Rich Gensheimer

The digital revolution in television production doesn’t faze Rich Gensheimer in the least. The veteran director and cinematographer entered the craft in the late 1970’s when the first professional portable video equipment became available, founding his first company, Parrot Productions in 1976. With a background in still photography and 16mm film production, Gensheimer became an early adopter of the new electronic production technology and has never looked back. And he’s pleased to no end that the image quality of the latest High Definition digital cameras finally exceeds the film quality he started with nearly 30 years ago.

A versatile producer of hundreds of commercials, broadcast sports segments, corporate productions and documentaries, Gensheimer values craftsmanship. He believes that a firm grounding in the basic techniques of photographic illustration is necessary to accomplish effective electronic storytelling in the digital age.

Rich is the producer, director and cinematographer for four award-winning television programs distributed nationally on public television: Tracks Across the Sky (2005); Safe Harbor, A Story of the Underground Railroad (2003); Ida Tarbell, All in the Day’s Work (2000); and The Rise and Fall of a Tin Toy Dynasty, A History of the Marx Toy Company (1993). Many of the programs, released on DVD to schools, museums, and libraries, continue to air on public television stations nationwide.

He is currently at work on American Mystic: The Magical Life of Harry Kellar, a documentary about American’s fascination with magic, deception and illusion. Race through the Clouds, a story about America’s first family of racing, which follows four generations of the Unser family from Pike’s Peak to the Indy 500—shedding light on the American Dream and what it takes to achieve it— is in development.