The Producers

Carole Tomko – Executive Producer

Carole Tomko is a recognized global media executive who has been managing portfolios of businesses and producing award winning content for years. As a mission-driven leader, she has launched and led networks, studios, philanthropic and content ventures. Leading consumer-facing organizations, she has built deep industry relationships across private and public sectors and secured financial investors and partners. She is known for her combination of creative, strategic, and operational excellence, leading high performing teams with innovation, authenticity, and integrity. She has extensive experience working with networks, streaming services, content providers, boards, funders, policy leaders, NGOs, and creative content partners.

Working at the intersection of philanthropy, technology, and content, she launched Peanut Productions to help organizations articulate and execute on vision designing short and long-range business plans. She serves as executive producer on premium series and feature documentaries with the goal of driving awareness and impact around critical issues. As General Manager and Creative Director of Vulcan Productions she strategically shaped projects across genres and platforms, increasing volume, scope, and impact of documentaries, series, digital content, campaigns, and scripted programming. The projects during her Vulcan tenure won over 200 industry awards at prestigious film festivals including Oscar nominations and an Emmy for Body Team 12. Her leadership brought Paul Allen’s historic USS Indianapolis and Musashi expeditions from remote locations to live streamed broadcasts delivering millions of viewers for networks and news outlets.

Mark Benjamin – Director / Executive Producer

Director/cameraman Mark Benjamin has created numerous independent films, eight Bill Moyers documentaries, six National Geographic films and ten films for HBO, ABC, CBS, NBC, TBS, and the Discovery Channel. Benjamin has won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the Cannes Film Festival Camera D’Or and served as Executive Producer and Director of Brick City, a Peabody award winning and twice Emmy nominated documentary series on Sundance Channel.

Benjamin’s credits include directing and shooting the Robert Downey Jr. feature documentary "The Last Party". Recent films shot by Benjamin include CIA: "Americaʼs Secret Warriors" on Discovery Channel, awarded a duPont Columbia Award, HBOʼs "Prisoners of the War on Drugs", "HBOʼs Gang War-Banging in Little Rock", awarded the ACE award for best documentary, HBOʼs "Texas Death Machine", HBOʼs "Thug Life in DC", a National Emmy best documentary film, "Soldiers in the Army of God" and many more. Benjamin’s camera also operated the cult classic "Mondo New York" and won the International Emmy for best documentary series "A Time of Aids” broadcast on the Discovery Channel, produced by Katie Carpenter.

Benjamin created the “Ocean Warriors” Discovery series with Robert Redford's Sundance Productions and Vulcan Productions that won the Jackson Wild Best Series award. “Chasing the Thunder”, the epic eco thriller has screened globally at over 30 Film Festivals and is streaming internationally.

Katie Carpenter – Producer / Director

Katie Carpenter is an award-winning filmmaker specializing in environmental subjects for public and cable television. She produced two National Geographic specials for PBS, the Emmy-nominated “Warlords of Ivory” and “Battle for the Elephants”, filmed on location in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and China. Her recent production is “Ocean Warriors”, a six-hour documentary series co-produced with Robert Redford’s Sundance Productions, Vulcan, and Discovery Networks. Her films have aired on PBS, Discovery Channel, MSNBC, Fox, Animal Planet, ABC, Disney Channel and the National Geographic Channel.

Carpenter produced “Hundred Heartbeats”, a two-hour special on the most endangered species around the world for MSNBC, and the Emmy-nominated documentary feature film “A Year On Earth” for Discovery Channel. Among her other credits are “Lost Dolphins of Hurricane Katrina”, “Sugar Scandal”, “Saving the Everglades”, and “A Time of AIDS”, which won an International Emmy Award for Best Documentary Series. Carpenter’s focus on wildlife conservation programming was inspired as Vice President of Film/TV for National Audubon Productions, where she developed and produced wildlife series, prime-time specials and educational videos on birds and wildlife at risk, in co-production with Animal Planet, Turner Broadcasting, PBS, Disney Channel and the BBC. Her emphasis on marine wildlife included “Whale Whispers” and “Dolphin Talk”, both for National Geographic Explorer.

Carpenter taught documentary filmmaking at Princeton University, as part of the Global Seminar on Wildlife Filmmaking at Princeton’s campus at Mpala, Kenya. She is a Board member of Wildlife Direct, Co-Chair of the Producers Guild of America’s Green Committee, Vice Chair of Audubon’s Women in Conservation Committee. She lives with her two daughters in Florida.