Noel Dannemiler
Location Sound Mixer
Sound, Image, & the Art of Production (Nov 18)
Some of the most important storytelling decisions happen long before the edit begins. This day focuses on the craft and practice of documentary production. From interviewing and cinematography to sound and more, we’ll explore how filmmakers capture moments and turn real-life unpredictability into compelling footage.
TICKETING INFORMATION
Each PRO Day Pass grants access to a single conference day comprised of several panel discussions and all day access to the Festival Lounge where you can enjoy complimentary breakfast and happy hour.
To experience the DOC NYC PRO lineup, purchase an individual PRO Day Pass (via the Buy Ticket button above) or benefit from discounted pricing when you purchase Multi-Day Pass Packs to an assortment of thematic days.
SCHEDULE
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM
Capturing Clean Audio in Chaos: Strategies for Challenging Environments
Crowded streets. Unpredictable weather. Deafening stadiums. Great documentary moments rarely happen under perfect recording conditions. Join filmmakers from DOC NYC, Audio-Technica’s sound engineer Brent Chamberlin and location sound mixer Noel Danemiller of Lock 18 for a practical conversation on how to capture clear, usable sound when the environment is working against you. Learn strategies for recording in noisy, fast-moving, and high-pressure situations, from bustling city streets and live events to sports venues packed with fans. Experienced audio professionals will share microphone selection tips, field techniques, and troubleshooting advice.
Co-presented by Audio-Technica
Noel Dannemiler
Location Sound Mixer
Noel Dannemiller is an Akron, Ohio-based location sound mixer and owner of Lock 18 Inc., specializing in production sound for documentary film, television, and video. Noel has been recording sound on location since 1993, bringing more than three decades of experience to productions in environments ranging from controlled interviews to unpredictable field locations. His documentary credits include One Lucky Elephant, One Bad Cat, and Cleveland vs. Wall Street, along with numerous film and television productions. With a documentary-focused approach, Noel understands that authentic stories often unfold without warning and rarely offer second chances. His goal is to capture clean, natural, detailed sound while remaining unobtrusive and allowing filmmakers and subjects to stay focused on the story. Based in Akron, Noel has worked extensively throughout the United States and internationally, adapting to challenging locations, changing conditions, and the demands of vérité-style production.
Brent Chamberlin
Engineer, Audio-Technica
Brent Chamberlin
Engineer, Audio-Technica
Brent Chamberlin, Broadcast Sales Engineer at Audio-Technica, focuses on developing new accounts with broadcasters, production companies, rights holders, channel partners, and service providers. His ten-plus years at A-T have been focused on technical support of all A-T products. He has also participated in the summer and winter games to support the implementation of A-T products for the host broadcaster. He is a multi-faceted engineer and musician. He loves to capture sound from behind an audio console just as much as creating music in front of a microphone. His passion for audio has driven him to embrace various roles within the industry. He advocates for audio education and continually applies his interest and skillset toward diverse, audio-related projects. He has presented training for the next generation of audio professionals for many institutions, including CRAS, SAE Institute NY, and Harvard University.
Jordan Manley
Filmmaker
Jordan Manley
Filmmaker
Jordan Manley is a filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC, whose films explore human relationships with nature. Jordan has made documentaries in extreme conditions, from snow-covered peaks to deep-sea voyages, including Arc’teryx’s 12-episode series, A Skier’s Journey, and Patagonia Film’s Treeline, which have won two dozen awards at film festivals around the world and two Vimeo “Best of the Year” pick.
11:30 AM – 12:45 PM
Color in the Lens
“Color in the Lens” is where filmmakers get real: no talking points, no rehearsed answers. Host Iyabo Boyd sits down with two directors creating some of the most striking documentary work today – Arielle Knight (The Boys and the Bees) and Marialuisa Ernst (A Place of Absence), guided by frozen frames pulled straight from their films. Part masterclass, this panel zooms in on the choices nobody asks about: the shot that almost got cut, the risk that paid off, the rule they broke on purpose. Born from Brown Girls Doc Mafia, this is a space built to center filmmakers of color on their own terms, one still, one story, one color at a time.
Iyabo Boyd
Founder, Brown Girls Doc Mafia
Iyabo Boyd
Founder, Brown Girls Doc Mafia
Iyabo Boyd is the founder and director of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, whose mission is to bolster the creative and professional success of Iyabo Boyd is the Founder and Executive Director of Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM), which nurtures, amplifies, and invests in the creative capacity and professional success of BIPOC women and nonbinary people working in the documentary industry. Iyabo previously held positions in artist development, program management, and funding across the industry, including at the Points North Institute, Topic, Kickstarter, Good Pitch, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Tribeca Film Institute, and The Gotham. A Rockwood JustFilms Fellow at the Ford Foundation, Iyabo was a 2021 recipient of DocNYC’s New Leaders Award, was named a “Black Visionary” by the Sundance Film Institute, as well as a Documentary Film Influencer by IndieWire. Iyabo is also a writer, director, and producer working in fiction and documentary. She produced the documentary feature For Akheem, which premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, and directed the multi-award-winning short fiction comedy, Me Time.
