In 2005 Carlene Cordova emerged onto the independent film scene with the award-winning pop-culture documentary, RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS, which she co-wrote, produced and directed. RINGERS debuted at the Slamdance film festival before sell-out crowds and was a runner-up for the Audience Award. The feature-length documentary won “Outstanding Achievement for Documentary Filmmaking” at the Newport Beach Film Festival before the film was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures. RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS was nominated for the 2006 Best DVD Saturn Award.
She recently directed and produced a commericial and a puppet demo DVD for Folkmanis Puppets of Emeryville, CA. Carlene developed and designed their website and does online marketing for the company.
While living in Los Angeles, she developed and pitched numerous TV shows to networks and worked with Project Runway runner-up, designer Rami Kashou and helping him rebrand and directed the taping of his show at L.A. Fashion Week. These segments were later shown on the Bravo Network as a part of Project Runway. She also directed some award show videos for The Tourette Association’s Annual Champion of Children Awards Dinner and Clik Magazine’s 1st annual Clik Honors / Elite 25 Awards Show for television and DVD.
Carlene has been a contributor to the Geek-culture website TheOneRing.net and produced the site’s enormously popular Oscar parties for Peter Jackson’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS films. Before embarking on the three-year journey to make RINGERS, Carlene was a Senior Producer for Sony Pictures online entertainment network, Screenblast.com. She oversaw the editorial writing and entertainment journalism side of the network and interviewed dozens of stars on the red carpet at premieres and awards shows for Screenblast.com.
While at Sony Pictures, she was instrumental in the development of new shows and the programming channels for Screenblast. Carlene also lead the entertainment news channel and behind-the-scenes production for Screenblast’s groundbreaking original shows such as Sweet J. Presents (familiar now as Cartoon Network ‘s smash hit Robot Chicken), Rachel’s Room (the first starring role of Maggie Grace), Julius and Friends (bringing to life the animated world of Paul Frank’s characters) and Lenore, which animated Roman Dirge’s comic about a little dead girl.
Carlene was initially hired on with Sony Pictures’ Columbia Tri-Star Interactive division after designing the award-winning web site for the film The Mask of Zorro.
She led the rebranding and online marketing efforts of both the on-air and online looks of Wheel of Fortune, JEOPARDY! and The Game Show Network. Many of these sites won major design and content awards. She also produced on-air spots and bumpers for these highly popular game shows.
Carlene oversaw the production and management of dozens of the websites for Sony Pictures Television shows as well as the host site for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Working for the renamed Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, she produced websites and directed live webcasts and behind-the-scenes featurettes for such films as Charlie’s Angels, Snatch, Vertical Limit, The Sixth Day and Spider-Man. She also produced and directed entertainment news clips, conducting interviews with dozens of stars from the red carpets of movie premieres and major awards shows for Screenblast.com and Sony’s site, Showbiz Scoop.
Prior to working for Sony, Carlene worked in San Francisco on production and post for hundreds of TV commercials for such brands as Ford, Chevron, Levi’s, Budweiser, Sega, Taco Bell, etc. She was the assistant editor on many documentaries for film and television including the Academy Award nominated documentary, Berkeley in the Sixties. She also assisted on Bump in the Night, a stop-motion animated kids show for ABC, and Young Indiana Jones for LucasFilm.
Carlene moved to California after graduating with honors from Ohio University’s exclusive TV Producer’s Program. She first began to work in television at age fifteen, and was soon writing, directing and producing her own “Wayne’s World” -style show for her local cable access station. She is originally from Dayton, Ohio.
Carlene lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is also a fine artist, illustrator and writer.
