2025 Emmy win for director/producer Susan Marks

Susan Marks aka Marks won a regional Emmy for her documentary storytelling with Pioneer PBS for Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories.

Screenwriter and filmmaker, Marks recently received another region Emmy for a historical documentary film about a very under-told WWII story that even some WWII experts were shocked to learn. This project was definitely a labor of love with a pretty happy ending. 

Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories

My side hustle? Making documentary films for PBS and I LOVE it. 

If you love PBS as much as I do, feel free to watch my last film about

Italian & German POW during World War II being held in POW camps 

(not interment camps - that's something very different) in the US. This 

doc focuses on Minnesota and a bit of Iowa. 

Murder in a Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story Documentary

Great documentary film news is in the works! Funny how it's all coming together after all these years. In the meantime, enjoy these clues. They may not be what they appear at first glance. And Frances Glessner Lee was smarter that pretty much everybody. 

 

Happy Belated Birthday Frances Glessner Lee 2023!

 

We were so busy working on Murder in Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story documentary that we totally missed the anniversary of her birthday March 25, 1878. All these years later, she's more celebrated and understood than ever before. How lucky we are to know her story. To be a part of telling her story. 

Back in the edit suite for Frances Glessner Lee documentary!

Our home away from home. Back in the edit suite this week for more and more re-edits on our documentary on Frances Glessner Lee. We've got new scratch narration, new graphics, new music, a new Nutshell scene and yet we've only managed to trim five minutes worth of fat. But we're getting there!

Of Dolls and Murder Documentary Film Alt. Trailer

Hey look! Another trailer for Of Dolls and Murder!

Edit Update - Our Wildest Dreams

This is John today, editing our documentary. We are laying in John Waters' narration while getting nit picky about every shot we use. In other words, it's a good, good day.

John Waters Hangover

We can't seem to shake our John Waters hangover and it appears we're not alone. It's nice to hear from so many John Waters' fans! It's been very, very cool to talk to so many of you who appreciate his genius.

If you want to know what John is up to, don't delay logging on to Dreamland - the ultimate guide to John Waters:

http://www.dreamlandnews.com/

On a separate but related note, I teach documentary storytelling classes and I'm constantly amazed by how many students tell me that they "don't really watch documentaries." Yet, they think they can make one...hmmmm. Anyway, I am constantly suggesting docs and recommending people watch at least one doc a week. And now I'm going global with this assignment. So, for all you aspiring documentary filmmakers out there, watch John Waters: This Filthy World. Watch it and the extras, and then write to me suggesting next week's doc assignment.

One More Photo From the Recording Session with John Waters

For some reason, this photo didn't load for the last blog. So left to right, that's producer John Dehn, Detective Rob Ross (his eyes are open in our film) John Waters, and Susan Marks.

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope you are taking the day off. We can't stay away from our dead dolls, so we are doing a bit of editing this extended weekend. Things are starting to flow nicely. I can tell that some of you are anxious to see this film get finished! Thanks for all the inquiries. We've been a little busy with everyday work, but Our Wildest Dreams is never far from our thoughts and conversations!

It's seems fitting on Memorial Day weekend that we mention that memorial is certainly a factor in this documentary film. Death represented through dolls helps make the issue of murder much more "friendlier." And death as entertainment is another safe way to explore something so dark. Still, we find ourselves thinking about victims and their families a lot. As we go through our footage, it's the words of the detectives, morgue technicians, among others, that always bring it back to the sad reality of our film.