Arielle Knight
Director and Creative Producer, GoodKnight Films Inc.
Arielle Knight
Director and Creative Producer, GoodKnight Films Inc.
Arielle Knight is an award-winning director and producer whose documentary and hybrid work illuminates untold narratives across the Black diaspora through intimate, formally inventive storytelling rooted in Black futurity and experimentation. Her films have screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide, including Sheffield DocFest, DOC NYC, and True/False. Her short film The Boys and the Bees received a Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival, marking her as a distinct directorial voice. As a producer, she has collaborated on works including the Emmy-winning Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Catapult Film Fund, and Southern Documentary Fund, among others. She is currently developing her feature debut.
Marialuisa Ernst
Filmmaker
Marialuisa Ernst
Filmmaker
Marialuisa Ernst is a New York–based queer transcultural filmmaker originally from Bolivia and Chile, whose intimate, politically engaged cinema draws on her background in performance art to explore memory, loss and the threads that connect us beyond borders.
Her feature debut, A Place of Absence, premiered at DOC NYC and True/False, and has won seven festival awards, including Best Director and Best Feature Documentary at the Breckenridge Film Festival, the Hernández/Bayliss Prize and the Clio Prize at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, and the Jury Award at the Aquí y Allá Film Festival. The film was presented at the Marché du Film in Cannes as part of the Chiledoc commission, and the Los Angeles Times highlighted it as one to watch. Marialuisa’s work has received support from the Tribeca Gucci Fund, Firelight Media, the New York State Council on the Arts and IFP, among others.
Khaula Malik
Director
Khaula Malik
Director
Khaula Malik is an Emmy-Award winning director and producer based in New York City. She most recently co-produced Apple TV+’s Girls State. Her first film How the Air Feels premiered at AFI Docs, won the National Board of Review Student Grant Award, and the Special Jury Award at the Sharjah Film Platform. Her short documentary, There Was Nobody Here We Knew, won best short doc at Fayetteville Film Festival and Virginia Film Festival. It was acquired by PBS and is currently available to stream online. Her latest film, The Custodian, is currently doing the festival circuit and premiered at DC/DOX. Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, HBO, the Doris Duke Foundation, InMaat Foundation, DocSociety, CAAM, Islamic Scholarship Fund, PBS, The Gotham, and others. Her first feature doc, The Nobles, will premiere at DOCNYC. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, served as a programmer for the True/False Film Festival from 2022-2024, and is currently the Program Manager for the Building Bridges Documentary Fund at CAAM.
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
Maximizing Your Camera for Infinite Possibilities
Flooded landscapes. Vanishing shorelines. Faces filling the frame. From sweeping vistas to intimate close-ups, four films will showcase the power of documentary cinematography. Despite working in radically different environments, these filmmakers share a common challenge: how to translate real life into compelling images. Join moderator/cinematographer Derek Howard (Rapinoe), festival filmmakers David Heilbroner and Kate Davis (Totality), and filmmakers from Ephemeral as they unpack the visual decisions behind their films, from observational moments and intimate interviews to expansive landscapes and unfolding events. Through clips, stories from the field, and practical insights, they’ll reveal how cinematography shapes the way we experience a story.
Co-presented by Sony
David Heilbroner
Director and Producer
David Heilbroner
Director and Producer
David is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been exhibited on television networks, streaming platforms and in theaters worldwide. His films include Traffic Stop, Jockey, The Newburgh Sting, Stonewall Uprising, Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, and Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland. He is a long-standing member of AMPAS and ATAS.
Kate Davis
Director
Kate Davis
Director
Kate Davis is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker for Traffic Stop, which also won DOC NYC’s Short Documentary Competition. Davis has won Peabodys for The Newburgh Sting and Stonewall Uprising, an Emmy for Jockey, and a NAACP Award for Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland. Southern Comfort won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and top prizes at Berlin, Hot Docs, and The Grierson.
Derek Howard
Cinematographer
Derek Howard
Cinematographer
Derek Howard is a New York City based director of photography whose collaborations have screened at Venice, Telluride, Berlinale, TIFF, Sundance, DOCNYC, and many others. Immersed in the world of creative documentary, video art, and hybrid formats, he established himself as a risk taking and innovative filmmaker with a focus on observational documentary, LGBTQ+ representation, dance, extreme nature, and climate change stories. He was a participant in the IDFA Summer School, IDFAcademy, Reykjavik International Film Festival’s Trans Atlantic Talent Lab, Berlinale Talents, and the Playlab Filming in the Amazon residency with Apichatpong Weserthat. Derek shot celebrated visual artist Alison O’Daniel’s debut hybrid feature The Tuba Thieves (Sundance 2023), and award-winning filmmaker Tracy Tragos’ Plan C (Sundance 2023). Most recently he shot Rodrigo Reyes hybrid feature Dear Fatima, which won the best film, best direction, and audience awards at the 2026 Guadalajara Film Festival, and Raha Shirazi’s Hotdocs premiering A War on Women.
