Directors
Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari
Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper have worked together since 2009 right after Zack shot Drea’s wedding and then proceeded to lose all the photos. Since then, they’ve produced and directed the award-winning online short documentary series California is a place. With over 10 million views online, the films have screened at film festivals around the world, including Sundance. Their compelling visual style and deeply personal storytelling has earned Cooper and Canepari award nominations from IDFA DocLab for best digital storytelling and documentary project of the year by POYi. The directing duo landed on Filmmaker Magazine’s Top 25 New Filmmakers to Watch list. They’re also an accomplished commercial directing team. What else do you want to know? Drea is better at racket sports. Zack has a red beard. Neither one of them really speaks Hindi or Spanish but they sure do like to pretend…
Producer
Sue Jaye Johnson
Sue Jaye Johnson is an award-winning journalist and producer who spearheaded an unprecedented collaboration between The New York Times, NPR and WNYC to tell the story of the first women to box in the Olympic games. Her series began with a six-page photo spread in the New York Times Magazine. She co-produced several radio stories for the series including Teen Contender, a feature radio documentary about Claressa Shields. Johnson and her co-producer Joe Richman of Radio Diaries gave Shields a microphone and recorder to document her journey to the Olympic Trials. Claressa’s diary aired on NPR’s All Things Considered in February 2012 to an audience of 12 million listeners and won the Peabody Award. Johnson was an early pioneer in interactive documentaries and has collaborated with public television and radio producers to create innovative web documentaries since 1997. She and her team won numerous awards for their collaborations including a Peabody Award and the Columbia-DuPont Award. She has taught visual storytelling at Harvard University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Producer
Bianca Darville
Bianca Darville is a documentary and commercial producer. After graduating with honors from UC Berkeley’s film department, she began working in the Bay Area film community. She is a long time collaborator with Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari, and has produced many of their commercial and documentary projects to date. She has worked for networks including Discovery Channel, Beyond Productions, and PBS. Her commercial work includes national ad campaigns for Apple, Adidas, Audi, Chevrolet, Ray Ban, and Toyota.