Ben Shedd has been a professional film and video director, producer, and writer since 1970. He has won an Academy Award.

He earned a degree from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 School of Cinematic Arts

USC School of Cinematic Arts

The USC School of Cinematic Arts, until 2006 named the School of Cinema-Television , is a film school within the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is the oldest and largest such school in the United States, established in 1929 as a joint venture with the Academy of...

 in 1973.

Ben Shedd shares a Peabody Award

Peabody Award

The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...

 for the second season of the PBS science series Nova

NOVA (TV series)

Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...

. As a member of the original production team, he worked on the very first program in 1972 and acted as a director, producer, and writer during Nova’s second and third seasons in 1973-1976.

Jacqueline Phillips Shedd and Ben Shedd, producers of The Flight of the Gossamer Condor

The Flight of the Gossamer Condor

The Flight of the Gossamer Condor is a 1978 short documentary film directed by Ben Shedd, about the development of the Gossamer Condor, the first human-powered aircraft. It won an Academy Award in 1979 for Documentary Short Subject.-Cast:...

film, received the 1978 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...

. The film tells the story about history's first successful human powered airplane—designed by inventor Paul MacCready

Paul MacCready

Paul B. MacCready, Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the Kremer prize...

 and his team from AeroVironment

AeroVironment

AeroVironment Inc. is a technology company in Monrovia, California, and Simi Valley, California, that is primarily involved in energy systems, electric vehicle systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles . Paul B. MacCready, Jr., a famous designer of human powered aircraft, founded the company in 1971...

 and flown by pilot Bryan Allen

Bryan Allen (cyclist)

Bryan L. Allen is self-taught hang glider pilot and bicyclist. He achieved fame when he piloted the aircraft that won the first two Kremer prizes for human-powered flight, the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross...

.

Since 1985, filmmaker Ben Shedd has directed and produced giant screen IMAX

IMAX

IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...

-type science films, including Seasons and Tropical Rainforest. Ben Shedd has described large-format film and fulldome video

Fulldome

Fulldome refers to immersive dome-based video projection environments. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time or pre-rendered computer animations, live capture images, or composited environments....

 as “exploding the frame,” where the frame to which he refers relates to experiences typified by “framed” cinematic art

Film theory

Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...

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External links