About

 

Adam Friedman (Writer/Director) >>

Iain Kennedy (Writer/Director) >>

Ann Gloag (Executive Producer) >>

Meryl Streep (Narrator) >>

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ADAM FRIEDMAN (Writer/Director)

 

Vertical Ascent Founder and President Adam Friedman has over 22 years of entertainment industry experience. An award-winning filmmaker and television producer, Friedman began his career directing a documentary entitled WOLVES IN WINTER, which went on to receive two Emmy nominations. Friedman’s next project, COLOR ME BLUE, about the NYPD and its many heroes, won him his first Emmy.

Friedman moved on to shooting music videos, and his video for the Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” was part of the Whitney Museum Biennial celebration, and his video for Whodini’s “Big Mouth” is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Friedman has also directed feature films, and his debut, MEDIUM STRAIGHT, was shown in Critics Week at the Cannes Film Festival.  MEDIUM STRAIGHT also won Best Picture at the Seattle Film Festival and Best Director at the Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival. His other features include the horror film TO SLEEP WITH A VAMPIRE, starring Scott Valentine, and the documentary PLAYING PATTI, about the child acting career of his wife, Patti Cohoon-Friedman.

He has also produced and directed a multitude of biographies for A&E, that have included figures as diverse as Kevin Costner, Dolly Parton, and LL Cool J.  Friedman’s “John Travolta: The Inside Story” (2004), tripled A&E’s viewership and went on to receive Emmy nominations for Best Non-Fiction series and Best Director. Through his company Vertical Ascent, Friedman has produced hundreds of hours of non-fiction programming for Discovery, The History Channel, HBO, and Spike TV.

In 2010, Friedman directed “U.S. Navy: Pirate Hunters,” where he and his crew went on the longest embark since WWII, aboard the USS Gettysburg for eight weeks to hunt pirates off the coast of Somalia. More recently, Friedman produced and directed the 3D documentary series “In Deep,” which looked at such diverse subjects as the Kentucky Derby (“Derby Diaries”), the final launch of the space shuttle program (“NASA: Last Launch”) and the tactics, training and weapons of the Special Ops forces, including members of SEAL Team 6, leaders of the assault on Bin Laden (“Special Ops”).

 

IAIN KENNEDY (Writer/Director)

 

Emmy nominee Iain Kennedy is a screenwriter, director, editor, and producer. A native of London, he attended the USC school of Cinema/Television MFA production program, where he made a number of short films, including “Angel’s Trumpet,” which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.  His feature documentary, PALACE OF SILENTS (2011), was released by Flicker Alley and shown on TCM. His short film, “Asteroid,” which he both wrote and directed, is currently streaming on Vimeo.

Kennedy received an Emmy nomination in 2004 for his work as editor, writer, and supervising producer of A&E’s “John Travolta: The Inside Story.” His film editing credits include Xan Cassavettes’s  Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (2004, Official selection at Cannes,  Toronto, LA Film Festivals, and others); BOUNCE: BEHIND THE VELVET ROPE (2000, Best Film, LA Independent Film Festival); TUPAC SHAKUR: THUG ANGEL (2002); and THE WALK (Sundance Film Festival, 2001). Kennedy has also worked as editor and writer on the video documentaries THE ART OF 16 BARS: GET YA’ BARS UP; THE MC: WHY WE DO IT; and BLACK AND BLUE: LEGENDS OF THE HIP-HOP COP.

He wrote the short film “Ant,” which screened at Tribeca and Clermont-Ferrand, and co-wrote and was cinematographer on Brad Kluck’s short film “Diamond Lane,” which screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival.  His most recent work as screenwriter can be seen in director Peter Spirer’s feature film JUST ANOTHER DAY.  He was producer of INVENTIONS and was associate producer on the videogame “Monty Python: The Quest for the Holy Grail.”

For Vertical Ascent, Kennedy has produced and written for “iN Deep,” a series of 3D documentaries for Comcast/Time Warner. For these films he had the opportunity to film the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, the world of thoroughbred horse racing, U.S. Special Ops and the glamour of Broadway, among many other subjects.

 

ANN GLOAG (Executive Producer)

 

Born in Perth, Scotland, the daughter of a bus driver and the oldest of three children, Ann Gloag worked for two decades as a burns unit nurse. With her brother, Sir Brian Souter, she established the Stagecoach Group in 1980, running two buses from Scotland to London. They expanded the company through the 1980s and 1990s, and it is now one of the largest transportation companies in the world, with bus and rail businesses across five continents, and three million passengers a day. In North America, Stagecoach operates Coach USA, Gray Line New York Sightseeing, and megabus.com.  She remains a non-executive director of the company.

