I’ve been lucky enough to work on an extremely wide range of television projects over the course of my career, whether it was on staff at MTV or Playboy, or freelancing for NBC, VH1, MTV or a range of other clients. While I generally shoot scripted material, I’ve also had the deep pleasure of making a number of long- and short-form documentaries, as well segments for documentary programs, perhaps most notably Don Olhmeyer’s NBC magazine series, “Fast Copy”. Here’s a documentary reel with brief highlights.

This short piece featuring beloved Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan instructing the viewer on “How to Tie a Bow Tie” was shot on location in the Capitol rotunda for one of my “Fast Copy” segments – a look at manhood in the 20th century through the eyes of Esquire Magazine.

I continued to freelance for MTV after I left the staff, and in some ways I did my best work for them during those years, no longer constrained by belonging to any one department. For example, once I took a 16mm film crew to Florida & Los Angeles to document Tom Petty’s return to the public eye, after he lost a couple of years to a shattered hand, in a half-hour special timed to coincide with the release of his “Southern Accent” album. This production afforded me the chance to work with another long-time hero of mine: Charles M. Young, the legendary Rolling Stone writer, who wrote and conducted the sit-down interview with Petty. This show became the model for the “MTV Rockumentary,” and pieces of it were later used in Peter Bogdanovich’s 2007 doc, “Running Down a Dream.”

My years at Playboy were not unlike my time at MTV in the sense that the pace was furious; I produced an enormous amount of output in a very short time on very low budgets. It was hugely challenging and great fun. One project was “The Club,” a six-episode series I believe was well ahead of its time: it was a hybrid sitcom/variety show featuring a protagonist who was only heard, because the “story” portion of the show was shot single-camera, from his POV. The variety portion was shot in a traditional multi-camera style, and the acts ranged from standup comics and top burlesque dancers to jugglers, magicians and more, all backed by a live band, as well as “high concept” acts we created just for our show.

I never knew that I wanted to direct live multi-camera events until I got the chance to do it! SPIN Magazine and a handful of co-sponsors were presenting a national college tour of up-and-coming bands, and they wanted a one-hour special they could air on MTV during which they could play their sponsors’ commercials. I had one day to capture documentary/”behind-the-scenes” and interview footage with all the bands, plus shoot some comedy wraparounds with David Letterman personality Larry “Bud” Melman, as well as capture the entire concert live with four cameras… and then a week or two to edit it all down to one TV hour. Whew!

“Arrest and Trial” was Dick Wolfe’s very interesting concept for a hybrid drama/reality show: In a single half-hour, we would tell the complete story of a crime, starting with its execution, going through the investigation, to the trial, and the final outcome. Using interviews with the actual participants, plus whatever news footage the producers could find, we would build out each episode via dramatic re-creations of the rest of the story. There was no time, less money, and all sorts of broadcast standards restrictions, yet we managed to put together some very compelling stories. I worked on six episodes; here are two.

As a young man leafing through my father’s Playboys, I always enjoyed the “Ribald Classics” – funny, erotic adaptations from Boccaccio’s “Decameron” and other original tales told in a similar style. When I was tasked with creating new seasons of “Late Night”, Playboy’s wildly successful, internationally syndicated magazine format show, I knew I wanted to produce a number of these tales, but how to do it affordably? By shooting in Europe! It was a dream to travel to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, shooting in historic villages and chateaus, working with the best crews and actors these countries had to offer, bringing huge production value to these fun, sexy stories.