Chip Duncan

Last updated

Chip Duncan (born January 3, 1955) is an American filmmaker, author and photographer, known principally for documentaries on history, current affairs, travel, and natural history. He is also president of Duncan Group, Inc., a production company and has produced feature films including Eden, nominated for the 1996 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival and Row Your Boat starring Jon Bon Jovi.

Contents

Early life and education

Chip Duncan was born in Shenandoah, Iowa and later resided in Michigan and Wisconsin. Duncan graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a degree in English and Communication Arts. At that time, he was member of the campus band Broken Bow. [1] The band released one album, Arrival, in 1981.

Film and television career

Duncan began his career in media at an NBC affiliate as a news producer and photographer. He co-wrote for the 1985 remake of The Twilight Zone and founded his own production company the same year. His early career saw him produce Is Anyone Listening? (1986–87), an educational series for teenagers.

In 1992, Duncan made Tatshenshini: A Journey to the Ice Age, a documentary for public television. He won the Best New Wildlife Filmmaker award at the 1993 Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival for his 1993 production Alaska's Bald Eagle: New Threats to Survival.[ citation needed ] During his production of the 1994 public television special Positive Thinking: The Norman Vincent Peale Story, Duncan and co-producer David Crouse interviewed five American presidents: Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Duncan's production of the 1996 13-part television series Mystic Lands, about spiritual places of the world, debuted on Discovery Networks. Duncan was the series creator, executive producer, and director.

Duncan's feature film credits include producing Eden , a 1996 Sundance Film Festival Finalist, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. [2] That same year, Duncan was executive producer of the movie Cadillac Ranch . He was also producer of the movie Row Your Boat featuring Jon Bon Jovi and co-executive producer of The Break Up featuring Kiefer Sutherland and Bridget Fonda.

In 1999, Duncan produced and directed Through One City's Eyes, an in-depth campaign on race relations that included a nationwide public television broadcast, a seven-part public radio series, a two-part classroom series for middle school students, and a traveling photo museum.

In 2015, Duncan released The Sound Man, a documentary about 62-year old Kenyan sound engineer Abdul Rahman Ramadhan's career covering crisis zones in East Africa. Working with photojournalist Mohamed Amin, Abdul recorded the sounds of genocide, war, revolution, anarchy and famine in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda. The film won awards at: the 2015 Edmonton Film Festival (Documentary Short Film Award); the 2015 Newport Beach Film Festival (Outstanding Achievement in Film-making Documentary Impact Award for a Short Film); 2015 CINE Golden Eagle (Award of Excellence in Best Shorts Competition); the 2015 Athens International Film & Video Festival (Black Bear Award); and the 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival (Winner, Official Selection). It was also entered into the Official Selection at numerous other festivals in 2015, including the Nashville Film Festival, Beverly Hills Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, and UNAFF International Film Festival.

Books

Duncan's first non-fiction book, released under the name John Ryan Duncan, was The Magic Never Ends –- The Life and Work of C.S. Lewis, published in 2001 by Thomas Nelson Publishing. It was released in paperback by Augsburg Press in 2004. He also wrote Enough To Go Around: Searching for Hope in Afghanistan, Pakistan & Darfur, released in 2009 by Select Books.

His first fiction book, Half A Reason to Die: Eight Short Stories, was published in spring of 2017 by Select Books. Duncan's fourth book, a return to non-fiction, was Inspiring Change: The Photographic Journey of Chip Duncan, released in 2018 by Thunder House Press.

“Ewaso Village: Poems and Stories From Laikipia County, Kenya”, was published in 2022 by Select Books.

Photography

Duncan's work as a still photographer has been exhibited in numerous locations since 2009, including the Charles Allis Art Museum (2018), the Kenosha Public Museum (2016), Council on Foreign Relations (2013), the World Peace Festival in Berlin (2011), the O Street Museum in Washington, DC (2011) and the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Michigan (2009). His photographic work heavily features people from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Sudan, Ghana, Colombia, Pakistan and Kenya.

Other work

Duncan is president of the Duncan Group Inc., a documentary and feature film production company established in 1984. He is a board member for the Juneau Icefield Research Program, a trustee for the Loisaba Community Conservation Foundation, and an advisor to the World Peace Festival in Berlin and the America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Filmography

Feature films

Documentaries

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Rebane</span> American politician and film director

Bill Rebane is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for low budget movies such as Monster a Go-Go and The Giant Spider Invasion. Rebane also ran for Governor of Wisconsin in 1979 and 2002 as the American Reform Party candidate.

