Type | production company |
---|---|
Industry | television |
Founded | 1994 |
Headquarters | |
Website | www |
Powderhouse Productions is an American television production company established in 1994. [1]
As early as 1986, Powderhouse co-founders Joel Olicker and Tug Yourgrau met while working to produce a documentary for WGBH, the public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts. [2] The collaboration on this documentary for WGBH led them to conceive their own independent production company that would focus on their own brand of nonfiction television programming. In 1994, Olicker and Yourgrau officially began work under the Powderhouse moniker. Powderhouse's first office facilities were located in the basement of a Dunkin' Donuts restaurant location in Powder House Square, Somerville, Massachusetts.
The name "Powderhouse" is derived from a conflict during the American Revolution over gunpowder stored in the Provincial Powder House (still standing in Powder House Square near Tufts University in Somerville). [3] The province and its towns were to share the powder, but the towns had removed their allotments. When William Brattle, a Cambridge loyalist, so informed the British commander, General Thomas Gage, the British became concerned that patriot elements might seize the provincial powder as well. On September 1, 1774, British soldiers removed 250 half barrels of powder from the Powder House. One detachment marched to Cambridge and carried off two small cannons.
A native New Yorker, he began his career at Valkhn Films, where he cut segments for the classic CBS children's series Captain Kangaroo . After a two-year teaching stint at Hampshire College, he was employed at WGBH, eventually editing and/or producing for the national series Nova , Frontline , The American Experience and others. At Powderhouse, he helped launch the Emmy-winning Discovery Channel series, Discover Magazine . He has produced and directed award-winning specials such as Engineering The Impossible, the Emmy-nominated series Extreme Engineering and numerous hours for the WGBH Science Unit and the Discovery Channel.
Tug Yourgrau is both an award-winning filmmaker and a Tony-nominated playwright. [4] He currently serves as Executive Producer of the Raising Cain Project for PBS [5] and as Co-Executive Producer of Extreme Engineering for The Discovery Channel. [6] Most recently, Tourgrau completed The Great Pink Scare funded by ITVS. [7] In 2001, Tug produced, directed and wrote Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies for PBS's Nova . [8] His play The Song of Jacob Zulu, [9] ran on Broadway in 1993 and led to six Tony nominations.
Name: | Aired On: |
---|---|
Southie Rules | A&E |
Dogs 101 | Animal Planet |
Cats 101 | Animal Planet |
Build It Bigger (14 episodes) | Discovery |
Sliced | History |
Superfetch | Animal Planet |
Dogs Vs Cats | Animal Planet |
A Girl's Life | PBS |
America's Cutest Dog | Animal Planet |
Kids By The Dozen (3 episodes) | TLC |
Mysteries of the Freemasons | History |
Inside Supermax | TLC |
Extreme Engineering - Season 3 (6 episodes) | Discovery |
Raising Cain with Michael Thompson | PBS |
MegaStructures: Ultimate Oil Rigs | National Geographic Channel |
MegaStructures: Berlin Train Terminal | National Geographic Channel |
MegaStructures: World's Biggest Airliner | National Geographic Channel |
MegaStructures: Black Gold | National Geographic Channel |
The Great Pink Scare | PBS |
Extreme Engineering - Season 2 (10 episodes) | Discovery |
Invent This! (13 episodes) | Tech TV |
Engineering Supermax Prisons | TLC |
World in Balance - China Revs Up | Nova/PBS |
Extreme Engineering - Season 1 (10 episodes) | Discovery |
Engineering the Impossible | Discovery |
The Power of Friendship with Michael Thompson | OPB |
Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies | Nova/PBS |
Great Transformations - Evolution | Nova/PBS |
The Killer's Trail | Nova/PBS |
Mummies - The Real Story | Discovery Channel |
Inside the US Mint | Discovery |
Inside the World's Mightiest Bank | Discovery |
Frontline is an investigative documentary program distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts. The series has covered a variety of domestic and international issues, including terrorism, elections, environmental disasters, and other sociopolitical issues. Since its debut in 1983, Frontline has aired in the U.S. for 39 seasons, and has won critical acclaim and awards in broadcast journalism. It has produced over 750 documentaries from both in-house and independent filmmakers, 200 of which are available online.
Nova is an American popular science television program produced by WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1974. It is broadcast on PBS in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries. The program has won many major television awards.
