Ross Katz
Encyclopedia
Ross Katz is a Jewish American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Prior to becoming a producer, Katz was a commercial rock DJ on 94 WYSP FM in Philadelphia. He got his start in movies working as a grip on Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

's Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs is an American crime film marking debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist, but not the heist itself. Reservoir Dogs stars an ensemble cast: Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and...

,
then interned at Good Machine
Good Machine
Good Machine was an independent film production, film distribution, and foreign sales company started in the early 1990s by its co-founders and producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus. David Linde joined in the late 90s to start the international sales company...

 eventually becoming Ted Hope
Ted Hope
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City.As the American Indie wave hit in the early 90’s, Ted was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work...

's assistant. It was Hope who encouraged Katz to try his hand at producing. His first effort was Jim Fall
Jim Fall
Jim Fall is an American film and television director and film producer.He is best known for directing the films Trick , his directorial debut and The Lizzie McGuire Movie . He also directed the independent films He Touched Me and Love is Deaf, Dumb and Blind...

's Trick
Trick (film)
Trick is a 1999 gay-themed romantic comedy film directed by Jim Fall. Trick appeared at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals in 1999. Filming was completed in less than three weeks in August 1998.-Plot:...

. The film was one of the early independents to explore homosexual cinema treated as romantic comedy
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...

.

Next he co-executive produced, along with Ted Hope
Ted Hope
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City.As the American Indie wave hit in the early 90’s, Ted was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work...

 & Anne Carey
Anne Carey
Anne Carey is an independent film producer based in New York City.Carey began her career working as the head of development for William Morris Agency, serving their top film and television clients. In the early 1990s she began working as both a producer and head of development for production...

, an HBO television mini-series of Moisés Kaufman
Moisés Kaufman
Moisés Kaufman is a playwright, director and founder of Tectonic Theater Project. He is the author of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, 33 Variations and is perhaps best known for writing The Laramie Project with other members of Tectonic Theater Project...

's play The Laramie Project
The Laramie Project
The Laramie Project is a play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the reaction to the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepard in Laramie,...

. The mini-series version of The Laramie Project
The Laramie Project (film)
The Laramie Project is a 2002 drama film written and directed by Moisés Kaufman. Based on the play of the same name, the film tells the story of the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming...

was adapted by Kaufman and members of New York's Tectonic Theater Project
Tectonic Theater Project
With Moisés Kaufman at the helm, the Tectonic Theater Project explores the ways in which experimentation with form and structure can inform theme in contemporary drama....

 who went to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Wayne Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998...

. The piece is based on more than 200 interviews they conducted while there. It follows and in some cases re-enacts the chronology of Shepherd's visit to a local bar, his kidnap and beating, the discovery of him tied to a fence, the vigil at the hospital, his death and funeral, and the trial of his homophobic killers. The mini-series mixes real news reports with actors portraying friends, family, cops, killers, and other Laramie residents in their own words. It concludes with a Laramie staging of "Angels in America" a year after Shephard's death.

Katz went on to co-produce two Academy Award Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

 nominees; Todd Field
Todd Field
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.-Background and personal life:...

's In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...

and Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Carmina Coppola is an American screenwriter, film director, actress, and producer.In 2003 she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation, and became the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing...

's Lost in Translation
Lost in Translation (film)
Lost in Translation is a 2003 American film written and directed by Sofia Coppola; her second feature film after The Virgin Suicides and it stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson...

.

In 2009 Katz returned to HBO for another real-life story Taking Chance
Taking Chance
Taking Chance is a 2009 historical drama film based upon the experiences of Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl , who escorts the body of a fallen Marine, PFC Chance Phelps , back to his hometown from the Iraq War....

. This was his directorial debut and was praised by television critics for its "reverence and sensitivity" to the men in uniform. Based on a true story, the brief film — it runs less than 90 minutes — follows the journey of a fallen U.S. Marine, 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps
Chance Phelps
Chance Russell Phelps was a Private First Class in the United States Marine Corps who served with 2nd Platoon, Battery L, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment , 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.Phelps was killed in Iraq as the convoy he was...

, as his body makes its way across the country accompanied by a Marine escort, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl
Michael Strobl
Michael R. Strobl is a retired United States Marine Corps officer.After serving in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he took a desk job at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia...

 (Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....

). Strobl wrote about the experience in 2004 and his journal entry has been e-mailed and posted online, where it gained an avid following (read it at ChancePhelps.org). He was nominated for an Emmy and co-won the WGA Award (TV) in Long Form adaptation at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2009
Writers Guild of America Awards 2009
The 62nd Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best film, television, and videogame writers of 2009. Winners were announced on February 20, 2010.-Best Adapted Screenplay:*Crazy Heart*Julie & Julia...

 with Michael Strobl
Michael Strobl
Michael R. Strobl is a retired United States Marine Corps officer.After serving in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he took a desk job at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia...

.

Katz has had three films in competition at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

 and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

 (producers branch) in 2005.

Awards and nominations

  • Academy Award
    • Nominated: Best Picture
      Academy Award for Best Picture
      The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

       - In the Bedroom
      In the Bedroom
      In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...

      shared with Todd Field
      Todd Field
      William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.-Background and personal life:...

    • Nominated: Best Picture - Lost in Translation
      Lost in Translation (film)
      Lost in Translation is a 2003 American film written and directed by Sofia Coppola; her second feature film after The Virgin Suicides and it stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson...

      shared with Sofia Coppola
      Sofia Coppola
      Sofia Carmina Coppola is an American screenwriter, film director, actress, and producer.In 2003 she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation, and became the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing...

  • BAFTA Award
    • Nominated: Best Picture - Lost in Translation
      Lost in Translation (film)
      Lost in Translation is a 2003 American film written and directed by Sofia Coppola; her second feature film after The Virgin Suicides and it stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson...


External links

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