Dave Harding is an award-winning film and television producer, director, and production executive known for his work on high profile feature documentaries, and a lot of great TV!
From the jungles of Africa to the ice of Antarctica; from caves in the south of France to the depths of the Irish Sea; from Tenerife to the Katmai Peninsula; from It's Showtime At The Apollo to "Chasing Trane;" The Saturn Awards to The Happy Days of Garry Marshall to Starring Dick Van Dyke, Dave Harding is proficient in producing and managing musical variety, non-fiction and event programming around the world; from development to delivery.
Following graduate school Dave began his career as a congressional correspondent in Washington D.C. and his pursuit of a true story well told continues to exhilarate him.
But, there was the music...
Dave left Washington to join the Gibson Guitar Company in Lincolnwood, IL as a video director, producing Gibson's sales training videos. After a year in the home office, Gibson moved Dave to Nashville where he continued to manage the company's marketing efforts but also began 'moonlighting' for the talent relations department; delivering one of a kind guitars to blues legends, rock stars, country royalty and jazz artists. While in Nashville, Dave also co-developed and directed 'The Gibson Guitar Course' for distribution (on VHS!).
But the West Coast was calling and Dave moved to Los Angeles to work with legendary variety producer Bob Banner. Bob Banner Associates encouraged Dave to cut his teeth on the original Star Search, and then he 'matriculated' to co-produce Dionne Warwick's That's What Friend Are For AIDS awareness special for Showtime, with featured guests Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder. Dave helped develop and sell It's Showtime At The Apollo with a pal from Northwestern University, and co-produced the Pilot and the first 6 years of the series initial 9 year run.
While working for BBA, Dave also served as Bob's production executive on several made for TV movies, including "Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus" for ABC, "Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232" also for ABC, and "Murderous Intent" for CBS, which Dave also developed and co-produced.
As Bob Banner's business shifted from producing to teaching, Dave "freelanced" for several years producing network specials for NBC Productions, Dave Bell Associates, Nash Entertainment, and Rainbow Media. The specials included Too Good To Be True Secrets Revealed, The Secret World of Dreams and the award winning Celebrate Christmas! with Maya Angelou.
But basic cable was booming and Dave soon joined Erik Nelson's Termite Art Productions where together they produced "documentary-lite" series and specials to service the explosive growth of the Discovery, A&E and Nat Geo cable networks. A number of highly rated specials for CBS (World's Most Dangerous...) and FOX (Busted on The Job) were thrown in for fun, and to keep the lights on.
The guys sold Termite Art to Lionsgate in 1998 and kept working with Lionsgate Television for the next 6 years until Nelson created the fiercely independent Creative Differences banner.
Dave signed on for another tour of duty and managed CDTV's Los Angeles operation as Exec VP and Executive Producer for the next ten years. Ten edit bays; no waiting.
Dave's time with Termite Art Productions, Lionsgate Television, and Creative Differences included his work as a production executive on Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man."
Soon thereafter, Dave was prepping Herzog for a cold weather excursion to Antarctica for the Academy Award-nominated "Encounters At The End of The World." Dave continued to work with Werner on "Cave Of Forgotten Dreams" (in 3D!) "Into The Abyss," and the "Death Row" documentary series for Discovery ID.
During this period Dave also produced, supervised, and/or was the production executive on The U.S. vs John Lennon, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth, Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, Criss Angel's Mindfreak and the two hour Dark Secrets of the Lusitania for National Geographic.
The rapid growth of the emerging streaming services signaled the advent of a new "golden age" of feature documentaries, as the big Streamers began competing with basic cable. And as the documentary world continues to evolve, Dave, once again, finds himself increasingly engaged with music related projects.
Dave joined John Scheinfeld's Crew Neck Productions in 2014 and together they produced I Hope You Dance, Dick Cavett's Watergate for PBS, "Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary" for Concord Records, currently on Netflix, "This Is Bob Hope..." for American Masters, The Happy Days of Garry Marshall for ABC, "Sergio Mendes In The Key of Joy", and "Herb Alpert Is...", "What The Hell Happened to Blood Sweat & Tears?", "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback" for Paramount +, "Baseball Beyond Belief" and the recent Starring Dick Van Dyke for WNET-Thirteen's American Masters .
Other high profile projects produced in the past several years include "A Gray State" for A&E Films, also on Netflix, "The Cold Blue" for HBO, and "American Pie: The Day The Music Died" for Paramount+.
Honored with two Emmy nominations for his work in television, and one Emmy win for "Wage Slaves: Not Getting By in America," Dave has produced or supervised more than 1000 hours of documentary and non-fiction programs for television, and nineteen feature length documentaries to date.
Originally from the Chicagoland area, Dave received a B.S. in Radio/TV/Fim and a "minor" in Economics, from Northwestern University and returned to Evanston, IL for an MSJ degree awarded by the University's esteemed Medill School of Journalism.