QUIET ON SET: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDS TV pulls back the curtain on an empire, built by creator Dan Schneider, that had an undeniable grip on popular culture. Over its four-parts, the docuseries offers unprecedented access to key cast members, writers, and crew spanning Schneider’s popular series at Nickelodeon and spotlighted their emotional accounts; chronicling a pattern of gross, abusive, and manipulative behavior that unfolded across decades, as well as stories about child predators on set. QUIET ON SET additionally features former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell, sharing publicly, for the first time ever, the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, his former dialogue coach who was convicted in 2004 for his crimes against Drake and ordered to register as a sex offender.
“Quiet on Set” ignited a viral online response and is helping to catalyze a collective reckoning with the dark underbelly of children’s entertainment. To date, “Quiet on Set” has been watched by more than 20 million people across cable network ID and streamers Max and Discovery+ and became Max’s biggest streaming title ever reported in Nielsen’s Top 10 charts with 1.3 billion minutes watched.
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“A heartbreaking expose” - The Chicago Sun
“One of the year’s most explosive investigative documentaries….raw and harrowing.” - Salon
“Full of bombshells” - Los Angeles Times
“Rage-inducing expose” - The Guardian
“The series brings the damning allegations against Schneider into sharp relief, skewering Nickelodeon’s entire kids TV apparatus that blinded itself to the abuse adult employees and young stars, such as Drake Bell, reportedly faced.” - Vulture
“The #MeToo era sparked by the Harvey Weinstein scandal that broke in 2017 exposed a toxic culture of abuse that had long gone unchecked in Hollywood. But it’s taken Robertson and Schwartz blowing the dust off an open secret in the kids TV industry — allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior that long swirled around Schneider-led sets — to bring to light claims of inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crew members on Nickelodeon kids series.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“ The exposé of the toxic workplace culture that workers say Schneider cultivated illustrates how much society in the ’90s and aughts—and even today—has refused to look at entertainment-industry child mistreatment and abuse head-on. Finally, nearly seven years after the #MeToo movement exploded, it should be impossible to ignore what has been hiding in plain sight all along—including sometimes on television itself.” - Slate
“it casts the entire children’s-TV landscape as a minefield for parents and kids, who in order to keep their names in the credits are compelled to endure a wide range of improprieties, some of which beget permanent scars. As such, it resonates as a continuation of a tale as old as Hollywood itself, and yet another warning to moms and dads that they should think twice before agreeing to help their juvenile offspring chase A-list glory.” - The Daily Beast
“it wisely contextualizes [Bell’s nightmare] as a symptom of a larger problem within the industry, which habitually treats kids as commodities, scares them into accepting all sorts of indignities lest they jeopardize their highly coveted jobs (and lifelong spotlight aspirations), and doesn’t protect them from adult conduct that ranges from inapt to detrimental to wildly over the line.” - The Daily Beast
Executive Producer and Co-Director
The meteoric rise and disturbing fall of Britney Spears has devolved into a Kafkaesque court battle that has reawakened her fandom and raised pressing questions about mental health and an individuals' rights. A re-examination of her career and a new assessment of the movement rallying against her court-mandated conservatorship capture the unsavory dimensions of the American pop-star machine.
“Framing Britney Spears,” is the sixth installment of FX and Hulu’s “The New York Times Presents” series of stand-alone documentaries.
Nominated for two Creative Arts Emmys including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
Winner of the 2021 Television Critics Association Award (TCA) for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information.
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“The film feels revolutionary” - The Atlantic
“Excellent, heartbreaking” - Los Angeles Times
"Moving with crisp rigor and an unstinting yet respectful frankness through the Spears story” - Variety
“What’s different is the way this new version is told: with sympathy, when the public’s relationship with this pop star until recently bordered on sadism.” - The Washington Post
“A thought-provoking retrospective on Spears’ life and career’ - Chicago Sun Times
“A pointed work of cultural criticism that might make some viewers feel guilt about idly gawking at pictures of Spears on Perez Hilton circa 2007.” - Los Angeles Times
"The New York Times Presents gives us a horror documentary, as scary and unfathomable as The Blair Witch Project, only more chilling because it is not fiction….Framing Britney Spears is worth watching for the details, the history it tells, and the history it captures inadvertently by virtue of its hybrid journalistic filmmaking.” - Den of Geeks
“…the documentary adds to the critical conversation we are having about women, agency and trauma.” - NBC News
“The strength of “Framing Britney Spears”…it’s in its thoughtful hindsight.” - Washington Post
"...In 2021 it’s so bizarre and cringeworthy to watch what was commonplace then: late night jokes about her virginity status; reporters asking her if she had a sex life; regular shaming for expressing any burgeoning sexuality at all. Watching a montage of it, you can see how the obsessive attention surrounding her is spiraling out of control, so one can only imagine how jarring it must have been in the center of it all. By the time you’re viewing Matt Lauer (!) quiz a crying Britney (!!) about whether she’s a bad mom (!!!) for Dateline in 2006, it’s all one can do not to turn away in horror: We were okay with this?!” - Mashable
Nominated for two Primetime Emmys including Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
Winner of the 2021 Television Critics Association Award (TCA) for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information.
