LOUISE VANCE

Louise Vance’s career spans thirty years of television, independent film and video production. Specializing in content-rich, real world stories, her producing, directing and writing achievements include award-winning national television documentaries, news and interview programs, as well as high-end corporate communications and educational video.

Ms.Vance began her career as an advertising assistant at an upstate New York agency in 1975, followed by a four-year stint as a public affairs producer at KOA-TV/AM/FM (NBC) in Denver. In April of 1980, she was among the first thirty journalists hired to launch Cable News Network in Atlanta, where she produced a twenty-minute tour of network operations for its inaugural broadcast. At CNN, Louise spent three years producing daily, live news/talk programs: Take Two, a two-hour midday show, and Freeman Reports, the network's prime time interview program, now hosted by Larry King. She produced candidate profiles and packages on key races for the network's 1982 election coverage, and was producer/writer of the 20-part CNN series, Iran: In the Name of God in 1985. That same year, Louise produced, directed and wrote the acclaimed two-hour TBS documentary, Iran: Behind the Veil, which garnered 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, an Overseas Press Club Honorable Mention, a Monitor Award for best network news documentary, and an Ohio State Award, among dozens of national honors.

Louise went on to earn a George Foster Peabody Award for her work as Series Producer of TBS's landmark five-year series Portrait of America, with host Hal Holbrook. She wrote, produced and directed the "Massachusetts" and "Montana" hours, and was second unit producer/director on "Texas," earning Emmy and ACE Award nominations and top film festival honors. Upon leaving Turner Broadcasting in 1987, Louise co-created and wrote the Smithsonian Institution's first interactive documentary game, Tropical Rain Forests: A Disappearing Treasure, which traveled the U.S. for five years. She joined forces with The Working Group in Oakland, California as a producer/director on the national PBS documentary Not in Our Town II: Citizens Respond to Hate, funded in part by The Democracy Project. 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, where she co-produced the first special, "Shift Change." In 1999, Louise conceived, produced and directed the KQED/PBS special, Speaking Freely: An Evening with Remarkable Women, a stimulating, no-host conversation 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 U.C. San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, distributed nationally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The following year, she produced, directed and wrote three video profiles about Oxygen Media for Apple Computer's online magazine, Media Arts.

In Spring 2002, Louise completed A Passion for Justice: 21st Century Feminism, a 34-minute educational documentary commissioned by the California National Organization for Women. That year, she also produced, directed and wrote a 45-minute video history of Levi Strauss and Company as seen through the company's values.

In 2003, Louise completed a 50-minute followup video for California NOW entitled Action for Justice: Making a Difference for Women and Girls, a primer on activist training. She served as scriptwriter for Oregon Public Broadcasting's 26-part series, Bridging World History, contributing a half-hour script on family and household as aspects of world history.

In 2005, she wrote and directed the 30-minute film, What One Company Can Do, chronicling Levi Strauss & Co.’s efforts to implement its global code of conduct.  Last fall, she also wrote the 18-minute film, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor:  Lost in Transition for the National Institute of Medicine, recipient of the 2006 Freddie Award.

Throughout her television career, Louise has served on selection panels for the Chicago Area Emmy Awards and the Georgia Regional Emmy Awards, and twice as juror for the documentary category of the San Francisco International Film Festival (1991, 92). She has guest lectured in film studies classes at Georgia State University and at Mills College.

Louise Vance earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, magna cum laude, from the State University of New York at Albany in December, 1974. She was awarded a teaching degree in Secondary English with a minor in Education.

Ms. Vance's interests include hiking, photography and fiction writing. She mentors young filmmakers in the Bay Area, facilitates book and writing groups, and shares her life with her husband, artist and designer Darryl Vance.

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