Francine Douwes

Producer

Francine Douwes has extensive experience in both traditional media and non-linear media production, producing award-winning in the media of film, video, CD-ROM, and for the web. She is a 1989 MFA graduate from Columbia University's School of the Arts Film Division with a focus on screenwriting and directing; her thesis was under the aegis of Academy-Award winning director Milos Forman.

From 1986 through 1994 she worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Theatre Arts, a publishing company that created works about international theatre. Among her film and video projects as producer, writer and editor there were Jane Austen's Life and Times, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus & Tamburlaine, and Shakespeare's Henry VIII. She also taught video production and post-production at Columbia University's Film Division from 1987-1992.

In 1989, she produced with Rebo High-Definition Studios Performance Pieces, a 10-minute HDTV film starring F. Murray Abraham. The piece won Best Short Fiction Film at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. She also worked as a producer on Shoeshine (1987) nominated for Best Short at the 1987 Academy Awards.

An interest in the growing field of interactive production led Douwes into CD-ROM production, working with Philips and CapDisc Interactive, early pioneers in interactive media. In 1995, she joined the Voyager Company, a leader in interactive publishing, working on a number of projects including media archaeologist Rick Prelinger's 12 CD-ROM opus, Our Secret Century; and Children's International Songbook, which won "Top 50 software products for the family" award from Newsweek Magazine in 1997.

In 1999, Douwes moved to Hearst Interactive Studios, a division of Hearst magazines, She produced projects for Popular Mechanics, CosmoGirl, Esquire magazines, and King Features, the syndicated properties division of Hearst.

Since 2002, Douwes has worked freelance on a number of small videos including a number of home movie transfers, Bar Mitzvah and other celebration video montages, and other pieces while raising her son. September, 2007, marks the launch of her latest project as producer, the new website of Wings WorldQuest, Inc., (wingsworldquest.org)