Background
STEVEN SCHECTER, President of Schecter Films, Inc. is an independent producer and director, free-lance cinematographer, editor, and writer. He began his career in film and video as an apprentice and production manager at Guggenheim Productions in Washington, D. C. After his freshman year at Harvard, he was hired by the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Film Center to film unique vanishing ways of life around the world. He alternated work as a director/cameraman for the Smithsonian with his studies in anthropology at Harvard, until he graduated magna cum laude in 1980. Following three years of full-time Smithsonian work, which led him to shoot over 150 hours of 16mm film in Brazil, Micronesia, India, and Nepal, Schecter started his own company as an independent producer in 1983.
Current Projects
Schecter Films, Inc. is currently producing a long-form documentary: an unconventional look at leadership through great works of literature for the Stanford Graduate School of Business with Professor Emeritus James G. March. Completion is scheduled for June of 2002 with subsequent broadcast and distribution.
Since his move to the San Francisco Bay area from Washington, DC, Schecter has been shooting for Stanford University and the PBS series Livelyhood. He worked as director of photography on Kikim Media's one hour PBS pledge special called Breaking Out of the Box, about the Enneagram system for understanding human personality. In addition to shooting Silicon Valley dot.com corporate pieces, Schecter recently shot several segments for a PBS documentary on inventors of musical instruments called Musical Wizards.
Nationally Broadcast Documentaries
Nationally broadcast documentaries and features which he produced, photographed, or edited include:
1999 - Mending Ways - The Canela Indians of Brazil. Broadcast by the Discovery Channel as Intimate Truths of the Canela Tribe. In the fall of 1997, 22 years after his first trip to Brazil, Schecter returned to shoot new material on the Canela Indians. A co-production of Schecter Films and the Smithsonian Institution, which premiered domestically on the Discovery Channel and internationally on National Geographic Channels in the fall of 1999. Narrated by Linda Hunt, the Discovery premiere received a particularly high audience share. Credits: Producer, Director, Camera, Editor, and Co-writer.
1998 - Windhorse. Schecter worked in Nepal and Tibet as Director of Photography on Paul Wagner's dramatic feature about contemporary life in Chinese-occupied Tibet. The digitally-shot drama received the Best U.S. Independent Feature award at the 1998 Santa Barbara International Film Festival among other festival awards, and began its theatrical release in February, 1999.
1998 - VANISHED: Inside the
Witness Protection Program. Director of Photography for Lumiere
Productions. Discovery Channel.
1996 - With God On Our Side. Director of Photography for
Lumiere Productions. A six part historical series on the involvement of
the religious right in American politics. PBS.
1995 - MIR-18: Destination Space. National Geographic Explorer's documentary about the first American astronaut to blast off from earth on a Russian rocket. Credits: Field Producer, Additional Camera, and Translator. TBS. .
1994 - A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans. Director of Photography on Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's award-winning documentary about the Koreans abandoned on the island of Sakhalin, in the Soviet Far East. PBS.
1990 - The Party Is Over. A Schecter Films production on the impending death of the Communist Party in the USSR. Credits: Producer, Director, Camera, Editor. Broadcast nationally on the PBS show The Nineties.
1988 - A Promise of Perestroika. Documentary of the US - Soviet citizen's summit in Tbilisi, Georgia, where many Georgians first demonstrated for independence. A production of WNED-TV Buffalo, NY. Credit: Associate Producer. PBS.
1987 - Glasnost at Riga. Documentary on the US - Soviet citizen's summit in Riga, Latvia, amid cold war tensions. A Glen Pearcy Production. Credit: Co-Camera, Associate Producer. PBS
1986 - The Issues Hit Home. League of Women Voters-sponsored program on election year issues. A CC-M Production. Credit: Co-editor, Co-camera. PBS.
1985 - The Peace Run. A Schecter Films documentary of a national torch relay run, hosted by rock star Clarence Clemons. Credit: Co-producer, Camera, Editor. PBS.
1983 - The Inner Runner. A Schecter Films co-production about a 24-hour ultra-marathon. Credits: Co-producer, Co-director, Camera, Co-editor, Co-writer. PBS.
Additional Projects
In 1988, Schecter was director, cameraman, editor and writer of My Russian Friends, a one hour special on the search for spiritual roots by ordinary Russians, a co-production with WGBH Boston. It was awarded the Silver Hugo at the 1988 Chicago International Film Festival. Schecter's work in the nineties includes Preserving Our Global Environment, a one hour program for educational distribution completed for the World Resources Institute, hosted by Jessica Mathews and David Gergen.
In 1992: commercials for the Clinton presidential campaign, as producer and editor, through his long-time association with Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns & Associates.
In 1993: developed 10 Days in August, a dramatic mini-series on recent Russian history as co-producer for Hearst Entertainment Productions, working in Russia.
In 1996: several programs for the reformed Teamsters union, as producer and director of photography for Glen Pearcy Productions.
Email:
steve@schecterfilms.com
Copyright 2001 Schecter Films