The Team

THE TEAM
Chad A. Stevens - director, producer and principal cinematographer. Stevens is the 2010 recipient of Columbia University’s Alfred I. duPont Award. He has been nominated for two news and documentary Emmy Awards, and he won Webby Awards in 2008 and 2009. Stevens has received awarded from the Pictures of the Year International and Best of Photojournalism competitions. Stevens is professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former editor at MediaStorm, an innovative multimedia production company. multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
Bob Sacha - producer. Sacha built a successful career as a National Geographic Magazine photojournalist and later became a documentary producer with MediaStorm, where his project Bearing Witness won best Multimedia Feature in the 2008 Online News Association Competition and was nominated for an Emmy Award for New Directions in Documentary Storytelling. Sacha was nominated for a second Emmy Award in 2009, and was on a Alfred I. duPont Award-winning team in 2010. freelance multimedia producer, producer, multimedia coach, multimedia
Robert Browman - lead writer and co-editor. Browman is an Emmy Award-winning, freelance multimedia journalist. He is currently working on stories for online, print and radio publication. Browman previously worked as a Senior Producer at the New York-based multimedia production company MediaStorm, where he helped to build the highly acclaimed and award-winning publication from the ground up. He spent two years at the picture agency Corbis in New York City, and prior to that, Browman spent three-and-a-half years at MSNBC.com as a Multimedia Producer. During the course of his career as a multimedia journalist, he has collaborated on projects earning him one Emmy Award, a nomination for another, three Webby Awards, as well as numerous other awards. freelance multimedia journalist, senior producer, multimedia producing
Pamela Chen - music composer and co-editor. Chen is an award-winning documentary editor based in New York. As a producer with MediaStorm, her work on documentary projects earned numerous industry accolades, including the national News & Documentary Emmy Award (for Crisis Guide: Darfur) and two additional nominations, the Alfred I. duPont Award, three Webby Awards, and Pictures of the Year International awards in both photography and multimedia. Pam received a Fulbright scholarship for journalism to Taiwan in 2005. music composer, documentary editor, fulbright fellow

Stephanie Pistello - Distribution and Outreach Strategies. Pistello is the Founding Artistic Director & Executive Producer of Headwater Productions and works as a citizen lobbyist for The Alliance for Appalachia and The Alaskan Wildlife League. Pistello is an independent producer and director living in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Lexington, KY, she has deep roots in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee. Her work as a theatrical and music director has been seen in New York City at Chashama Arts Space, The Public Theatre, and Soho Think Tank, to name a few.

artistic director, executive producer, headwater productions

Brett Marshall is an award-winning documentary photographer based in Appalachia, and will be the project still photographer. Marshall has been a staff photographer and multimedia producer in the news industry. He has taught photojournalism courses at Central Michigan University and has coached photography workshops in Michigan and in Appalachia.

documentary photographer, staff photographer, multimedia producer
ADVISORY BOARD
Carole Dean, Founder of From the Heart Productions. Carole Dean took a $20 bill and turned it into a $50 million a year industry when she reinvented the tape and short end industry. Carole coined the phrase “short ends” and began buying and selling film ends left from production. She was instrumental in the birth of the Hollywood independent film community because she offered film to Indies at prices they could afford, allowing many producers to go on to great success.

While managing her film company she created From the Heart Productions and produced over 100 cable programs. In 1992 Carole created the Roy W. Dean Grant Foundation which provides film grants, editing grants and mentorship programs that to date have provided filmmakers with millions of dollars in goods and services and have played an instrumental role in establishing careers of the industry’s most talented filmmakers.

A sought-after international speaker, Carole is currently touring the U. S. with her popular books, The Art of Film Funding: Alternative Financing Concepts and The Art of Manifesting believing you need to work from your to-do list and your vision to create and fund your art.

 multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
Scott Anger, Filmmaker, Frontline Producer and Online Video Strategist. Since 2001, Anger’s work has focused on long-form documentary filmmaking for broadcast and theatrical release. Most of my broadcast work has appeared on the award-winning PBS program FRONTLINE. In addition to storytelling, Anger helps organizations with multimedia strategies in the areas of production, promotion and distribution. Anger also teaches visual storytelling, shooting technique and editing to organizations and broadcasters such as the BBC, Channel 4 (Sweden), ChannelNews Asia (Singapore), CNN, Oxygen (New York) and to newspaper journalists through the National Press Photographers Association workshops.
Anger’s filmography includes: Lost Bird Project (2009, in progress) Director of Photography. Obama’s War (2009) Cinematographer. Life in Limbo (2008) Co-Producer/Director of Photography. Witness to a Secret War (2008) Co-Producer/Director of Photography. Budapest to Berlin: on the road with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2007) Director of Photography. Greensboro: Closer to the Truth (2007) Director of Photography. Return of the Taliban (2006) Co-Producer and Director of Photography. Home Front (2006) Director of Photography. Private Warriors (2005) Cinematographer. Beyond Baghdad (2004) Director of Photography and Field Producer. Truth, War and Consequences (2003) Reporter, Field Producer and Director of Photography. Iraq War (2003) Reporter, Producer, Director of Photography and Editor. In Search of Al Qaeda (2002) Field Producer, Reporter, Director of Photography and second Editor. Behind Enemy Lines (2002) Field Producer and Cinematographer. Women of Courage (2002) Producer and Director of Photography. Saudi Time Bomb? (2001) Field Producer and Cinematographer. 		multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
Roger Cohn, Editor of Yale Environment 360. Former Editor of Mother Jones. Roger Cohn is the editor of Yale Environment 360, an award-winning online magazine focusing on global environmental issues. He formerly served as editor of Mother Jones and executive editor of Audubon, having led both magazines to periods of unprecedented success. During his tenure at Mother Jones, from 1999 to 2005, Cohn revitalized the magazine, winning the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence and numerous other journalistic and publishing honors. From 1991 to 1998, Cohn was executive editor of Audubon, during an era when the magazine gained a national reputation for its cutting-edge environmental reporting. Prior to that, Cohn was a staff writer with The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was among the first U.S. journalists to establish an environmental beat. multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
Dr. Ben Stout III, Professor of Biology at Wheeling Jesuit University. Dr. Stout is Professor of Biology at Wheeling Jesuit University, now in his 19th year. Originally from Morgantown, WV, Stout studied at West Virginia University, Tennessee Tech, and Virginia Tech. Stout experienced a life-changing moment in 1999 while testifying in Federal Court on behalf of citizens in southern West Virginia. At issue was the very existence of headwater streams that did not appear on maps and were largely ignored by coal companies, state, and federal regulators. Since then Stout has worked to address citizen concerns in coalfield communities through research, convening meetings between citizens and scientists, grant writing, testimony, and by making himself available to the media. For this work Stout was named Environmental Steward in 2007 by the North American Benthological Society. multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
CONTRIBUTORS
Chris Carmichael, contributor. Chris Carmichael is a freelance multimedia journalist and adjunct professor of visual journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work has been recognized with awards from the National Press Photographers Association, North Carolina Press Photographers Association, and the College Photographer of the Year competition. Most recently, his piece on a family struggling with life after foreclosure, “Under One Roof,” won Best News Audio Slideshow during the National Press Photographers Association’s 2009 Best of Photojournalism contest. multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism
Sara Peach, contributor. Sara Peach is an independent journalist specializing in environmental reporting. Her recent projects include a story on threats to corals in the Florida Keys, a short documentary on an Ohio citizen fighting construction of a coal plant, and reports from the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, which she covered on behalf of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her work has been honored by Pictures of the Year International, the National Press Photographers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. multimedia producing, coaching, multimedia coach, photojournalism

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Coal River Mountain is an ancient Appalachian cradle of rolling ridges and nestled hollows, which provide refuge to a variety of delicate wildlife species and a home to a uniquely American mountain culture. But just beneath the surface lays something that calls into question the mountain’s very survival: $4.3 billion worth of coal. Massey Energy holds permits to clear-cut 6,450 acres of hardwood forest on the mountain and to detonate thousands of tons of explosives. The blasts will topple debris into nine miles of streams below, destroying not just the mountain, but also the land and the way of life of those who live there. The people of Raleigh County, West Virginia are the ones who will suffer from the loss of their mountain to strip mining.

The Coal War is the story of a symbol and a struggle: one mountain destined to be destroyed by the coal industry and a courageous effort to bring renewable energy to the heartland of America.

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