Team

MELANIE PERKINS McLAUGHLIN

DIRECTOR

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin is a documentary filmmaker whose career spans 30 years and counting. During that time Melanie she has held various titles ranging from a consultant with ABC news  to senior producer with A&E, co-producer with the Discovery Channel, associate producer with the BBC and as a writer /producer/director with HBO. Melanie is most proud of the deeply personal feature-length documentary, “Have You Seen Andy?”, a story of trauma and resilience that was her directorial debut winning an Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism in 2008.  It was also the first time she narrated a feature-length documentary! 

Melanie was a ward of the state who put herself through college by waitressing. She graduated with a double major in human services and communications/media from Fitchburg State College. She began working in television first as an intern with the longest-running series on public television, NOVA. She was hired as a production assistant working on national broadcasts  for the Boston based PBS station WGBH where she traveled from Sarasota Bay documenting the habitat of wild dolphins to London recreating the medieval Great Fire of London and Kitty Hawk filming replicas of the first flight. As an Associate Producer Melanie managed to get a baby grand piano onto a beach in Martha’s Vineyard as a last minute prop. She also followed directions when told to stop air traffic controllers from navigating flights during a film shoot (they did not listen). Her longest shoot (and most well-paid single day job) was a sixteen-hour commercial shoot where Melanie and two additional associate producers spent the night in a grocery store re-arranging display boxes of tea bags on a store shelf while  a producer / director, lighting director, grip and director of photography filmed the tea bags from every possible angle. Melanie has been present for interviews with geniuses like MIT’s Marvin Minsky and actor / comedians like Sam Waterston and Alan Alda . She also worked on one of the first ever online chats with renown author, Frank McCourt. She has led an interesting career of adventure and storytelling.