Mark Bone
Director
Mark Bone
Director
Mark Bone is a documentary director based in Toronto, Canada. His films explore the tension between identity and ambition, following characters at the highest levels of their field. His feature ASD BAND: The Movie won the Audience Award at Hot Docs. He executive-produced Fight Kid which won Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF in 2026 and his latest feature, The Standard, which follows Chris Bumstead’s life, premiered at Austin Film Festival. He has also directed campaigns for global brands including Nike and Mercedes-Benz.
Gabriel Lee
Verebonum Films
Gabriel Lee
Verebonum Films
Gabriel Lee is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Texas. His work spans documentary, narrative, and commercial filmmaking. He is a co-founder of Verebonum Films, a production company dedicated to telling authentic stories.
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
Case Study: Everest: The Other Side
Follow the team behind Academy Award winning Free Solo attempting to document one of the world’s most dangerous environments while navigating the human realities behind the venture. In this case study, producers Shannon Dill and Anna Barnes along with cinematographer Clair Popkin unpack the creative, logistical, and ethical challenges they faced throughout production. How do you balance story with responsibility when filming people in extreme, deadly circumstances? What obligations do filmmakers have to participants, crews, and audiences when lives may be at risk? The conversation explores the production’s breathtaking cinematography, the practical realities of filming at altitude, and the difficult editorial and ethical decisions that shaped the film.
Clair Popkin
Cinematographer
Clair Popkin
Cinematographer
Clair Popkin is an award-winning cinematographer whose work spans feature documentaries, television and commercial filmmaking. He has worked as a Director of Photography for more than a decade, having begun his career in the camera department across documentaries, films and commercials. Since then, he has shot numerous feature documentaries, television projects and commercials. He is a frequent collaborator with filmmakers including Davis Guggenheim, Matt Heineman, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. His first collaboration with Vasarhelyi and Chin was Free Solo, for which he received a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program. Clair has since reunited with Vasarhelyi and Chin for Everest: The Other Side, the ambitious National Geographic Documentary Film captured on Mount Everest, continuing his work capturing extraordinary stories in some of the world’s most challenging environments.
Anna Barnes
Producer
Anna Barnes
Producer
Anna Barnes is an Emmy and Peabody-winning Producer. Her producing credits include features Love+War, The Rescue, Lost in the Jungle, Endurance; the series Photographer; and the upcoming Everest: The Other Side for National Geographic; as well as projects for Netflix and HBO. Previously she was an executive at Cinetic Media, where she worked on many of the top nonfiction films of the past decade, including a long roster of Oscar® winners and nominees such as Vasarhelyi and Chin’s FREE SOLO, Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America, Matthew Heineman’s Cartel Land, Yance Ford’s Strong Island, RaMell Ross’ Hale County: This Morning, This Evening, Asif Kapadia’s Senna, and Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop. Barnes started her career in Boston working with legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, who taught her how to use a Steenbeck. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Documentary Producers Alliance, and the Television Academy.
Shannon Dill
Producer
Shannon Dill
Producer
Shannon Dill is an award-winning producer with over twenty years in nonfiction film and television. She produced the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning Free Solo (National Geographic Documentary Films), directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, which also earned her the Critics’ Choice Award for Most Innovative Documentary and a Cinema Eye Honors Award. Dill produced Everest: The Other Side(National Geographic Documentary Films), following ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson, in theaters and IMAX October 30, 2026. Her previous feature, Love+War (2025), premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and streams on Disney+ and Hulu.
Other credits include Co-Executive Producer on Netflix’s Working: What We Do All Day and the Oscar-nominated Time; Executive Producer of Inside Bill’s Brain, The Price of Free, and Walk Run Cha-Cha; and an Emmy win for Boys State. Her work also includes Foo Fighters: Back and Forth, Inheritance, and Running the Sahara.
Liz Nord
NYU Production Lab
Liz Nord
NYU Production Lab
Liz Nord is an Emmy-winning producer, filmmaker, writer, and creative strategist who champions bold storytelling and the next generation of creators. She is Head of Programs and Creative Development at the NYU Production Lab, where she leads the Feature Film Development Studio. Previously, she was Director of Content at Sundance, helping grow Sundance Collab into a global hub for filmmakers, and Editor-in-Chief at No Film School. A founding member of Film Fatales, Liz has mentored hundreds of creators and is a frequent speaker at major festivals like Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, and DOC NYC. Her work spans film, journalism, and multi-platform storytelling—from election coverage for MTV News to international documentary productions, including her critically acclaimed film Jericho’s Echo which screened at over 100 festivals and venues worldwide.
TODAY’S ACTIVATIONS
Join DOC NYC sponsors Audio-Technica (in the Festival Lounge) and B&H (in the Village East lobby) for a live demonstration of the latest audio and camera equipment.
DOC NYC PRO is co-presented by:
