Team
In his 25 years producing for FRONTLINE, Martin Smith has covered the world: from revolution in Central America and the fall of communism in Russia, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq. Smith was among the first journalists to investigate Col. Oliver North's clandestine network and one of the first western reporters to investigate the emergence of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.
Since 1998 Smith has been with RAINmedia, an independent production company which has produced over 20 hours of programming for FRONTLINE including: Hunting bin Laden (1999); the four-hour series Drug Wars (2000); and three documentaries looking at the roots of 9/11 -- Looking for Answers (2001), Saudi Time Bomb? (2001) and In Search of Al Qaeda (2002).
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Smith has produced four films on Iraq for FRONTLINE: Gangs of Iraq (2007), Private Warriors (2005), Beyond Baghdad (2004) and Truth, War and Consequences (2003).
In 2006, Smith produced The Storm, an Emmy Award-winning look at Hurricane Katrina and the state of America's emergency response system and Return of the Taliban, in which he reported from the forbidden tribal areas of western Pakistan.
He recently completed two films for FRONTLINE which aired in the fall of 2008 -- “Heat” about business and climate change and “The War Briefing” about the real policy options the next president will face .
Smith's work for FRONTLINE has taken him to Afghanistan, China, Comoros, Colombia, Germany, India, Iraq, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Yemen.
Smith has won every major award in television including two duPont Columbia Gold Batons and four Emmys. He's also been a three-time recipient of the George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism and a four-time winner of the Writer's Guild Award. Smith is a member of the Overseas Press Club and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Marcela Gaviria joined RAINmedia in 1999. In that time, she has produced 19 documentaries for FRONTLINE, including five films on post-war Iraq and four hours on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Working with veteran FRONTLINE producer and correspondent Martin Smith, Gaviria has earned nearly every major award in broadcast journalism, including a 2009 Emmy for The Madoff Affair; a 2005 Emmy for The Storm; the prestigious 2003 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton for Truth, War, and Consequences; the 2002 duPont-Columbia Gold Baton for two post-9/11 films Looking for Answers and Saudi Time Bomb?; and an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for the four-hour series Drug Wars. She is also the recipient of the 2008 Peter S. McGhee Fellowship award, which honors an individual whose work reflects excellence, intelligence, fairness, passion and scholarship.
Gaviria's work for FRONTLINE has taken her to Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
Foreign Affairs is just one beat. In 2007 she produced The Medicated Child, a documentary about the dramatic increase in the prescription of psychiatric drugs for children. The film is a sequel to a documentary she produced in 2000 titled Medicating Kids.
In 2008 she produced the Emmy nominated, The War Briefing for FRONTLINE, on the key foreign policy challenges facing the next president, and The Madoff Affair, which investigates the world's first global Ponzi scheme. The latter film won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary on a Business Topic in 2009.
Gaviria recently produced the first film of FRONTLINE's 28th season, Obama's War, an in-depth report on U.S. policy challenges in Afghanistan. In 2010 she will return to Afghanistan to produce her fourth report on the war.
Before joining RAINmedia, Marcela field-produced documentaries from Latin America for PBS and the BBC. Gaviria was born in Bogota, Colombia, and obtained her BA from Brown University and her MA from Columbia University. She now lives in New York City.
Chris Durrance joined RAIN media in 2001. He has worked on thirteen FRONTLINE documentaries since then, most recently as a co-producer on "The Madoff Affair." Other productions include "Heat," on the challenge of climate change, "Return of the Taliban," about the tribal areas of Pakistan,"House of Saud," a history of US-Saudi relations, a dual biography of President Bush and Senator Kerry, called "The Choice 2004," and "Truth, War and Consequences," a report on the decision to go to war in Iraq.
He recently started production on a film about higher education in the US for broadcast on FRONTLINE in Spring 2010.
Chris moved to New York in 1999 and worked at an animation studio and web design company after a career in foreign and economic policy-making in London and Brussels.
He has a Masters degree in economics from London University and a BA in languages from Cambridge University, England. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
Will joined RAINmedia in 2006 and has since worked on five projects for FRONTLINE. He's been focused recently on Afghanistan. He was co-producer of the Emmy-nominated film "The War Briefing" (2008), which profiled US forces fighting on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and "Obama's War" (2009), an on-the-ground assessment of the new administration's war strategy. He is currently working on a third Afghanistan hour, this time about President Hamid Karzai, to air Spring 2010.
Will's previous projects for FRONTLINE have included films about Iraq, Hamas, and the debate over prescribing psychiatric medication to children. He also produced and directed "Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism," about the winners of the 2009 duPont-Columbia awards, for WNET.
Before coming to RAIN, Will worked as a development executive in Hollywood and was a member of the editorial staff at The New Yorker. He grew up in Toronto and went to Princeton, where he studied many languages. He now lives with his wife in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Gwen Schroeder interned for RAIN media in the fall of 2008 and returned in 2009 to work as Associate Producer. She recently completed a Masters degree in humanitarian assistance from University College Dublin, in partnership with the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict in Bochum, German, and Columbia University.
In 2003, Gwen moved to New York City, where she began her career with various television shows, including Late Show with David Letterman. She then moved into feature film production, where she worked as a Production Coordinator for feature films from major studios. During her graduate internship period, Gwen also worked for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Gwen was born in Brazil, but raised primarily in Texas, where she received undergraduate degrees in Radio/TV/Film and Finance.
