Chip Duncan

Biography

Chip Duncan was born in Shenandoah, Iowa and later resided in Michigan and Wisconsin. Duncan graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a degree in English and Communication Arts. He began his career in media at an NBC affiliate as a news producer and photographer. Duncan also performed for several years in a bluegrass band called Broken Bow; the band released one album, Arrival, in 1981. Duncan co-wrote for The Twilight Zone in 1985 and began his production company the same year. Since that time, he has worked extensively as a writer, producer, director and photographer of numerous films and television programs.

Film and TV

His documentary productions include:

Tolkien & Lewis - Myth, Imagination and the Quest for Meaning (released nationwide in the US on public television during September, 2017 by American Public Television (APT). The one hour documentary about the spiritual journey of author C.S. Lewis and his friendship with fellow Inkling and acclaimed author J.R.R. Tolkien was written & directed by Chip Duncan. The producers are Chip Duncan, Robert Huck, Patricia Ostermick and David Crouse. Iowa Public Television (IPTV) is the presenting station to the PBS system. The film includes scholars Christopher Mitchell, Reza Aslan, Tom Shippey and Verlyn Flieger among others.

The Reagan Presidency series (American Public Television - 2013), PBS special Landslide –- A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover, the 2-part series Prayer In America, The Cost of Freedom –- Civil Liberties, Security and the USA PATRIOT Act, Beyond the Gridiron -– The Life & Times of Woody Hayes, The Magic Never Ends -- The Life & Work of CS Lewis, In A Just World –- Contraception, Abortion & World Religion, Wisconsin: An American Portrait and Rafting Alaska’s Wildest Rivers. Duncan was also a consulting producer on the HBO Sports special The Rivalry and the PBS special Henry A. Wallace.

In 2011 Duncan completed "The Life & Death of Glaciers" a two-part classroom educational series on climate change, which is distributed by Discovery Education. January 2013 saw the release of Duncan's latest documentary production "The Reagan Presidency" a three-part series distributed by American Public Television for PBS affiliates nationwide.

In 1999, Duncan produced and directed Through One City’s Eyes, an in-depth campaign on race relations that included a nationwide public television broadcast, a seven-part public radio series, a two-part classroom series for middle school students, and a traveling photo museum.

Duncan’s production of the 13-part television series Mystic Lands featuring spiritual places of the world debuted on Discovery Networks. Duncan was the series creator, executive producer, and director as well as the writer and photographer of numerous episodes.

In 1992, Duncan wrote, produced, directed, and photographed Tatshenshini: A Journey to the Ice Age for public television. Duncan’s 1993 production of Alaska’s Bald Eagle: New Threats to Survival was the winner of the “Best New Wildlife Filmmaker” award at the 1993 Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival. During his production of the 1994 public television special 'Positive Thinking: The Norman Vincent Peale Story, Duncan and co-producer David Crouse interviewed five American presidents: Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Duncan’s feature film credits include producing Eden, a 1996 Sundance Film Festival Finalist, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. That same year, Duncan executive produced the movie Cadillac Ranch. He was also producer of the movie Row Your Boat featuring Jon Bon Jovi and co-executive producer of The Break Up featuring Kiefer Sutherland and Bridget Fonda.

Duncan’s 1986-87 production of Is Anyone Listening?, an educational series for teenagers, is among the best-selling classroom series of all time.

Duncan is the co-author of two stories sold to the CBS network remake of the Twilight Zone in 1985.

Books

Still photography

Duncan’s work as a still photographer has been exhibited in numerous locations since 2009 including the Kenosha Public Museum (2016), Council on Foreign Relations (2013), the World Peace Festival in Berlin (2011), the O Street Museum in Washington, DC (2011) and the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Michigan (2009). Photographic works include an emphasis on people from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Sudan, Pakistan and Kenya.

Other work

Duncan is president of the Duncan Group, Inc, a documentary and feature film production company established in 1984. He is an advisor to the World Peace Festival in Berlin. Duncan is also an advisor to the Uprooted Theater Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin as well as America's Black Holocaust Museum Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Broadcast TV credits

Feature films

Festival films

In this festival award-winning documentary, sixty-two-year old Kenyan sound engineer Abdul Rahman Ramadhan recounts his extraordinary and often heartbreaking career covering crisis zones throughout East Africa. During a generation of work with acclaimed photojournalist and Camerapix founder Mohamed Amin and others, Abdul has experienced and recorded the sounds of genocide, war, revolution, anarchy and famine in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda.

Festival Awards for The Sound Man:

*** The recognition for The Sound Man also included the Association of International Broadcasters awarding its 2016 AIB FOUNDER’S AWARD to Kenyan-based sound engineer Abdul Rahman Ramadhan during a London gala on November 2, 2016. The AIB Founders Award was inaugurated in 2011. Previous recipients of this prestigious award include: Sarina Arnold and Helen Stehli Pfister [2011] Jessica Beinicke [2012] Giles Duley [2013] Komla Dumor [posthumously, 2014] Mike Wooldridge [2015]