women, Men and Life After Incarceration for UCSF's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. The following year, she produced, directed and wrote three video profiles about Oxygen Media for Apple, and co-directed "The Making of Think Different" for Macworld.

Other film credits include A Passion for Justice: 21st Century Feminism (aired on Free Speech TV), Action for Justice: Making a Difference for Women and Girls, and Built on Values, the official history of Levi Strauss & Co. In 2006, she wrote the 18-minute film, Lost in Transition: From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor for the National Institute of Medicine, recipient of the 2006 Freddie Award, an international honor. She produced and directed The Mission Asset Fund: Investing in the American Dream, and Missing Opportunities for The National Institute of Medicine, a doc on the adolescent healthcare crisis in America. She continued to field produce stories for CNN and Discovery, and direct executive interview shoots and success stories for Microsoft, Apple, and other corporate clients.

In 2012, Louise began teaching documentary filmmaking to secondary school students in Sonoma County, California, and, in 2014, became an adjunct professor of Communications at Sonoma State University. She designed and taught undergrad courses in documentary, journalism, media writing, brand communications, and media and popular culture of the 1970s. She is now a documentary film consultant, lecturer, and story editor.

Ms. Vance's interests include hiking, photography, mindfulness practice and writing. She mentors filmmakers and authors, facilitates book and writing groups, and shares her life with her husband, artist and designer Darryl Vance. You can reach her via louisevance.com.*