Kurt Sayenga

Last updated
Kurt Sayenga
Alma mater University of Michigan
Occupation(s)Writer, director, producer
Years active1992–present
Awards Emmy Award
Website http://kurtsayenga.com/

Kurt Sayenga is a Los Angeles-based writer, director, and producer. He has served as the principal creative on many high-end documentary projects, most recently as showrunner for the 2023 National Geographic/Hulu/Disney+ special Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron (which generated an enormous amount of press [1] ) and director/writer/showrunner of the 2022 eight-part Shudder miniseries The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time (Shudder's most-watched title for the year [2] and winner of the 2023 Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Outstanding Achievement in Horror Film and Television [3] ).

Contents

Sayenga ran all three seasons of AMC-TV's Eli Roth's History of Horror, writing and directing its 19 hour-long episodes and conducting over 200 interviews for it. The series was awarded a 2020 Reelscreen Award for Non-Fiction Arts and Cultural Program. [4] Interviewees include a host of filmmakers, authors, and scholars including Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Cate Blanchett, Geena Davis, Edgar Wright, Bill Hader, Megan Fox, Ari Aster, Rob Zombie, Greg Nicotero, Nancy Allen, Diablo Cody, Jack Black, Tippi Hedren, John Landis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jordan Peele, Doug Jones, Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, Joe Dante, Roger Corman, Richard Donner, Dean Cundey, Robert Englund, Tobin Bell, Tony Todd, Stuart Gordon, Bryan Fuller, Howard Shore, Mary Harron, Tom Savini, Joe Hill, Victor LaValle, Bruce Campbell, Leonard Maltin, and Leigh Whannell. Sayenga also produced seasons two and three of the Shudder podcast Eli Roth's History of Horror Uncut, which is based on interviews conducted for the television series.

Previously, Sayenga ran the eight-part National Geographic docuseries Origins, hosted by Jason Silva, and was EP/showrunner for the first two seasons of the science anthology series Breakthrough , [5] a coproduction of National Geographic Channel, GE, Imagine Entertainment, and Asylum Entertainment. [6] Breakthrough featured films helmed by notable directors and actors including Ron Howard, Paul Giamatti, Angela Bassett, Peter Berg, Akiva Goldsman, Ana Lily Amirpour, David Lowery, Shane Carruth, and The Malloys. Narrators included Howard, Bassett, Giamatti, Adrien Brody (2016 Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Narrator), [7] Chris Pine, J.K. Simmons, and Mike Colter. Sayenga wrote and co-directed several episodes.

As an executive producer at Revelations Entertainment, Sayenga wrote, directed, and produced 15 episodes of the Emmy-nominated series Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

Biography

Throughout his young adulthood Sayenga was active in the Washington, D.C. punk music scene. He created, edited, and was the head writer of Greed Magazine in the late 1980s, [8] one of the first magazines to fuse coverage of underground music, literature and "high" and "low" art. On the pop culture side, Greed featured interviews with acts such as Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Daniel Johnston, The Swans, Wire, Plasticland, Rites of Spring, Live Skull, and Robyn Hitchcock, plus comics figures Los Bros Hernandez, Charles Burns, Peter Bagge, Chester Brown and Clive Barker. Greed featured the debut of Evan Dorkin's Milk and Cheese in its final issue.

Sayenga also designed albums for the Dischord Records label, most notably Fugazi's first six packages: Fugazi , Margin Walker , 13 Songs , Repeater , Steady Diet of Nothing , and the 7" 3 Songs .

A graduate of the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science & the Arts, Sayenga won the Jules and Avery Hopwood Award for Drama and the Roy M. Cowden Fellowship.

His television career started at the Discovery Channel, where he wrote, directed and produced the special Nighthawk: Secrets of the Stealth Fighter, the mini-series Wings Over the Gulf, and the 13-part series Fields of Armor, a survey of mechanized warfare in the 20th Century. He won an Emmy for the design of the opening credits of Fields of Armor, along with several writing and producing awards.

During his time running the production company Arcwelder Films (which he founded with Martha Adams), Sayenga wrote, directed and produced many more documentaries, including Spies Above,Robots Rising,Explosive Situations,High Speed Impacts,Inside the Kill Box (made on the tenth anniversary of the first Gulf War and featuring interviews with players such as George H. W. Bush and Dick Cheney), and the engineering series Skyscrapers: Going Up, Bridges: Reaching Out, and Tunnels: Digging In. He was also showrunner of Animal Nightmares, a 13-part series for National Geographic International; and Microkillers, a mini-series for National Geographic about pandemic diseases that fused fictional scenarios with documentary content.

In 2006 Sayenga formed a new production company called Command and Control Creative Services, which has produced ancillary content for companies such as 20th Century Fox International, United Artists/MGM, and Disney. In 2008 Sayenga worked with Bill Nye, the Science Guy, as executive producer/showrunner of Stuff Happens, for Discovery Communications' Planet Green. He has also produced several science-based pieces with Nye for Disney Educational Products and The Planetary Society.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Giamatti</span> American actor (born 1967)

Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. Giamatti began his career as a character actor before establishing himself in leading roles in film and television. He has received numerous accolades including one Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, along with a nomination for an Academy Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobe Hooper</span> American filmmaker (1943–2017)

Willard Tobe Hooper was an American filmmaker, best known for his work in the horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror filmmakers of all time.

