About Us Producer, Director and Writer FRANK ABE produced, wrote and directed Conscience and the Constitution, the award-winning one-hour documentary on the largest organized resistance to the WW2 incarceration of Japanese Americans. Produced in association with ITVS, Conscience aired on the national PBS hard-feed on November 30, 2000. Frank was Senior Reporter for KIRO Newsradio 710, the CBS affiliate in Seattle, where in his 14-year career he broadcast live from Japan, Korea and Thailand, and produced and hosted a weekly series featuring artists of color, "Other Voices." He won numerous awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, the Washington State Bar Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others. Frank is a former National Vice-President of the Asian American Journalists Association, and taught broadcast writing at Seattle University. Frank helped invent a new Japanese American tradition by producing the first-ever "Day of Remembrance" events in Seattle and Portland, staged events featuring car caravans to hometown concentration camps that drew a combined 3,000 people to publicly dramatize the campaign for redress for the WW2 incarceration of Japanese Americans. "Days of Remembrance" are now observed every year on February 19th wherever Japanese Americans live. Frank earned his B.A. in Theater Arts (Directing) from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He completed the Advanced Training Program in Acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where he was a founding member of the pioneering Asian American Theater Company in 1973. He was featured as an internment camp leader in John Korty's 1976 NBC-TV movie, Farewell to Manzanar. Frank is currently Director of Communications for the Metropolitan King County Council in Seattle. He previously performed the same duties for King County Executive Gary Locke, immediately before Locke’s election as the first Asian American governor on the U.S. mainland. Producer SHANNON GEE co-produced Conscience and the Constitution. She is a former producer and production consultant at KCTS, the PBS affiliate in Seattle. For PBS she produced The Meaning of Food, a three-part exploration of food and culture in America, and was Associate Producer on the “American Masters” special, Vaudeville, named one of the best television shows of 1997 by People Magazine. Shannon also worked on documentaries for The Discovery Channel and American Experience, as well as independent film projects, web broadcasts, industrials and commercials in Seattle and New York. For the Wing Luke Asian Museum she produced and directed If Tired Hands Could Talk, the story of Seattle's Asian American garment workers, and wrote and produced Finding Home in Chinatown, a documentary on Seattle's International District. She is currently Senior Producer for the documentary series, Community Stories, seen on the Seattle Channel. Ms. Gee is also a film journalist whose reviews and articles have appeared in the Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, The International Examiner, Interview and on the Internet at MSN.com and GreenCine.com. A native of Seattle, she received her MA in Cinema Studies from New York University and her BA in English from Boston University. Editor LILLIAN BENSON, A.C.E. was nominated for an Emmy for her work on the landmark civil rights series Eyes on the Prize II. She edited Conscience and the Constitution and has edited numerous documentaries and feature films for HBO, CNN, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel, and PBS. Benson made her directorial debut in 2004 with All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11, a half-hour documentary on the firefighters of color who died at the World Trade Center. She recently edited Troop 1500 for ITVS and Celebrate! Christmas with Maya Angelou for the Hallmark Channel. Her feature film credits include Au Pair Chocolat, Soliloquy, Alma's Rainbow, and Twisted starring Christian Slater. She also edited The Old Settler, a movie of the week directed by Debbie Allen, and the first season of the dramatic series Soul Food for Showtime. Ms. Benson is the first African American female member of American Cinema Editors, the honorary society of film editors, and serves on their board of directors. She is a native of Brooklyn and runs an editorial service, Lightwave Pictures, in Santa Monica. High-Definition Videographer STEVAN SMITH is the High-Definition Videographer for The Greatest Good, a two-hour history of the U.S. Forest Service now playing on PBS stations. He produced, directed, wrote, shot and edited the Vietnam-era documentaries Kontum Diary and Two Decades and Wakeup for PBS and Kontum Diary: The Journey Home for ITVS. Over his 30 year career as a producer-photographer Smith has won three Emmy Awards, an IRIS, a Gold Camera Award, a Gold Medal from CPB for Best Documentary, and many others for excellence in videography and film. His broadcast clients include ABC Good Morning America, NBC Today Show, CBS 48 Hours, PBS Newshour, BBC, NHK, Discovery, History, National Geographic, and international programs for France, Germany, England, Scotland, Canada and Japan. HOME | FOR TEACHERS | FOR STUDENTS | SCREENINGS | ABOUT US | CONTACT US Updated: May 16, 2007