THE STAFF

The Close-Up Productions Advantage: a staff of veteran broadcast professionals.

Close-Up Productions President Darnise Davis has had a diverse career in broadcast journalism, with experience ranging from presidential campaign coverage to exposing international banking fraud to managing a cable station as director of news and programming to becoming the president of her own full-service production company. A graduate of the prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University, Ms. Davis has held positions in broadcasting at both the network and local levels, and in the cable television industry. Her expertise runs the entire gamut in every aspect of television and radio broadcast production.

Ms. Davis has worked for some of TV's premier news shows and organizations including ABC's World News Tonight, Good Morning America and Cable News Network (CNN), both as a correspondent and in CNN's highly acclaimed Investigative Unit.

Ms. Davis specializes in investigative reporting. In one report she infiltrated a money laundering operation; in another, she posed as a high school student in a major metropolitan public school system. The report earned the station (WWOR Television) the Alfred I. DuPont Award for Investigative Journalism and the coveted National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy Award.

Ms. Davis also has produced and reported her own series, "A Thin Blue Line" for CrimeWatch Tonight in New York City. For her series, Davis accompanied undercover narcotics officers on drug busts across the country.

Off camera, Ms. Davis has produced for many national news programs, including Fox News, ABC News, CNN, America's Most Wanted, and First Business.

Ms. Davis has a wide range of experience in broadcast management. While News and Programming Director for the Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications (OCTT) in Washington, DC, she managed the municipal cable channels 13 and 16. When Ms. Davis came on board, the stations had no news broadcasts. She brought them into the information age by increasing programming and implementing news and information coverage 24-hours a day.

When Ms. Davis took the helm at OCTT, the staff consisted of just two full-time employees. Through her direction, leadership and vision, she hired more than 20 production contractors and expanded the programming to offer viewers daily news briefs, special segments, community events, profiles on elected DC government officials, production of the DC Lottery daily drawings, coverage of town hall meetings, daily press briefings and live weekly news conferences with the Mayor of the District of Columbia. Before Ms. Davis took over programming, OCTT viewers often watched the same, repeat programs taped months earlier. Most of the programs and practices implemented by Ms. Davis are still in place at OCTT.

Today, Ms. Davis is President and CEO of Close-Up Productions, a company she founded and started in September 1999. Close-Up Productions is a full-service production facility that produces news, sports and entertainment events, commercials, corporate training and music videos, radio ads and public service announcements and print materials for any type of event or program. Ms. Davis handpicked her staff so that combined, Close-Up Productions offers its clients more than 50 years of award-winning production experience:

• Pre- and post-production staff. Producers, directors, lighting designers, production assistants, production coordinators, videotape researchers, graphic specialists, still photographers, news and investigative reporters all dedicated to a single goal--to bring to your project the highest standards of excellence that their combined skills and talents can provide.

• Photographers. Close-Up's photographers are video journalists..telling their story with pictures. They have an eye for detail, an eye for just the right shot, an eye to bring the best and most expressive angles to each individual assignment.
• Editors. Close-Up's editors use the state-of-the-art in editing systems to assemble a final product that is seamlessly and flawlessly put together.