Park Pictures Signs Chris Wilcha

Park Pictures Signs Director Chris Wilcha
 
 

Chris Wilcha has joined Park Pictures.

Two-time Emmy-winning director Chris Wilcha has joined the roster at the L.A. and New York-based production company Park Pictures.  He’s already directed his first project through the new association, shooting for Hyundai.   Wilcha is the director and co-executive producer of the Showtime TV series “This American Life,” which was adapted from a program running featuring storytellers on Chicago Public Radio.
 
“We’ve been huge fans of ‘This American Life’ for a long time,” says Park Partner/EP Jackie Bisbee. “We were amazed at how Chris translated people telling stories on the radio into visually innovative television without altering the soul of the original.”
 
Wilcha, who has helmed spots, pilots and short films for MTV, Microsoft, PBS, Walmart, TV Land and others, is part of a new breed of directors who blend narrative filmmaking detail with the emotional realism of documentary. His first work for Park includes a spot titled  “Classroom,” part of Hyundai's “Hope on Wheels” campaign out of Innocean Worldwide.  The spot employs an emptied-out classroom as a visual metaphor for children lost to cancer.
 
In 2008, Wilcha won two Emmy Awards and two International Documentary Association Awards for his work on “This American Life.” His first-person documentary, “The Target Shoots First,”which chronicled the director’s stint in the marketing department at infamous mail-order record club Columbia House, garnered a shelf full of festival awards and aired on Cinemax and the Sundance Channel.  His other documentary projects include "The Social History of the Mosh Pit," "Second Hand Stories" and "I Pity the Fool," with the incredible Mr. T. 
 
Wilcha recently moved from New York to Los Angeles and is currently developing a project for producer-director Judd Apatow.

Published 12 October, 2010