Stephen Kopels, Director of Education

Stephen has been a working filmmaker and television director for the past thirty-five years. His career started in 1968 as a combat photographer in Vietnam, shooting pictures for The United States Army journal Stars and Stripes, The New York Times, Newsweek, and other major publications. Upon completing his tour of duty, Stephen returned to college and attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Filmmaking.

For the next twelve years, Stephen worked for PBS as a senior producer/director. During his time with PBS, Stephen created hundreds of documentaries and live television shows that won him numerous national and international awards (the New York International Film Festival, the Gabriel Awards, and the San Francisco International Film Festival to name a few) and such honors as being named American representative at the Rockefeller International Independent Film Symposium in Venice, Italy and receiving two Peabody nominations.

In 1985, Stephen became a partner with Imagemaker Productions in Nashville, Tennessee. During the next ten years, he created dozens of commercials, music videos, corporate films, and documentaries.

In 1995, Stephen moved to San Francisco, where he worked as an independent producer/director for many high-profile corporations, including Levi Strauss, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Federal Express, Bank of America, Westinghouse, DuPont, Texas Instruments, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Recently, Stephen produced and directed three one-hour segments for a thirteen-part series titled Religions of the World hosted by Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley.

As a way of sharing his experience with up-and-coming filmmakers, Stephen has been an adjunct teacher and administrator in film and video for twelve years, beginning at Tennessee State University and Middle Tennessee State University and most recently Associate Course Director at Ex´pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, California. At Ex´pression College, Stephen helped develop, administer and teach in the Media Sound and Visual Arts Program, as well as co-direct the Summer Digital Filmmaking class.

Stephen has continued to produce and direct digital films, most recently a documentary for the thirtieth anniversary of the San Francisco-based Progress Foundation and two long-form music-performance DVD's for Grammy Award-winning musicians Ozomatli and The Sons of Champlin.