Bios – Courter Films

PHIL COURTER

DIRECTOR – SENIOR EDITOR

Director/Editor Philip Courter has primary credit on over 200 films and videos on a wide range of subject matter. Phil is especially experienced in working with human-interest subjects, and has directed numerous award-winning programs dealing with environmental and family and children’s issues.
Phil is the author of a Capturing the Image: 16mm Cinematography (Van Nostrand, 1982). He produced films and taught filmmaking at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City, and continues to lecture on documentary film.
Phil’s many interests include flying airplanes (instrument rating) and the design and construction of many innovative film devices including underwater camera housings, aerial camera systems, camera cranes and dollies, a silent reflex film camera, and a 10-plate horizontal film editing system. His many crafts including custom musical instruments, furniture and sculptures. He is an accomplished bluegrass musician.
Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him to serve on the Health and Human Services Board for central Florida’s District 13 which he did for eight years. More recently he has served on the board of Kid’s Central, the regional social service organization. Phil has also been on the board of the local aviation advisory board and offers free media consulting to local charities.
Phil Courter’s film projects have won the Best Documentary award from the Louis Wolfson Media Center in Miami, and two Regional Emmy awards for Best Documentary from the National Academy for the Television Arts and Sciences. He also received the Southern Region Board Leadership Award from the Child Welfare League of America for his volunteer child advocacy efforts.
Phil and his wife Gay are the proud parents of two sons, Blake and Joshua, and a daughter, Ashley, who was adopted from foster care at age 12. Blake, an engineering graduate of Princeton University, is currently CTO at nTopology, a leading 3D software company. Joshua, who has a degree in ethnographic film from Hampshire College, is a filmmaker, designer, fine furniture craftsman, and professional yachtsman. At age16, Ashley won the New York Times Magazine essay contest for high school students with her counterintuitive description of her adoption day. This led to the publication of her bestselling memoir Three Little Words. Ashley won a full merit scholarship to Eckerd College and was one of 20 college students selected for USA Today‘s All-USA Academic Team. She was one of four finalists for outstanding advocacy for community change by Do Something and donated her $25,000 winnings to a national adoption advocacy group. She also appeared in the June 2007 issue of Glamour as one of their Top Ten College Women. She is a motivational speaker and owner of a social services agency. You can find out more about Ashley at www.rhodes-courter.com.
You can contact Phil directly at phil@courterfilms.com

GAY COURTER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – WRITER

Producer/writer Gay Courter has worked continuously in film and television production since graduation from Antioch College. She is also author of five best-selling novels with over three million copies in print. She also has written three non-fiction books, including I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate.

Gay has served as a volunteer in the Florida Guardian ad Litem program since 1989 and has appeared on Good Morning America, Day One, NBC Weekend Edition and the Today Show. She also has been featured in Newsweek , the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Christian Science Monitor and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995.

Gay received the Child Advocate of the Year award in Florida, the Sharon Solomon Child Advocate Award from the Florida Center for Children and Youth, and special recognition from the Florida Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television, Inc. for her work on Where’s My Chance? The Case for Our Children and the Altrusa International 10 Most Admired Women twice for “Making a Difference” and her work in the arts.

Gay accepted a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on behalf of Courter Films and Tampa public TV station WEDU for the series of mini-documentaries titled Solutions for America’s Children that were created, developed, and produced by the Courters.

You can contact Gay directly at gay@gaycourter.com
Visit Gay’s website at www.gaycourter.com

JOSH COURTER

DIRECTOR – EDITOR – CAMERAMAN

Production Associate Joshua F. Courter received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Film & Television from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts in 2000. As a student, he created a demonstration website for the distribution of anthropological films, and produced two documentaries: Last Resort—The Fragile World of Ile à Vache which documents the development of a resort on a tiny, impoverished Haitian island and Havana Hustle which depicts the lives of two young Cubans who must use all of their resources to survive within the challenges of Castro’s economic system.

During his senior year as an intern and and immediately following as an employee, Josh worked in NYC for two major commercial post houses: First Edition Composite and Mckenzie Cutler as an Avid editor’s assistant.

After college, Josh worked as International Project Director for Railway Marketing, helping develop Chinese testing and manufacturing of a patented device to increase railroad traffic and rail car speed, and also as a cameraman and editor for Courter Films. His videography credits include several titles Courter Films produced in their series on social work strategies for abused and neglected children, industrial films for NRG Resources (oil refining equipment) and his editing credits include music videos and commercials. He was an early adapter in the use of non-linear editing (Media 100) and is an advanced user of audio and imaging software including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, and Photoshop.

Josh has contributed camera, editorial and promotion skills on Freedom from Famine: The Norman Borlaug Story, including HD videography in Obregon, Mexico.

GIULIA LONGO COURTER

PHOTOGRAPHER – PRODUCER – ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Production Associate Giulia Longo Courter received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Product and Furniture Design from Ravensbourne College of Arts and Design in London, UK in 2005. She won praise for her ambition, passion and uniqueness. Her program featured independent study of Sustainability in Design Development, Production and Disposal which later was incorporated in the general program of study.
Upon graduation Giulia was awarded a place in the Top 25 most Talented Graduates in UK in 2005 by Nesta, and her work was also recognized by the British Council and the media. She engaged in further business studies and launch NaturalMente Design, a studio aimed at developing and producing objects of everyday life, that are friendly to the individual, society and environment.
Giulia’s passion for traveling, people and cultures set her on a journey to search for a more responsible type of consumerism aimed at developing indigenous communities around the world. She has traveled extensively worldwide and in remote areas, mostly solo, volunteering in many community and art projects.
Prior to working with Courter Films, Giulia produced several short films projects as a cross medium to her design work. She started working for Courter Films during the production of Freedom from Famine: The Norman Borlaug Story.
Giulia is native of Rome, Italy and is also a permanent resident of the United States Of America. She is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish and French and learning more as she can.