Producer/Director
Broadcast Distribution by CargoFilm.
Retail & Digital Video by MVD
Music Distribution by A-Train
Innovators in Music 6x30min
Documentary series explores how the creative impulse extends beyond music making.
With Levon Helm, Steve Earle, Sonic Youth and more.
Long Live Rock
Please note that I spent Levon Helm’s 69th birthday with him, in his kitchen in Woodstock, eating peach cobbler pie and drinking his generously offered mini-bottles of coke. I watched & filmed while Donald Fagen (any Steely Dan fans out there?) fiddled with a recorder and Larry Campbell tapped out some John Prine songs on the table. Levon sang along and smiled. I watched through the camera and smiled just as wide. I grew up with Levon’s voice. What a fun show to make.
Beautiful Noise 39x60min
Intimate HD concert series with indie rockers & songwriters
My Morning Jacket, Feist, Neko Case, the Black Angels, Yo La Tengo, Sloan, The Donnas & a lot more.
Golden
Over the course of three years we booked, produced and shot 39 hours of these performances. I executive produced & produced all three seasons. Also, I was the director and editor, lead legal negotiator (LOL true) and other stuff.
During the shoot with My Morning Jacket, I was convinced Jim James was going to elevate and teleport through the dome in the ceiling. That dude is a musical shaman. Seek out his music. Seek out all music.
Dewey Time:
An American Jazz Life
The Story of Jazz Artist Dewey Redman 90min
As the noted jazz historian Stanley Crouch so aptly puts it, “…when saxophonist Dewey Redman plays, smoke and flames shoot out the bell.”
This is Dewey’s story, from the jukejoints of Fort Worth to the walk-ups of Brooklyn, from free-jazz to sweet melody, from segregated Texas to Lincoln Centre, from struggle to redemption. This is real jazz.
Daniel Berman’s often tender film examines a highly respected, musically versatile and uniquely imaginative improviser. Through his classic early recordings with Ornette Coleman to his membership in the venerable Keith Jarrett Quartet, to his own magnificent live shows, it’s the sound of Dewey’s horn and the magnetism of his character that keeps jazz fans coming back to his music.
Rhythm & Blooms 36x30min
A day in the life of 36 of North America’s most spectacular botanical gardens.
For Discovery Channel.
Splendor in the Garden
Sunrise to sunset. Right across the continent. We dig deep into the heart of these magnificent places, from the Bronx Botanical Gardens in New York to Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. 36 Gardens. With an original roots and jazz soundtrack.
INCLUDES:
Longwood Gardens
The Butchart Gardens
Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens
Montreal Botanical Gardens
The Denver Botanical Garden
Red Butte Gardens
The New York Botanical Garden
Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
LadyBird Johnson Wildflower Center
Morikami Japanese Gardens
Reford Garden
Missouri Botanical Gardens
Bellingrath Gardens
Other Projects Include:
Duos: the jazz sessions
13 x 60min episodes pairing Canadian jazz greats in performance. Filmed with no audience, directly for our beautiful lights and cameras at the Harbourfront Theatre Centre, Toronto.
Jazz Renaissance
60min Documentary explores the resurgence of modern jazz and improvised music in the early 1990’s. With Nicholas Payton, Bela Fleck, Lee Konitz and more.
In the Key of Eh!
6x30min episodes on great Canadian jazz pianists. Three solo performances, three trio performances. Six beautiful shows. Filmed at the Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada.
SOLOS: the jazz sessions 39x60min
Solo jazz performances/interviews with living legends & rising stars.
With Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau, Joe Lovano, James Blood Ulmer, Lee Konitz, and a lot more.
ORIGINAL SPIN MUSIC
Our Record Label has nearly a dozen exclusive archival releases, available at all your favorite music sites.
Yes, click the covers and you can buy this incredible music right now!
Mark Turner
Bill Frisell
Charlie Hunter
John Abercrombie
Greg Osby
The Berkeley Sessions 6x60min
Musicians perform on stage in 150 year old gothic church built for choral groups.
With a live studio audience. Filmed on location in Toronto, Canada.
Live Concert Performances
With guitar virtuoso Kaki King, legendary Mekons frontman Jon Langford, esteemed Canadian songsmith/indie rocker Joel Plaskett, Mississippi based ironic-southern-gothic-post-modern blues/folk/rock underground hero Jim White…and more.
Educational Videos
I shot & directed a video curriculum for the McMaster University Nursing Department in Hamilton, Ontario. From 2011-2013, we filmed about 35 videos used for all four years of undergraduate nursing students. One of them was a music video about a girl who had seen better times.
Kind of a dark subject, true, but a fun challenge for a solo filmmaker to light, shoot, sync, direct, operate the playback, set dress and then edit a music video! This is pretty much the only one I’ve ever done. Phew. The performer and songwriter’s name was Elisa. I hope she’s out there being creative somewhere.
If you need content and media creation for large scale educational projects, we should talk, I can definitely help you.
Tra La La
Somewhere in a filing cabinet, I own the rights to a project I produced with a record label for some smooth jazz musicians. It was called “A Night with the Saxtress.” Who could forget a night with the saxtress?
Back in the Day
I directed a load of documentary/episodic series back in the days before reality shows. At least 50 episodes on subjects as wide-ranging as Judaism in the modern world, the life stages of our personal relationship with Death…Anyway, I realized after a few years it was a lot more fun to produce and direct my own projects. I was happy for those early opportunities, though. No doubt.
Multiple Documentary Series
Among other projects, I produced a lifestyle series about guys who retrofit old sports cars to the tune of millions of dollars…and then race them against one another on the world’s most famous racetracks.