Joe Seamans, Producer, Writer and Cinematographer, started his career shooting 16mm film for the award-winning National Geographic Specials, and his work on these programs helped establish the reputation for beautiful photography that the Geographic maintains today. He has photograph many exotic subjects for the Geographic, such as the trans-Pacific voyage of the Hokulea, the holy sites and rituals of Jerusalem, the trans-continental migration of the whooping crane, and landscape of the Serengeti Plain. When Mr. Seamans turned to producing documentaries, he quickly earned a reputation for his ability to bring artistry and clarity to complex subjects of a very diverse nature. He produced three of the seven episodes on the PBS series Life by the Numbers, which shows the many ways mathematics influences our daily lives. He was producer on Quest for Immortality, from the PBS series Stealing Time, which explores recent breakthroughs in our understanding of the aging process. His long list of producing credits for the award-winning National Geographic Specials includes Great Lakes, Fragile Seas, Treasures from the Past, and In the Shadow of Vesuvius. He has served as Director of Photography on several landmark independent documentaries produced by David Sutherland, such as The Farmer’s Wife, a six-hour portrait of the struggles of a farming family in Nebraska. Shot over a three-year period, the film aired as a special presentation of Frontline on PBS. With his wife as co-producer, Mr. Seamans is directing and photographing videos that will help police officers deal with children who have witnessed violence. This production is being made in association with Family Communications, the producers of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. His work has received numerous prestigious awards, including multiple Emmies, the George Foster Peabody Award, and the Cine Golden Eagle. Mr. Seamans is a founding partner of Trifocal Media.

Mark Knobil, Director of Photography is comfortable with 35mm and 16mm film, analog, digital and high-definition video, feature films and documentaries, commercials and corporate films, and experienced under the most extreme shooting environments. He has been the cinematographer on numerous award-winning projects, and has, himself, been nominated twice for an Emmy for outstanding cinematography. His work as Director of Photography on the Discovery Channels special Titanic: Anatomy of a Disaster contributed to that program’s status as number one rated show ever on the network. Mr. Knobil is often recruited in the early stages of big projects to help define the visual style. In this role, he recently completed work as Supervising Director of Photography on an eight-part National Geographic Series for PBS entitled The Shape of Life. His list of other documentary credits for photography is pages long, but highlights include Volcanoes of the Deep for NOVA, Cats: Caressing the Tiger and Bali: Masterpiece of the Gods, both National Geographic Specials, and The Real Ben Franklin, part of Discovery Channel’s Rediscovering America Series. Mr. Knobil began his on-the-job film training at WQED/Pittsburgh in 1977. He is a founding partner of Trifocal Media.

Janet Smith, Producer, Writer and Project Manager, began her film and video production career at her hometown public television station, WQED/Pittsburgh. After four years of working on nationally broadcast television documentaries for WQED, she embarked on a freelance career that found her working around the country and often around the world for some of the most well-known television and documentary production companies, including WGBH, the BBC, NHK (Japan), The Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Society, WETA, the World Wildlife Fund, and NBC/Dateline. As a producer and production manager for many of these projects, Ms. Smith has coordinated the efforts of large teams of diverse people, often working in extremely challenging locations, toward the achievement of mutual goals. Her projects have been diverse in subject and format and have therefore trained Ms. Smith to adapt quickly to the challenges of any situation. Highlights include the Emmy-nominated Web of Life, a PBS special on the worldwide biodiversity crisis, and its companion piece Web Kids, made for a young teenage audience. She was Coordinating Producer on The Big Picture, an IMAX film about Pittsburgh created for the Carnegie Science Center. She directed the efforts of teams in Monterey, Hong Kong, Boston, Pittsburgh and Kuwait to produce video exhibits for the Scientific Center of Kuwait, the first science museum in the Middle East. As a producer for Trifocal Media, she helped create Hold That Thought, and interactive DVD funded by the National Institutes of Health and targeted at people recently diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease. Ms. Smith is a founding partner of Trifocal Media.