Roger Phenix

Movies

Arthur Miller: Writer
Production Sound Mixer
One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Arthur Miller created such celebrated works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, which continue to move audiences around the world today. He also made headlines for being targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy Era and entering into a tumultuous marriage with Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe. Told from the unique perspective of his daughter, filmmaker Rebecca Miller, Arthur Miller: Writer is an illuminating portrait that combines interviews spanning decades and a wealth of personal archival material, and provides new insights into Miller’s life as an artist and exploring his character in all its complexity.
The Opera House
Sound
In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied home of the last five decades. Drawing on rarely seen archival footage, stills, and recent interviews, The Opera House looks at an important period of the Met’s history and delves into some of the untold stories of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped the cultural life of New York City in the ’50s and ’60s. Among the notable figures in the film are famed soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met’s imperious General Manager who engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was never fully realized.
The Insider
TV Camera Crew at Trial (uncredited)
Tells the true story of a 60 Minutes television series exposé of the tobacco industry, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand.
Surviving the Dust Bowl
Sound
In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains--the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl." This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease--even death--for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.
Bill T. Jones: Still/Here
Sound
Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.
Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light
Sound
Richard Avedon was one of the great geniuses of 20th century photography, famous for his fashion photography done for the likes of Vogue, Versace, and Armani, and equally famous for his black and white portraits of American people, both famous and unknown.
Twilight Highway
Music
Five disengaged, misplaced people whose paths collide in a New Jersey roadside motel.
American Experience: FDR
Cinematography
Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered this country through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This is the second of four parts.
Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre
Sound
A study of the Group Theatre, a company that changed the face of American drama. The Group was founded in 1931 by Cheryl Crawford, Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, who were strongly influenced by the naturalistic acting of Konstantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre.
The Wyeths: A Father and His Family
Sound
The life of the famed illustrator NC Wyeth as told by his children: Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth Hurd, Caroline Wyeth, Nat Wyeth, and Ann Wyeth McCoy.
A Portrait of Samson Raphaelson
Sound
An interview with playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. First aired on PBS's "Creativity with Bill Moyers".
Checkmate
Sound Recordist
The Federation's Boss must call their best agent out of a bedroom romp with a gentleman because the USA, Russia, Britain and France, are under the menace of an atomic weapon carried by their very own super secret joint satellite.
Invasion of the Blood Farmers
Sound
Somewhere in upstate New York, a young woman is terrorized by a group of rural farmers primarily interested in a harvest of blood.
Winter Soldier
Producer
For three days in 1971, former US soldiers who were in Vietnam testify in Detroit about their war experiences. Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village.
Winter Soldier
Sound mixer
For three days in 1971, former US soldiers who were in Vietnam testify in Detroit about their war experiences. Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village.
Milt & Honi
Location Sound Recordist
The story of legendary jazz bassist Milt Hinton and tap dancer Charles "Honi" Coles offers a front row seat to the creation of Jazz History. The film includes rehearsals, practice sessions, photographs, historical film footage, as well as a lunch break interview at New York's China Song restaurant in which the artists discuss everything from the mathematical principles of music to the dance acts who played the Apollo. The film also features a special appearance by choreographer/tap dancer Brenda Bufalino.