Through her Balcraig and Gloag Foundations, she has supported a wide variety of philanthropy, including nursing colleges; trafficked women and children; cancer, heart disease and dementia charities; a leprosy mission in India; and Gilda’s Club in New York—but she is involved most heavily in Africa. In Kenya, she funds and runs an orphanage and a school, the Jonathan Gloag Academy, in Nairobi and set up a girls’ female genital mutilation rescue centre with the cooperation of the local Maasai chiefs. She also runs a school for 200 children in the world’s largest slum, Kibera.  

In 2008, Gloag established the Freedom From Fistula Foundation, which operates fistula clinics in Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone. A fourth facility is set to open in Toamatave, Madagascar in the spring of 2016.

In April 2010, Gloag opened a maternity unit in Sierra Leone as part of the Aberdeen Women’s Centre in Freetown which already treats fistula patients and operates a children’s clinic. The Centre provides a holistic approach to the care of women and children and has the support of the local government. More than 100 babies are safely delivered at the unit each month.

She also serves on the international and UK boards of Mercy Ships, a Texas-based charity that provides free medical and humanitarian aid to the people of West Africa via hospitals based on ships.  In 1999, she bought the charity a former Danish rail ferry and spearheaded its conversion into the world’s largest charity hospital ship—The Africa Mercy.

Gloag has previously helped establish a hospital in Malawi and currently sits on the Malawi Advisory Committee in Scotland. She also supports micro-finance projects in the country through her work with Opportunity International.

In appreciation of her service, Queen Elizabeth appointed Gloag as an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004.

In 2009, she was admitted into the Order of the Star of Africa with the grade of Commander, in recognition of her support for the people and the country of Liberia.

Gloag is a past winner of the Businesswoman of the Year Award, European Women in Achievement Award, and has won a Great Scot Award for her work with Mercy Ships. She is an ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’ of E-spark, a business innovation organization. She was formerly a trustee of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Grameen Scotland Foundation and board member of Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Gloag was honored with the inaugural Susan B. Anthony Humanitarian Award from the National Council of Women of the United States at the United Nations in 2010 and the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kil Medal in 2011.  In March 2013, Ann was named Global Woman of the Year by the St. Andrews Society of the State of New York.

 

MERYL STREEP (Narrator)

 

For almost forty years, Meryl Streep has portrayed an astonishing array of characters in a career that has cut its own unique path from the theater through film and television.

Streep was educated in the New Jersey public school system through high school, graduated cum laude from Vassar College, and received her MFA with honors from Yale University in 1975. She began her professional life on the New York stage, where she quickly established her signature versatility and verve as an actor. Within three years of graduation, she made her Broadway debut, won an Emmy (for “Holocaust”) and received her first Oscar nomination (for THE DEERHUNTER). She has won three Academy Awards and in 2015, in a record that is unsurpassed, she earned a 19th Academy Award^® nomination for her role as The Witch in INTO THE WOODS. Her performance also earned her Golden Globe^® and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. She is currently appearing in the Diablo Cody-scripted RICKI AND THE FLASH, directed by Jonathan Demme. She is currently in production on Stephen Frears’ FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS.

Streep has pursued her interest in the environment through her work with Mothers and Others, a consumer advocacy group that she co-founded in 1989. M&O worked for ten years to promote sustainable agriculture, establish new pesticide regulations, and ensure the availability of organic and sustainably grown local foods.

She also lends her efforts to Women for Women International, Equality Now, Women in the World Foundation, and Partners in Health.

 

PATTI COHOON-FRIEDMAN (Producer)

Patricia Cohoon-Friedman was born and raised in Placentia, CA, where her grandmother saw show business potential in her and paid for her first publicity pictures. After landing a role as Susan Olsen’s stand-in on “The Brady Bunch,” Patti was soon featured on many of the most famous 70s television shows, including “The Partridge Family,” “Here Come the Brides,” “Apple’s Way,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Emergency!”

As a member of the musical group The Mike Curb Congregation, Cohoon-Friedman was a regular on the Glenn Campbell show, toured with Liberace, and sang on the Sammy Davis, Jr. hit “The Candy Man.”  The Mike Curb Congregation also had a number of successful recording on their own, notably “Burning Bridges,” the theme to the Clint Eastwood film KELLY’S HEROES, “Sweet Gingerbread Man,” and “It’s a Small Small World.”

After enjoying so much success at such a young age, Patti decided to try her hand in a different facet of the entertainment industry: film production. With her husband and producing partner, Adam Friedman, Patti has produced Emmy-award winning shows for networks such as A&E, Biography, and the History Channel.

In 1998, Patti collaborated with her husband on the humorous documentary PLAYING PATTI, where she reflects on having attained her greatest creative and financial success before she reached the age of 19.

 

JACKIE VORHAUER (Producer)

In her thirteen years in the television industry, producer/writer/director Jackie Vorhauer has traveled to China, Ethiopia, Ecuador, the UK to film TV specials and documentaries, chronicling subjects from historical depictions to medical emergencies.  She won a Golden Cine and Silver Telly for “China's First Emperor,” and a Los Angeles Emmy for “Imagine: A Celebration of Children’s Hospital.”  Her other credits include: “Missing Persons Unit,” “Secret Lives of Women,” and “America’s Book of Secrets.”

