For the past 20 years, Shana Hagan has photographed Oscar and Emmy winning documentary and narrative films, shot countless hours of non-fiction and reality-based television, filmed a number of commercials and has worked with such distinguished filmmakers as Michael Apted and Jessica Yu.
Her work includes BREATHING LESSONS, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 1996 Academy Awards, an IDA award and an Emmy. Shana’s recent work includes WALT AND EL GRUPO. Shot in 5 countries on Super 16mm, this documentary feature film retraces the steps Walt Disney took on a trip to South America in 1941. Other projects include Michael Apted’s ongoing documentary project MARRIED IN AMERICA, shooting every 3 years following the same 9 married couples as their lives and relationships evolve over time.
Shana’s other credits include SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS, documenting a year in the lives of an acting company comprised of inmates at a Kentucky prison. This film premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. Other recent work includes AFTER INNOCENCE, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005, SUNSET STORY, a film about two dynamic senior citizens living in a home for aging activists, won Special Jury Mention at Tribeca 2003, Kirby Dick’s THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, filmmaker Tom Miller’s ONE BAD CAT profiling Cleveland outsider artist Rev. Albert Wagner, and Kenner Films/Participant Productions’ FOOD, INC. Shana also shot the award-winning PBS documentary HOMELAND, a film about four Lakota families living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. HOMELAND received several critical mentions for its cinematography.
Her narrative work includes the feature film BARABOO, directed by Mary Sweeney, INDEMNITY, the HiDef short GET THE DIME (as a camera operator), the short BETTER LATE, which premiered at Sundance in 1997, and LOS ANGELS, directed by Academy Award Nominee Jessica Sanders and which won the Best Cinematography Award at the Hi Mom! Film Festival in 1999. Based on her narrative body of work, Shana was chosen to be a DP at the prestigious 2003 Filmmakers Lab at the Sundance Institute in Utah.
Credits also include commercials for The Army, Kodak, Nintendo, and Commit Lozenges, the Sundance documentary THE LIVING MUSEUM for HBO, the Emmy winning STARDUST: THE BETTE DAVIS STORY, the two hour GEORGIA O’KEEFFE Biography for A&E, two National Geographic Specials, three seasons of NBC’s THE APPRENTICE and four seasons of SURVIVOR (Panama, Cook Islands, Fiji and China). Her work can be seen at major film festivals worldwide, in television broadcasts around the globe and in theaters near you!
