Colleagues

Bartlett-LeRose Productions

Sharon Bartlett is an accomplished and creative storyteller with over 25 years’ experience in television news and documentary production.  She spent eight years as a producer/director with CBC Network Television’s flagship current affairs program The Journal before becoming an independent TV producer in partnership with broadcaster Maria LeRose.  She has been a consultant to the CBC British Columbia Region helping to develop and shape stories submitted by independent producers.  She also is a regular story consultant to CTV.  Her recent documentary credits in collaboration with partner Maria LeRose include Desperately Seeking Doctors, about the shortage of family doctors in Canada; Beyond Memory, the story of five people living with dementia, and a four-hour documentary series about mental illness in children and youth.  She also directed a three-hour special for CBC called Second City: The First Family of Comedy.  Her awards include a Canadian Gemini for Best Documentary of the Year, a Gracie Allen Award from the Foundation of American Women In Radio and Television, a Chris Award (Best of Category) from the Columbus International Film & Video Festival, several Bronze Plaques from same, and a B’Nai Brith Human Rights Award.  Most recently, Sharon co-directed and co-produced Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids with Maria LeRose for CBC-TV’s Doc Zone and is currently co-producing and co-directing Generation Boomerang.

Caroline Butler has worked in every medium, but spent most of her career in television news at CBC as a writer, researcher and producer.  Among other roles, she was for 4½ years the sole full-time employee in British Columbia for CBC’s 24-hour news network, where she did everything from pulling stories out of interviewees to pulling cable for live broadcasts of breaking news.  Caroline has now turned her focus to documentaries, but she still likes being involved in every aspect of production.  She was a researcher on the documentary Carbon Hunters (CBC Doc Zone 2009), story produced on Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the SV Concordia (CBC Doc Zone February 2011), did the research for Dreamfilm’s Generation Boomerang and is currently working on The Boomer Biz for Dreamfilm. She also manages Dreamfilm’s website and social media communications, and makes sure there are lots of eyes on screens when the documentaries go to air.

J.C. Video Productions

John Collins has been working since 1974 as a cameraman and director of photography for all major networks, including A&E, NBC, BBC, CBC, CTV, Discovery and Japanese Television. He has experience in virtually every aspect of television production including documentary, electronic press kits, corporate videos, sporting events, and series. Prior to 1995, John worked for twelve years as a cameraman in the Vancouver newsroom of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. There he worked for the newsmagazine element of the newscast, which included being the cameraman for the Oscar-nominated documentary The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter. Since going freelance in 1995, John has worked on over 30 network documentaries. Most recently he won a Gemini Award for Best Cinematography on the documentary Wild Horse Redemption.

Sara Darling has been a journalist for 20 years, starting her career as a newspaper writer in Ottawa. After taking a break to travel around the world, she found herself longing for adventure. That longing took her to Canada’s North where she worked for almost five years for both newspapers and then later, the CBC. Her connection with the CBC ultimately brought her to Vancouver where she worked for 8 years as a reporter and producer in radio, and later television, for regional and network programs. She was most recently on staff as a current affairs field producer in the TV newsroom. She has produced and written dozens of radio and television documentaries and has received a number of awards, including a New York Festivals Gold Medal, several Canadian Radio and Television News Directors’ Awards, Columbus International Film and Television Awards citations, and two Jack Webster Foundation Awards, honoring the best in BC journalism. Most recently, Sara co-produced the documentary Peace Warrior which won the 2009 Gemini Award for Best Biography Documentary. Sara is based in Victoria, BC.

Bartlett-LeRose Productions

Maria LeRose is an award winning Television Producer and Interviewer. With 25 years of production experience to her credit, she has traveled the globe doing interviews and telling people’s stories. Maria’s background in Psychology (she is currently in Graduate School in the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at UBC) brings to her work a deep understanding of what makes people tick. She has been an independent TV producer for 13 years in partnership with Sharon Bartlett (Bartlett-LeRose Productions Ltd). Together they have produced television documentaries and series for CBC Television (Region and Network), and BC’s Knowledge Network.  Recent documentaries include Desperately Seeking Doctors, about the shortage of family doctors in Canada; Beyond Memory, a story about five people living with dementia; and a documentary series about children and youth who live with mental illness. She is currently shooting Generation Boomerang.