The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered until 1967 by Washington and Lee University's O. W. Riegel, Curator and Head of the Department of Journalism and Communications. Since 1968 they have been administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, and are considered by some to be the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, another program administered by Columbia University.
WGBH-TV, branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
American Experience is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American history.
Peep and the Big Wide World (PATBWW) is an animated children's television series created by Danish-Canadian animator Kaj Pindal. It revolves around the lives of Peep, Chirp, and Quack, as viewers discover, investigate, and explore the world around them.
PBS Distribution (PBSd), formerly known as PBS Ventures, PBS Home Video, and Public Media Distribution, is the home distribution unit of American television network PBS. The company manages streaming channels, video on demand releases, and sells home videos of PBS series and movies and PBS Kids series in various formats, as well as programming from other public television distributors such as American Public Television and the National Educational Telecommunications Association.
Extreme Engineering is a documentary television series that aired on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. The program featured futuristic and ongoing engineering projects. After ending of season 3 it airs under the Build It Bigger name. The series last season aired in July 2011. Danny Forster first hosted the series in season 4 and has been the host since season 6.
Wall to Wall Media, part of Warner Bros. Television Studios UK, is an independent television production company that produces event specials and drama, factual entertainment, science and history programmes for broadcast by networks in both the United Kingdom and United States. Its productions include Who Do You Think You Are?, New Tricks, Child Genius, and Long Lost Family.
ITV Studios is a British multinational television production and distribution company owned by the British television broadcaster ITV plc. It handles production and distribution of programmes broadcast on the ITV network and third-party broadcasters, and is based in 12 countries across 60 production labels, with local production offices in the UK, US, Belgium, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, France, Spain and Scandinavia.
Boyd Estus is a director of photography and producer/director in the motion picture industry whose credits include the Academy Award-winning The Flight of the Gossamer Condor, the Academy Award-nominated Eight Minutes to Midnight, and many Emmy-winning television programs. He has worked on location around the world shooting and directing feature films and documentaries.
Paula S. Apsell is the television Executive Producer Emerita of PBS's NOVA and was director of the WGBH Science Unit.
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is a documentary on the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District—which concentrated on the question of whether or not intelligent design could be viewed as science and taught in school science class. It first aired on PBS stations nationwide, on November 13, 2007, with many reruns, and features interviews with the judge, witnesses, and lawyers as well as re-enacted scenes using the official transcript of the trial.
Tuggelin (Tug) Yourgrau is an American playwright and TV producer. He is the President of Powderhouse Productions in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Svetlana Alexandrovna Chervonnaya is a Russian historian specializing in the political history of the Cold War period and Soviet espionage activities in the United States of America. Along with Ellen Schrecker, Chervonnaya is among scholarly voices arguing against post-Soviet American triumphalism. In the post-Soviet period, Chervonnaya has worked as an investigator and producer of documentary television shows seen in the United States, Germany, and Russia.
Charles Tremayne is a television executive and producer known for creating a number of TV series in the UK and America. In the UK he was best known for editing World In Action on ITV and for his involvement in the case of the wrongly-convicted Birmingham Six.
Patricia Alvarado Núñez is an American television producer, director, and published photographer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has created, produced, co-produced, executive produced, written and directed television and digitally distributed documentaries, music specials and series on social and cultural issues including the American Experience PBS primetime documentary Fidel in 2004, an episode of PBS Kids' Postcards from Buster which was nominated for a 2008 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children Series. She later served as the Creator and Series Producer of the WGBH series "Neighborhood Kitchens" which won an Emmy Award in 2014. Patricia was an Executive Producer of "Sing That Thing," an amateur choral group competition television series which ran for four seasons by broadcaster WGBH. Alvarado Núñez is currently the Executive Producer of WGBH's World Channel online, television, and podcast series "Stories from the Stage" which broadcast nationally on the PBS network and won two Webby Awards.
Barry Werth is an American author and journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, the Smithsonian, and the MIT Technology Review. He has also served as an instructor in journalism at Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Boston University.
Argonon is an independent media group founded in 2011 by James Burstall, the CEO of Leopard Films. Argonon has offices in London, Los Angeles, New York, Liverpool, Oklahoma, and Glasgow. The group produces and distributes factual entertainment, documentary, reality, entertainment, arts, drama, and children's programming for various television networks and channels worldwide, although they focus on the UK, US, and Canadian markets. Argonon produces shows such as The Masked Singer UK (ITV), Worzel Gummidge, Dispatches, Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, House Hunters International (HGTV) and Hard Cell (Netflix).