About Amy
My life in television production began in 1991 when I joined Yellow Cat Productions in Washington, DC. In 1992 I became Vice President of the company and worked as a producer, writer, director, camera operator, and editor.
I produced and directed independent documentaries and worked with clients in the broadcast, government, and corporate sectors. Clients included Discovery Channel, A&E, History Channel, E! Entertainment TV, Showtime, ABC News, Paramount Pictures, Smithsonian Institution, National Institutes of Health, Xerox, AT&T, SESGlobal, Department of Labor, Smithsonian Institution and the IRS. In addition to these clients, independent producers from around the United States, England, Finland, and Japan frequently hired Yellow Cat crew when shooting in the Washington, DC area.
One piece I’m very proud of is a documentary called Return to Belaye: A Rite of Passage. I wrote, produced, directed and co-shot this personal story about my African husband’s manhood initiation rite in Senegal. It got excellent reviews from critics and won three awards including the Gold for Feature-length Documentary at Worldfest Houston. Tubabs in Africa is another award-winning documentary that I directed and co-shot in Africa. It follows college students on a field study program as they navigate through the Gambian culture, learning about the world and themselves.
I left Yellow Cat Productions in July 2003 to enjoy life as a freelancer and write screenplays. I immediately got a job for four months with a British production company as their American fixer and assistant producer on a pilot for a reality show called Cha Ching Moneymakers. Discovery Channel bought the series, and I continued working on four more episodes as an associate producer. I scheduled all the shoots, developed story ideas, and acted as an assistant director in the field.
Since January of 2004, I have been freelancing as a camera operator,
sound recordist, fixer, and producer for a variety of clients including
Robert Greenwald, Yellow Cat Productions, HGTV, TLC, BET, GVI, Tigervision
and Redback Films of London as well as corporate and government entities.
I continue to write and my screenplay In the Mouth of the Lion won
third prize in the Los Angeles based African Film Commission’s storytelling
competition. The screenplay was optioned but never produced.
In 2006, I wrote, produced and edited a short film called Run Cody, about a young boy who survived Hurricane Katrina only to land in the house of his estranged alcoholic father living in Washington, DC.
I currently live aboard a 38-foot sailboat and spend half my time cruising
and the other half freelancing. My latest work is an autobiographical
docu-comedy about a couple’s first year-long sailing adventure, entitled Cruising
on the Mary T: Nova Scotia to the Bahamas (www.CruisingontheMaryT.com).
Prior to getting in the television business, I lived in Senegal, West Africa for four years where I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village and subsequently taught English as a second language at the American Cultural Center in Dakar. The lessons I learned about communal living from subsistence farmers in Senegal have largely shaped the way I perceive the world.
