Darren Garnick
Director of Creative Development / Political Junkie
With his career background including gigs as a shopping mall Santa, a kibbutz vegetable handler, a pizza delivery man, a dogsled musher and even a brief stint as a minor league baseball mascot, Darren brings an eclectic perspective and dynamic energy to each one of our video projects.
Specializing in business, technology, medicine, science and health issues for Award Productions, he relies heavily on his 20 years of journalism experience to unearth fresh insights and creative angles. His scripts for fundraising videos have been known to even make grizzly Marines cry.
Darren wrote and produced the PBS political specials "Crashing The Parties," "I'm On The Ballot" and "Why Can't I Be President?", which have been critically acclaimed for covering the presidential elections from the point of view of underdog candidates. He has helped organize a panel on third party politics for Harvard University's JFK School of Government and appeared alongside professional wrestler-turned-politician Jesse Ventura for a lively debate (thankfully with no fisticuffs).
His museum-quality political memorabilia collection includes a Rudy Giuliani PEZ dispenser, Barack Obama lip balm, Dick Cheney trading cards, a "Estonian-Americans for Richard Nixon" button and a Saddam Hussein voodoo doll.
Along with colleague Peter Koziell, Darren recently chased insane county fair daredevils across the United States for the award-winning documentary film, "Hell Drivers: America's Original Crash Test Dummies." The program was optioned as a reality TV series pilot for Country Music Television (CMT).
Darren spearheads the company's new "Reel Profiles" personal documentary service, which blends the best of journalism, feature film storytelling and genealogy.
Away from the cameras, he also writes about business for the Boston Herald and has been a contributor to Slate magazine, spoofing traditional political photo-ops and covering "history's greatest fictional presidential candidates."
His personal heroes are Jonas Salk, Harry Truman, Linda Carter and Patrick Swayze, to whom he is eternally grateful for his foreign policy insights in "Red Dawn."