Showrunner and Executive Producer
In a confidential report in 2016, Britney Spears told a court investigator that her conservatorship had become “an oppressive and controlling tool against her.” But how the conservatorship has controlled her life has never been revealed. Now, in this New York Times investigation, a portrait emerges of an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored every move she made. From the makers of “Framing Britney Spears,” this film features exclusive interviews with insiders who had intimate knowledge of her life inside the conservatorship.
Nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
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“Jaw-Dropping….eye-opening….equal parts fascinating and heartbreaking” - Decider
“concise, illuminating, polished” - TIME
“brutally effective” - Variety
“game-changing” - Entertainment Weekly
“[‘Framing Britney Spears’ and ‘Controlling Britney Spears’] demonstrate the power of nonfiction filmmaking to mobilize the public and illuminate questionable situations” - NPR
“definitive consideration of not just Spears and her situation but how structures in our culture…can be so easily manipulated to marginalize women” - Vulture
“Chilling.…jarring” - Salon
“eye-opening” - CNN
“bombshell” - Washington Post
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Showrunner and Executive Producer
The New York Times Presents is a series of standalone docs, brought to life by New York Times journalists, which look to bring viewers close to the essential stories of our time. This year, its ‘Framing Britney Spears’ installment, centered on the pop star and her ongoing conservatorship battle, earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program, along with a TCA Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information.
Since its launch last year, the series has also been recognized with the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding News/Information (Series or Special). That award went to ‘The Killing of Breonna Taylor’.
Showrunner and Executive Producer
The Weekly is a new documentary TV series from The New York Times, bringing unparalleled journalism to the screen.
Each half-hour episode features a Times journalist investigating one of the most pressing issues of the day. With more than 1,550 journalists scattered across 160 countries, The Times produces 2,500 stories a week – investigative reports, political scoops, cultural dispatches. And each week, The Weekly chooses to tell one of these stories in a visual and unforgettable way.
The Weekly is the first major foray into television news for both The Times and FX.
Winner of four 2020 News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
Executive Producer
Tricky Dick is a four-part CNN Original Series that explores Richard Nixon’s life and times; tracking his rise, fall, incredible comeback and political destruction during some of America’s most tumultuous decades. From his early political maneuvers in California, to the game-changing Kennedy-Nixon debates through his disgraceful Watergate exit, featuring never-before-seen footage this fully archive based series offers fresh insight into a riveting story of politics, power and scandal.
“A remarkably penetrating portrait of Richard Nixon —and one very far from the standard compendium of Nixon lore. A human picture.” - Wall Street Journal
Named to the Wall Street Journal’s Best Television of 2019 list.
Winner of the 2020 Cinema Eye Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Series for Broadcast.
Director and Executive Producer
Come one, come all. The Circus, an original documentary series for Showtime, provided timely, unparalleled access and critical analysis of the 2016 Presidential election - one of the most fascinating and extraordinary elections in modern history. The series met with great ratings, stellar press, award nominations and a renewal.
"There is nothing quite as potent as (The Circus)...a series bottomless in its capacity to fascinate." - Wall Street Journal
"Funny, revealing, and eminently entertaining." - Vulture
"Strips away the artificiality and usual talking points, giving viewers a sense of what it is really like to run for President." - National Review
Nominated for IDA and Television Critics Association awards.
Executive Producer.
Trumped made its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and then debuted on Showtime. The feature length documentary offers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the biggest campaign upset in recent U.S. history. With an incredible treasure trove of rare footage secured during the making of The Circus, the documentary follows the rise of Donald Trump, from the primaries through the elections and debates, to the breathtaking election night results.
Director and Co-Executive Producer.
The Education of Omarina is a FRONTLINE film six years in the making that shows how one innovative program designed to stem the high school dropout crisis has dramatically impacted a set of twins.
One twin, Omarina, benefited from middle school interventions while her twin brother did not. FRONTLINE has stayed with these twins’ story through middle school into high school and now college. The resulting 23-minute film not only illuminates a means of addressing the high school dropout epidemic - but reveals a deeply personal story of siblings coming into adulthood as their paths tragically diverge.
Nominated for a 2017 News and Documentary Emmy Award.
Director, Producer, Writer.