Maria extends her production and interviewing skills beyond broadcast television. She works as a design consultant and moderator for large-scale webcast training initiatives for corporations and organizations that include The Boeing Company, US Department of Veteran’s Affairs, UBC, and the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education.

www.marialerose.ca

Kelly McClughan is a multi award-winning journalist who has enjoyed an extensive career in television as a director, writer and producer. She launched her career as a news and current affairs reporter at CBC Television, where her work earned her numerous awards in Canada and the U.S. Since embarking on a freelance career in 2001, Kelly has traveled the world directing and writing series for Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, The History Channel and Global Television. She wrote and directed episodes for the Gemini Award-winning series StuntDawgs broadcast by the Movie Network and Movie Central, and her work on the reality series Making It Big earned her a Leo Award for direction. She was Series Director for the acclaimed Discovery Channel series Jetstream, and traveled to South America and Asia producing and directing series episodes for the National Geographic Channel. She is often consulted by independent producers to help develop and refine series programming.

Bountiful Films

Maureen Palmer has spent the last ten years in the world of independent documentaries and factual entertainment, after two decades in news and current affairs at CBC Radio and Television. Maureen has worked as a story editor, story producer, and series producer for a wide variety of North American broadcasters, including Making It Big for Slice, Glutton For Punishment for the Food Network and The Week the Women Went for CBC. Her work has won several awards, from Bronze and Silver at the New York Festival, a Jack Webster Award, the B’nai B’rith League of Human Rights Award for Best Documentary, and the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for Best Documentary. She and partner Helen Slinger formed Vancouver-based Bountiful Films in 2000, producing high-profile documentaries including Leaving Bountiful and Polygamy’s Lost Boys for Global Television. Maureen directed and co-wrote How to Divorce & Not Wreck the Kids (2009), story-produced The Downside of High (2010), produced Mounties Under Fire (2010) and When the Devil Knocks (2010). She is currently directing and producing Cat Crazed for CBC-TV’s Doc Zone for the 2010-2011 season.

Bountiful Films

Helen Slinger is a master storyteller whose award-winning work in journalism spans three decades. Her documentary writer-director credits include The Bully’s Mark, about school bullying; Embracing Bob’s Killer, about a woman who forgave the man who killed her husband; Alexandra’s Echo, about the battle to save western Canada’s last wild salmon runs from the devastation wrought by industrial aquaculture; Leaving Bountiful, the story of a woman breaking free from a polygamous colony; and Shadow Warrior, the biography of Greenpeace International founder David McTaggart. Helen is in demand as a writer and story editor, and frequently partners with Sue Ridout and Melanie Wood on their projects. Various projects have won Gemini nominations, Finalist New York festivals, Platinum Award Worldfest Houston, Jury Award Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, selection Montreal World Film Festival, selection Vancouver International Film Festival, and several Columbus International Film & Television Awards including the Edgar Dale Award for excellence in non-fiction screenwriting. Helen directed and wrote Mounties Under Fire (2010) for CBC-TV’s Doc Zone, and has recently completed When the Devil Knocks (airing 2011) for CBC-TV’s The Passionate Eye.

Tim Wanlin is a great editor.

(NB: Tim did not write that. He would never do such a thing. Luckily I, Sue Ridout, get to write Tim’s bio and say that he’s a great editor. He began his editing career in Kelowna, BC, cutting TV news. He’s been working as a freelance editor in Vancouver since 1993, with a focus on documentaries. Tim has edited over 50 of them, with many awards and nominations to his credit. But the awards don’t really matter; what matters is that he’s very talented and great to work with.  Tim is patient, has a clear storytelling sensibility, and a terrific sense of humour. Which is very, very important.)

Stranger Productions

Melanie Wood is a Vancouver filmmaker who has written, directed, produced, and executive-produced a wide variety of current affairs and documentary programs for the CBC and others. Her most recent documentaries include Carbon Hunters (2009) for CBC-TV’s Doc Zone, and School of Secrets, a film about girls who were told to keep secret their sexual relationship with their male teacher. It won Best Documentary at the Gracie Allen Awards, New York 2008, and the Remi Award for Documentary, Houston International Film Festival 2008. Melanie has also produced and directed two documentaries on the borderlands between the internet and the human spirit: A Stranger In Our Home, about internet child sex predators and O.com, about cybersex addiction. O.com won awards at New York Festivals, Worldfest Houston and was selected for the Montreal Film Festival. Wood’s previous documentary credits include To Have and To Hold, profiling the victims of stalkers; The Sweet Assassin, which reveals the devastating effects of diabetes on First Nations; On Wings and Dreams: The Men Who Built Canada’s Airlines; and Chasing The Cure: Brett Finlay, Man Against Microbe.