<i>Fangoria</i> American horror film fan magazine

Fangoria is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Derrickson</span> American filmmaker (born 1966)

Scott Derrickson is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the films The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Sinister (2012), Doctor Strange (2016), and The Black Phone (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Fessenden</span> American actor and filmmaker

Laurence T. Fessenden is an American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer. He is the founder of the New York based independent production outfit Glass Eye Pix. His writer/director credits include No Telling, Habit (1997), Wendigo (2001), and The Last Winter, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has also directed the television feature Beneath (2013), an episode of the NBC TV series Fear Itself (2008) entitled "Skin and Bones", and a segment of the anthology horror-comedy film The ABCs of Death 2 (2014). He is the writer, with Graham Reznick, of the BAFTA Award-winning Sony PlayStation video game Until Dawn. He has acted in numerous films including Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Broken Flowers (2005), I Sell the Dead (2009), Jug Face (2012), We Are Still Here (2015), In a Valley of Violence (2016), Like Me (2017), and The Dead Don't Die (2019), Brooklyn 45 (2023), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Peters</span> American actor (born 1987)

Evan Thomas Peters is an American actor. He made his acting debut in the 2004 drama film Clipping Adam and starred in the ABC science fiction series Invasion from 2005 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Harbour</span> American actor (born 1975)

David Kenneth Harbour is an American actor. He has played supporting roles in films such as War of the Worlds (2005), Awake (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), State of Play (2009), W.E. (2011), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Black Mass (2015), Suicide Squad (2016), Sleepless (2017), No Sudden Move (2021), and Gran Turismo (2023).

Andrew Glassman is an American television producer. Glassman founded the production company Glassman Media in 2001 following his successful career as an Emmy Award-winning investigative Broadcast Journalist during which he appeared on-air at NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, WCAU, and WNBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa McBride</span> American actress

Melissa Suzanne McBride is an American actress. She made her acting debut in 1993, and went onto appear in Walker, Texas Ranger (1997) and Dawson's Creek (1998). In 2007, she also starred in the box office film The Mist (2007). Her breakout role was Carol Peletier on the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2022), and later the series' spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023–present). She has garnered critical acclaim and received multiple awards and nominations for her role on the show. Originally cast in a minor role, McBride's role expanded over time to a main cast member and as of 2020, she is the second billed cast member in the opening credits of the show, and one of only two cast members to appear in every season.

The Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony focused on horror and thriller films. Beginning in 1992, the awards were expanded and an annual ceremony was inaugurated to give out the awards. As of 2015, Fangoria also delivers awards to television series.

Breakthrough is a scientific documentary television series on National Geographic Channel that premiered on November 1, 2015. It is produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. All of the episodes are directed by guest directors such as Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg, actors Paul Giamatti and Angela Bassett, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and director Shane Carruth. In July 2016, the series was renewed for a second season, with Ana Lily Amirpour, David Lowery, Shane Carruth, Shalini Kantayya, Emmett Malloy, Brendan Malloy and A.G. Rojas serving as directors.

Ryan White is a documentary producer and director best known for his Netflix documentary film Pamela, a Love Story, Amazon Prime's Good Night Oppy, which won five Critics Choice Awards including Best Documentary and Best Director, and his Emmy-nominated Netflix series The Keepers. White's previous films include the HBO movie The Case Against 8, which won Sundance's Directing Award and was nominated for two Emmys, the documentary film Ask Dr. Ruth, and Coded, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award.

<i>The Best Thing I Ever Made</i> American TV series or program

The Best Thing I Ever Made is an American cooking television series that aired on Food Network. It featured a rotating lineup of chefs demonstrating how to prepare their favorite recipes. The series is a spin-off of The Best Thing I Ever Ate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boulet Brothers</span> American drag artists

The Boulet Brothers are drag artists, television personalities, writers, producers and modern day horror hosts. They were featured on the cover of Fangoria as "Horror's New Icons" in 2022. Their projects have included horror themed television shows, live nightlife productions, books, movies, and comic books. Since 2016 the Boulet Brothers have produced and starred in the reality competition series The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, which features contestants showcasing dark, horror-themed drag looks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damien Leone</span> American film director, special effects artist, writer and producer

Damien Leone is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer known for writing and directing All Hallows' Eve (2013), Terrifier (2016), and Terrifier 2 (2022), each of which feature his character Art the Clown. He is currently working on Terrifier 3 (2024).

Welcome to Derry is an upcoming American horror television series developed by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs. It serves as a prequel to Muschietti's films in the series, It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019), which is based on Stephen King's novel It. The series is scheduled to be released in 2025 on the streaming service Max.

Madeleine Grace McGraw is an American actress. She is known for her role as Gwen in the 2021 horror film The Black Phone. She is also known for her role as Zoey Campbell in the Disney Channel series Secrets of Sulphur Springs.

Justin G. Dyck is a Canadian film director. He began his career in the early 2010s.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "titanic: 25 years later with james cameron - Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  2. ↑ "101 SCARIEST HORROR MOVIE MOMENTS OF ALL TIME PREMIERE IS SHUDDER'S MOST WATCHED TITLE OF THE YEAR". 2022-09-28. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  3. ↑ "2023 FANGORIA Chainsaw Award Winners". FANGORIA. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  4. ↑ "Realscreen Awards ★ 2020 Winners & Nominees ★". awards.realscreen.com. Retrieved 2021-06-09.
  5. ↑ Breakthrough official website.
  6. ↑ "Science Meets Hollywood in Nat Geo's 'Breakthrough,'" RealScreen.com (Oct. 30, 2015).
  7. ↑ "Breakthrough". Television Academy. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  8. ↑ Little, Ryan. "Nothing but a Number: A Live History of Fugazi's Song 'Repeater'," Washington City Paper (DEC. 2, 2011).

Sources consulted

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.