Rory O'Connor is a journalist, author, educator, and documentary filmmaker. He is co-founder and president of the Globalvision Corporation, and board chair of the Global Center, an affiliated non-profit foundation. His films and television programs have aired on PBS, BBC, NHK, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and numerous other networks. He has been involved in the production of more than two dozen documentaries, and his broadcast, film and print work has been honored with a George Polk Award, a Writer's Guild Award for Outstanding Documentary, an Orwell Award and two Emmys. He has written several books and blogs for the Huffington Post, AlterNet, Al Jazeera and other news sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Neff</span> American film executive

Thomas Linden Neff -, known as Tom Neff, is an American film executive, director and producer, born in Chicago, Illinois. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrus Nowrasteh</span> American screenwriter and director

Cyrus Nowrasteh is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of film and television. He has worked on numerous television series and made-for-TV movies including The Day Reagan Was Shot, Falcon Crest, Into the West, and the controversial docudrama The Path to 9/11. He has also directed the theatrical features The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009), The Young Messiah (2016), and Infidel (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. J. Cutler</span> American film director

R. J. Cutler is an American filmmaker, documentarian, television producer and theater director.

Sarah Price is an American filmmaker, director and producer known for the feature documentary American Movie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie Livingston</span> American director (born 1962)

Jennie Livingston is an American director best known for the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Lichtenstein</span> American film producer (born 1956)

Bill Lichtenstein is an American print and broadcast journalist and documentary producer, president of the media production company, Lichtenstein Creative Media, Incorporated.

Lionel Friedberg is a documentary film director, producer and writer who has written or produced films for, among others, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, PBS, the History Channel and National Geographic. He has 18 credits as Director of Photography on feature motion pictures, and has worked all over the world on both dramatic and nonfiction productions.

The Religion Communicators Council is an American nonprofit organization representing marketing, communications and public relations officers from 60 different faith-based institutions in the United States. Founded in 1929 as the Religious Publicity Council, it changed its name to the National Religious Publicity Council in 1949, the Religious Public Relations Council in 1963, and became the Religion Communicators Council in 1998. It was originally focused on communications needs for Christian organizations, but in 1970 it expanded its membership to all religious faiths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New University Television</span> Television station in Calgary, Alberta

NUTV at the University of Calgary is one of the oldest university-based television production societies in Canada. Established in 1983 and incorporated in 1991, NUTV is a campus-based non-profit organization that offers opportunities to University of Calgary students and community members to explore the medium of television by learning the various stages of production. These opportunities include reporting/interviewing, hosting, writing, camera operation, lighting, sound mixing, using Final Cut Pro & Adobe Creative Suite, editing, producing, and directing. NUTV is part of the University of Calgary Tri-Media Alliance, composed of print, radio, and television (NUTV). The University of Calgary is unique in that it is one of only two Canadian universities that house three media operations on-campus, the other being the University of Toronto Mississauga's UTM/TV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Ross Williams</span> American film director

Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne-Marie Gélinas</span>

Anne-Marie Gélinas is a Montreal-based film, documentary and television producer. She is the president and CEO of EMAfilms, a production company that she founded in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leon C. Collins</span>

Leon C. Collins is a media executive, media educator, producer/director, script writer, and photographic artist. Collins is recognized as one of the first prominent African-American public television management pioneers in the United States.

Jack Willis was an American journalist, writer and filmmaker.

Nicolas Lane Noxon was an American documentary filmmaker. He specialized in television programs dealing with history, science, and the natural world. Noxon produced television specials and series in association with ABC, David Wolper, Columbia Pictures Television, Metromedia, MGM, Survival Anglia, Time-Life, and National Geographic Television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Cullingham</span> Canadian filmmaker (born 1954)

James Cullingham is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, historian, and journalist with Tamarack Productions, based in Nogojiwanong, Peterborough. His documentaries primarily concern social justice, history, and popular culture. Cullingham was an executive producer with CBC Radio and has written for the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and other publications.

Beth Harrington is an Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated filmmaker based in Vancouver, Washington, specializing in documentary features. Her documentaries often explore American history, music and culture, including the Carter Family and Johnny Cash, and the history of women in rockabilly. In addition to her film work as a producer, director and writer, Harrington is also a singer and guitarist, and was a member of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers from 1980 to 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boris Benjamin Bertram</span> Danish film director (born 1971)

Boris Benjamin Bertram is a Danish film director, keynote speaker, producer and partner in Good Company Pictures, a documentary production company based in Copenhagen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Skinner (television executive)</span> American television and film executive

Thomas Skinner is an American television and film executive. Skinner has received four Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, and a Dupont/Columbia award. He is known for his work in public television as Executive Producer of National Geographic Specials and other programming for PBS and WQED in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Free to Choose Network.

References

  1. "Former Madisonian Chip Duncan releases new photography book". Channel3000.com. 2018-12-17. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
  2. "Eden (1996)". IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119049/awards Accessed February 1, 2012