About the Show
About the Producers

Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, Producer and Director
Jennifer Maytorena Taylor works in both public television and independent film. As the series producer of KQED's weekly series Independent View (1999 -- 2000), she developed the show and produced its first 22 episodes. She was associate producer of Living Room Festival (1996), also broadcast by KQED.

Taylor received the 1998 James D. Phelan Art Award in Video for her body of work, which includes musical comedies and experimental shorts. Along with Vicky Funari, Taylor is the producer, writer and editor of the award-winning Spanish-language feature documentary Paulina (1997), which was recently acquired for prime-time broadcast by Mexico's largest network, Televisa.

Taylor's next project, My Comrade Yankee, is a one-hour documentary about four North Americans who have "defected" to Cuba. A resident of San Francisco's Mission District for 16 years, Taylor is a member of Project Artaud, an artist-owned and -operated live/work collective.

Sue Ellen McCann, Senior Executive Producer
Sue Ellen McCann has been in television production for 16 years. McCann's previous experience working on national PBS productions includes Frontline documentaries at the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Digital Divide episode Fair Play, a documentary that examined the role computers play in widening social gaps throughout our society, and the national Bill Moyers companion program on death and dying, With Eyes Open. McCann has also extended her work into new digital formats, including Web sites, CD ROMs and touch screen kiosks. In 1999, she was executive producer for the launch and subsequent production of nearly 50 half-hour episodes of the series, Digital West, the local program that has since become Springboard. Presently, McCann also serves as executive producer for the award-winning Bay Window series, locally produced by KQED Public Television 9.

Sophia Constantinou, Director of Photography
Constantinou's credits include narrative and documentary works shot in both video and film. She recently shot Public Defender, produced and directed by Pam Yates for PBS. Other credits include the ITVS LInCS production The Harry Hay Documentary Project by Eric Slade and the new feature film Desi's Looking for a New Girl by Mary Guzmán.

Constantinou also works as a director. Her latest documentary, Divided Loyalties, about the war-torn island of Cyprus, had its world premiere at the 2001 San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won a Golden Gate Award. Her documentary Between the Lines (1997) won a Golden Spire Award at the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival and was acquired by the Sundance Channel and DVD Magazine.

Shirley Gutierrez, Editor
Shirley Gutierrez has been working in television for the last 20 years. Her recent editing credits include the feature-length documentaries The Last Stand and Does Love See. In 1999 she edited Speaking Freely for KQED's Bay Window series.

Robin Epstein, Associate Producer
Robin Epstein has worked as an associate producer on KQED television projects since 1990. Her KQED productions include three seasons of the environmental series Green Means, a documentary about biologist Paul Erlich, and The Smart Parent's Guide to TV Violence with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Epstein has contributed to 12 Bay Window episodes, including Making the Grade and With Eyes Open, and served as the interim series producer from March to July 2000. Prior to joining KQED, she worked at KRON-TV and ZDTV as an associate producer. A lifelong Bay Area resident, Eosteub earned her bachelor's degree in broadcasting from San Francisco State University.

Nicole Atkinson-Roach, Field Producer
Nicole Atkinson-Roach has been working in documentary production for more than a decade. She recently directed and produced two shorts for KQED's Bay Window Why2K series, for which she received a Regional Emmy Award. Her independent documentaries include Lockin' Up (1997) and Word of Mouth (1991), both of which won numerous awards and were broadcast on PBS. Her current work-in-progress, a documentary about slavery called The Middle Passage, is in postproduction.

Atkinson-Roach also worked with the late Emmy Award winning director Marlon Riggs on Black Is ... Black Ain't (1995), Color Adjustment and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret).

Atkinson-Roach has a masters degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor's degree in mass communications from the University of California at Los Angeles.

 
 
 


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