The Scoop

The DC Shorts Film Festival takes place every September in the downtown area of Washington, DC.  There are movies, parties, screenings and much more.  It's earned a reputation as being one of the most filmmaker friendly festivals in the United States.

In September, the Ad Club of Metropolitan Washington DC holds its annual Ad Week Conference. There are panels, workshops, networking, parties and much more. The Scoop was there, and we managed to get a few minutes with legendary advertising madwoman Jane Maas. She gave an uncensored 45 minute tell-all about life as a female advertising professional in the days of the original mad men. She recently published her Book "Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond."

We hear from three of the science, video, and data professionals at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Our guests, Matthew Radcliff and Jefferson Beck are Video Producers, and Lori Perkins is a Data Visualizer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Inside GV reporter Blake Althen speaks with them about the challenges of making scientific data understandable to the average person and a variety of other aspects of working in the scientific community at NASA.

Bruce Nesmith is currently the Director of Design for Bethesda Softworks, and lead designer for upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. He is best known for his design work on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3. During his 20+ year career, Bruce has been a programmer, writer, systems designer, tester, QA manager, and producer. Pablo Pulido is a Senior Creative Director, and his days are spent making promos to introduce new and existing shows for History. His credits are too long to list, but Top Shot, Life After People, Gettysburg, Ax Men, and American Pickers are just the tip of the iceberg. His promos are much more than ads for upcoming shows, they’re well thought out, incredibly creative and magnificently executed mini works of art by themselves.

Geena Davis talks about her supportive parents, getting into the world of acting, and her extensive work on achieving gender balance in media. Joe Nichols talks about how he does what he does, and what he looks for when he's hiring.

With a widely varied educational background from macro-economics to fashion photography, Dale Graham found his passion in design work, and for the last 20 years he has been creating award-winning design and launching TV channels. Today he is Creative Director at Discovery Creative, the network’s in-house agency.

Ryan Hill is a director of photography who has done work for some of the top brands in documentary television including National Geographic, Discovery, PBS and HBO. He has worked with Aborigines in Australia, former child soldiers in Liberia, Eskimos in Alaska, drug dealers in Oakland, and was embedded with the Green Berets in Afghanistan. He traveled to Pakistan, Morocco and Israel with Secretary Clinton for "Inside the State Department" on the National Geographic Channel. Blake Althen caught him just back from Sundance and between travels for this month's interview segment.

This month, The Scoop went to the Real Screen Summit and met with Shannon Vossler and Stephanie Carter of Powderhouse Productions in Somerville, MA. They tell us about their personal stories and give us an inside look at what Powderhouse Productions has got in the works.

This month's episode features Sadia Zaman, recently Executive Director of Women In Film & Television Toronto, and now moving to a new position as Director of CBC Centres with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Sadia has been a writer, producer, a host, and an interviewer. She’s been nominated in total for five Gemini’s, personally nominated for three, and part of a team that won two. She was also awarded the Southam Fellowship for Journalists. As Executive Director in the Toronto chapter, Sadia was instrumental in invigorating their extensive and in-depth programming, including a mentorship opportunity with Catherine Hardwicke.

Scoop reporter Blake Althen speaks with Jim Elms, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Strategy at Universal McCann. Known for his work on Nike’s “Play” campaign and the wildly successful “got milk”, Jim’s done work with major clients such as Procter & Gamble, Canon, and Dairy Queen. Today with the Scoop, Jim shared his thoughts on creativity, culture, and curiosity, as well as giving us a look into his daily activities and thought processes.

Cindy Gallop, internationally known entrepreneur and feminist, visited Washington last month for AD Week DC, where the Scoop caught up with her in the hotel lobby after her conference-wide presentation. She got down and dirty with us about how she changed her own life, and talked about how we can all take part in improving our industry and even the world by taking the tiniest of actions in cooperation with other like-minded individuals instead of trying to work it all out on our own.

This month we bring you our chat with Roger Baldacci, Executive Vice President, Creative Director at Arnold Worldwide. Throughout his career he’s produced an extensive body of award-winning work that has helped build brands like McDonald’s, Miller Lite, Coors, Timberland, Nikon, and Converse.

This year’s Women in Film and Video DC’s Woman of Vision award recipient, Grace Guggenheim, talks about her path into the family filmmaking business with her father, Charles Guggenhiem, and her current day mission to make her father’s classic documentary films accessible to the viewers of today.

The Scoop visited with Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of the PBS Series American Masters, and learned about the path that took her from historical railroad stations and grant writing to being one of the most successful women in public television.

If you’re listening to The Scoop, you’re likely a member of your local Women in Film chapter, but how much do you know about our International umbrella organization, WIFTI? This month, the scoop talks with Women in Film and Television International Board Member Kimberly Skyrme to learn about our connection to this international network of amazing women.

Everyone gets stressed out once in a while. But how do you know when stress is getting too much? And what do you do to keep it in check? The scoop talks with psychiatrist Dr. Kristie Mitchell, and television executive turned yoga instructor Caroline Christopher to find out.

This month the scoop was privileged to be invited to the home of Catherine Wyler, filmmaker and board member of the Washington DC Chapter, and daughter of the legendary director William Wyler. She told us about what she’s doing these days and we got to hear about life growing up in the home of one of the most successful directors in Hollywood history. And later, we bring you the first episode of our new segment Chapter Chat, where we got an inside look at New York City’s NYWIFT.

In honor of Women's History Month, The Scoop pays tribute to five amazing women in the news this month. Then, Scoop reporter Blake Althen went to meet with a few of the folks from SnagFilms to talk about their unique documentary distribution system.

February is Black history month and what better place to discuss black history than BET? The Scoop sat down with some of the staff in the legendary network’s headquarters. But before that, Blake Althen sat in on a pitch session at Real Screen with A&E executive producer Stephen Harris.

This month the Scoop talks to two of the “Gatekeepers” at The Learning Channel. These women are the executive assistants to the top names in programming at TLC and they share their stories and tips on the best ways to stay on their good side. Later, Elizabeth Mendes speaks with Dr. Kelly Robinson about her intriguing programming series in London which kicked off with its first lecture: Fabulous but Forgotten: Early British Female Film Pioneers.