Executive Producer

Michael Eldridge is an award-winning director, writer, and producer with over 400 programs to his credit. During his career and now with his company, Barataria Productions, he has produced all manner of programming, from films, to traditional television, to downloadable content. He has worked extensively in both the documentary world, from investigative work to lifestyle programming, and writes and directs narrative features and television shows, ranging from comedy to independent drama.

Currently, he is working on a new comedy featuring Jackie Mason in the spring of 2010, and is currently writing a feature length factual comedy on New Jersey corruption entitled The Soprano State. He is also writing and directing the comedy series Porntastic! for Regent Entertainment. Other projects include Harmony- an hour-long comedy series he created, slated to go to series in Spring '10, and the feature film Silent Voice (co-writer), currently in pre-production. He is also developing a number of social issue documentaries for production in 2010.

Recently, he directed and produced the feature film Homeland. In 2008, it won Best First Feature at the Delray Film Festival, Best Independent Feature at the Downbeach Film Festival, and the audience award at the Jacksonville International Film Festival. He is also developing screenplays: he co-wrote a feature film for Emerging Productions in NY, Beauty Remains, directed by Ann Hu (Shadow Magic), which debuted in New York in October 2007. He is currently writing her next feature. He has optioned two more of his original screenplays, April 22nd and Redeeming the Time, and has a number of projects currently in development, including Weapon of Choice, Fool, and Cold Irons Bound.

From 1999 to early 2003, he worked as a supervising producer for Towers Productions in Chicago. During his tenure with the company, he co-created, wrote, and supervised over 100 hours of documentary programming. Highlights include: co-creating, writing, and supervising the History Channel series, True Crime Authors, and a stint as the writer and supervising producer of the launch of A&E's Minute By Minute, a disaster investigation series that received an Emmy nomination for the episode Attack on the Pentagon.  He also wrote and supervised over 20 Investigative Reports (A&E), working on investigations into the rise of imported organized crime (Modern Mobs), cancer clusters in the Midwest (Nuclear Fallout), and the meth scene in Idaho (for Vigilante Justice- the Ken Arrasmith Story). In addition, he was the head writer for Towers' Productions' launch of the Weather Channel series, Storm Stories. Other notable projects during his tenure were The History of Unconventional Warfare (writer/supervising producer), Times Millennium Capsule (writer), and he wrote numerous episodes for A&E's The Unexplained, American Justice, and Biography.

In the summer of 2004, he started his production company, Barataria Productions, a full high-definition production facility. The company focuses on investigations, commissioned work, and social causes, most notably for LGBT rights with here! Networks, and for HIV/AIDS research. His short form documentaries have garnered a the company a number of national and international awards, including a CINE Golden Eagle, four Telly Awards, three Omni Awards, six Davey Awards, two Summit Awards, a BDA Award, and four AEGIS awards, as well as the Ribbon of Hope, a special honor from the Academy of Television of Arts and Science for the special Focus On: HIV and AIDS. He was also honored with a commission by GMHC, the leading organization fighting HIV/AIDS in New York City, to direct a film commemorating its 25th Anniversary. The film recently won Best Short Documentary at the NY AIDS Film Festival.

Barataria also produced Auction Adventure, a lifestyle series on the Fine Living Channel. Mr. Eldridge was the series producer, host, and head writer of the Telly Award-winning series. He also wrote and produced another special for Fine Living on consumer spending, and performed the same duties on Art At Auction for the Ovation network. In late 2005, he wrote and produced a high-definition special on the Boost Mobile Pro of Surf for Fox Sports Network, and Barataria has continued its extreme sports work by partnering with Union, the on-demand extreme network. He also created here! At the Movies, a half-hour review show. The series has been a model for the network as a dual-use production; the series runs on the linear channel, and shorter versions of the reviews are distributed via various download services, including MSNBC and iTunes.

In 2008, Mr. Eldridge spearheaded the election coverage for Regent Media's new web-based news service, following the campaign as a producer, writer, and director from the spring to Election Day, with notable coverage on the Democratic Convention.

Mr. Eldridge has also worked on the development side of production- in 2003, he was named the head of development for Carlton Productions LLC, the East Coast arm of Carlton UK. When the company merged with Granada, Mr. Eldridge worked as a freelance development producer for Granada America. During this time, he continued working as a producer and writer of various documentaries, including National Geographic's Interpol Investigates. His work appeared on PBS (Best Friend Forgotten—2005 Genesis Award Winner), WNET in New York (Innovations—Building to Extremes), and CBS (various sports documentaries). Through Barataria, he has continued to work as a development consultant and freelance writer for a number of production companies. Mr. Eldridge is currently developing a full slate of scripted and unscripted projects.

Mr. Eldridge began his career as a playwright, improvisational comedian, and theater director. He has produced plays in New York, Boston, and at Scotland's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and performed in Chicago, New York, and Boston. He works frequently as a lecturer and professor, teaching screenwriting and documentary writing at the collegiate and continuing education level. He has contributed to Gotham Writer's Workshop Screenwriting Manual and is currently at work on his first novel, Mariposa.