After working in Sierra Leone with the female patients at the Aberdeen Women’s Center, Vorhauer realized she wanted to make a more long-term commitment to those who walked through the doors of nonprofits such as AWC. Upon returning to the states, she dove into the nonprofit world. After volunteering with PATH (People Assisting the Homeless), she became a full-time employee in their Communications office, where she combines her love of storytelling with hands-on work promoting the organization’s mission.

She continues her personal documentary work on the side and is anticipating another chance to work with Adam Friedman and his team in the future.

Vorhauer grew up in South Jersey, and received her Bachelors degree in Visual Media, with a minor in Sociology, from American University in Washington, DC. She worked in Washington, D.C. as a producer for six years before moving to Los Angeles in 2008.

 

ROMA TORRE (Producer)

Roma Torre is one of New York City most celebrated TV journalists. She has worked as an anchor, a reporter, a writer, a producer, a host, and a critic. Torre has won more than 25 Broadcasting Awards including an Emmy, and most recently a 2015 Press Club Award for her coverage of the Eric Garner case.  She is an Ambassador for Freedom From Fistula Foundation.

Originally an actress, Torre performed in numerous soaps and off-Broadway productions, before she began her television career at Channel 2 News, moving up to writing and producing. In 1986, when Cablevision announced the formation of the country's first 24-hour local news station, News12 Long Island, she was among the first reporters hired. She stayed at News12 for five years, reporting, anchoring and hosting a weekly news program, and serving as the film and theater critic.

In 1992, Torre joined NY1, where she served as anchor on “News All Morning,” “Inside City Hall,” “News All Evening,” and currently serves as anchor of “News All Day.” She is also NY1’s Chief Theatre Critic, and regularly contributes to the weekly theatre show, “NY1 On Stage.” She also continues to cover news stories and special events.

Born in New York City, Roma Torre was raised in Pittsburgh and later graduated with a degree in English and history from Tufts University. While in Boston she started a theater company with fellow student Ed Lopez, who she later married. They now have two children: Alejandro and Alegra.

A cancer survivor, Torre has become a tireless advocate for cancer prevention. She serves on the board of the National Association of Women Artists.

 

MARTY MULLIN (Director of Photography)

Marty Mullin first collaborated with director Adam Friedman twenty years ago, when he was director of photography on the TV documentary, “John Travolta: The Inside Story.”    They most recently teamed for 12 episodes of the 3D documentary series “iN Deep.”

Mullin’s TV credits include: “Biography” (“Mario Andretti”), “The Crash of Flight 191,” “Boneyard: The Secret Life of Machines,” “Tim Tebow: On a Mission,” and “Dark Secrets.”  He has also served as Director of Photography on the feature films PORTRAIT OF A PIONEER, BARBARA M. KORSCH, M.D, and Iain Kennedy’s PALACE OF SILENTS , among others. Mullin also co-wrote and produced a short film, ROOM 115: GROUP 1. 

After receiving his degree in English Literature, started working in the film industry as a production assistant, gradually working his way up to Director of Photography.

 

SEAN MacGOWAN  (Editor)

Sean Ian MacGowan is an award-winning editor with fifteen years of experience. The first project he ever worked on, WNET’s “The Face: Jesus in Art,” won an Emmy Award for best single-camera cinematography. In addition to being an editor MacGowan is also a motion graphics artist, colorist, camera operator, sound mixer, and stereoscopic 3D pioneer.

He has worked often for Adam Friedman on shows for A&E, Biography, History, Versus, SPEED, Comcast, iN DEMAND, Vutopia, Screen Media Films, and Rive Gauche.  MacGowan recently completed a thirteen-part high definition Australian Outback Adventure series where he served as story producer, writer, lead editor, and camera operator.

MacGowan attended school at UCLA Extension, Moviola Hollywood, and Glendale College.

 

ODD NOSDAM (Composer)

David P. Madson, better known by his stage name Odd Nosdam, is an American underground hip hop producer, DJ, composer, and visual artist. He first became known for his production work as a member of the band cLOUDDEAD in 2001. Since then, as a producer and co-founder of the independent record label Anticon, Nosdam has gone on to record and release some of the most revered work in the abstract hip-hop world. Through his dozens of solo productions, collaborations and remixes, he has pioneered a “super-saturated, no-fi weirdness” that intersects British IDM, West Coast hip-hop, and ethereal drone.

Director Friedman was turned on to Nosdam’s music by his daughter.  “I kept seeing the opening of the movie through his sounds,” says Friedman. “His music is intense, complex, and hopeful, and that is what I think we are facing in Africa.”

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Photograph of Meryl Streep by Brigitte Lacombe

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