As part of Lifetime and A+E Networks’ Emmy Award-winning public affairs and community outreach efforts, Women of Honor, featuring First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden inspires and activates viewers with stories about remarkable members of the military community. The one-hour film showcases the emotional and uplifting journeys of three women, representing the thousands of veterans, spouses, caregivers and countless others who have given so much for our country and continue to do so every day.
Director and Co-Executive Producer.
She’s the Ticket is a digital documentary series chronicling the new wave of women running for political office. The series follows five female candidates who are jumping into everything from gubernatorial showdowns to city-council races, getting inside the fascinating, difficult, and inspiring process of campaigning.
Winner of the Special Jury Award for an Independent Episodic at the SXSW Film Festival, and nominated for an IFP Gotham Award for Breakthrough Short Form Series.
She’s the Ticket reached over 8.5 million users across Topic.com and other social media platforms. The series was also organically shared by Kerry Washington, Moveon.org, The Wing, Emily’s List, Jezebel, Refinery29, Teen Vogue, New York Magazine, and Pantsuit Nation.
Executive Producer.
The short film From a Kid You May Never Know premiered on The Guardian's website and features school kids, many from immigrant families, sharing the letters they wrote to Donald Trump in the days immediately following his election. 160,000 people viewed the film in less than 12 hours.
Director and Producer.
In this exclusive interview with The New York Times, Stephen K. Bannon speaks about Senate Republicans, white nationalism and the day President Trump was elected.
Director and Co-Executive Producer.
What do we really know about sex? How often do we do it and in which positions? How do we choose our partners? Do women actually fake it? If so, how often? And have we become a nation fueled by “hook up” culture? “Sex in America,” part of Discovery Channel’s award-winning CURIOSITY series, reveals the results of the largest sex survey ever conducted and delves into some of the newest, most controversial sexual experiments to shed light on its findings. The results, some revealed for the very first time, will uncover what’s really happening when the lights go out.
Director and Co-Executive Producer.
In Separate and Unequal FRONTLINE travels to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the site of one of the country’s longest battles over school integration.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School District was forced to desegregate its schools in 1981 after a 25-year legal fight. But now, frustrated over the district’s many low-performing schools,a group of mostly white, middle-class parents and business leaders are trying to break away and form a new city with its own separate schools.
It’s a controversial effort that mirrors similar breakaway movements in cities around the country that critics say are reversing hard-fought civil rights gains. If the plan succeeds in Baton Rouge, the new district is expected to be more affluent and white, and will leave behind a population of mostly black students from low-income families.
Separate and Unequal won first prize at the Educational Writer's Association National Awards for Education Reporting.
Director, Producer and Writer.
Hosted by twin brother comedians Jason and Randy Sklar the 6-part HISTORY series United Stats of America reveals the stories behind the most surprising statistics in American history. Why has the average American’s waistline gone from a size 26 to a size 34 in the last 100 years? How did we go from unsettled prairie to a country with 45,913 acres of self-storage? And is it really possible that cheerleading is more dangerous than football? Until recently, this treasure trove of statistical information was too dense to comprehend. Fortunately, technology finally allows us to bring these numbers to life.
Supervising Producer, Director
The second in a three-part series The Education of Omarina continues a story FRONTLINE has been following since 2012 — showing how an innovative program to stem the high school dropout crisis has impacted a pair of twins over the course of four years.
In Middle School Moment, FRONTLINE reports on new evidence that suggests the make-or-break moment for high school dropouts may actually occur in middle school. The film explores how one Bronx school is using a novel form of data collection and analysis to predict and prevent dropouts before they happen.
Middle School Moment is also first in a three-part/ six-year series of FRONTLINE films that chronicle the lives of the Cabrera twins.
*Nominated for an Emmy.
Director and Producer.
B.O.R.N. to Style is a lifestyle makeover series centered on a “fierce” team from New York, and their larger than life boss, Jonathan Bodrick. Springing from the Harlem-based eclectic boutique, B.O.R.N. (borrowed, old, refurbished and new), the style super heroes land at the door of those desperately in need of some “color in their lives.” The team at B.O.R.N. gets to the root of their fashion malaise, whisking them away for a transformation that goes beyond just their look. In each episode, viewers see the B.O.R.N. team offer up their own brand of therapy and inspiration to clients as they transform them into their best possible selves.
Co-Executive Producer
Once found on the back pages of local papers, Missed Connections is a forum on Craigslist where those who regret their timidity make appeals to the Ones Who Got Away. The documentary short Missed Connections peers inside these popular online messages-in-a-bottle asking whether love lost can be found again.
Missed Connections premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival before screening at over 20 festivals around the world. The documentary was written up in the New York Times (twice), CNN and featured on Good Day New York.
Director and Producer.