Producer Lawrence Cumbo has joined Pixeldust Studios, a multi Emmy Award-winning, digital animation and broadcast production studio headed by president and creative director Ricardo Andrade. Cumbo becomes sr. VP of development and content as part of an initiative to expand the company’s entertainment division.
Cumbo brings to Pixeldust an active development slate comprised of over 30 projects. Over the past 25 years, Andrade and Cumbo have forged a close friendship, which began when they first worked together producing indie films, live events and studio based programming. Pixeldust’s goal is to produce original TV series and specials for broadcast, SVOD’s, and sponsored content, as well as continue creating original VR-360 and AR content, and live stream programming.
Cumbo brings a decade of experience as an EP and showrunner to Pixeldust, which enjoys a rich history of producing short form content and award winning animation and motion graphics for high profile broadcast, cable and streaming television properties airing around the world.
In addition to its established position as an animation and production studio for hire by top broadcast and cable TV networks, educational institutions, and charitable foundations, Pixeldust’s entertainment division has successfully developed and produced three streaming TV series for client CuriosityStream. Launched in 2015 by Discovery founder John Hendricks as a non-fiction SVOD service, CuriosityStream is the world’s first, ad-free, on-demand subscription streaming service for nonfiction programming. Pixeldust’s work for CuriousityStream to date has included providing live action footage, high-end animation, and all production content for that SVOD’s new series “Ancient Earth,” for the series “A Curious World,” now in its third season, and for the first season of the series “The Bronze Age.”
Cumbo is a multi-award winning EP. He has delivered over 200 hours of programming for Smithsonian Channel, National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, TLC, A&E. and BIO Channel, and recently joined forces with Smithsonian Channel to create “Rocking the Opera House: Dr. John,” a new music series. Cumbo has also served as an EP for overseas concerns like Tiger Aspect Productions and Natural History New Zealand. Some of the titles Cumbo has overseen during his career include, “I Survived,” “Orangutan Island,” “Jurassic CSI,” “Celebrating the American Woman,” “Dark Days in Monkey City,” “Ms. Adventure,” “Rookies,” “Expedition Antarctica” and “Tornado Chasers.”
In 2000, Cumbo started his network television career at National Geographic Television and Film, and by 2005, had been appointed sr. producer with National Geographic Specials and Events Production. His films for National Geographic have taken him many places around the world, including war-torn Afghanistan, the rim of an active volcano in Guatemala, inside a tornado in Texas, and the world’s largest prison in India. He hiked with two eye surgeons from Maoist Rebel controlled territory in Nepal to the Himalayan Kingdom of Mustang in the Tibetan Plateau for his award-winning film, “Miracle Doctors.”
In 2004, Cumbo joined National Geographic Channel. There, he served as EP and oversaw over 60 hours of original programming, including such hits as “Inside the Mafia,” “In the Womb,” “Dark Side of Chimps” and “Megastructures.”
In 2002, Cumbo filmed, wrote, and produced “Search for the Afghan Girl,” the headline-making story of Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula, whose photograph first appeared on the cover of the National Geographic magazine in 1985. The film received a worldwide simulcast in over 120 countries, garnering over 150 million viewers during the premiere. The film was nominated for a 2003 Emmy Award and has won several additional industry honors. Earlier in his career, Cumbo produced independent documentaries for Cumbo Media.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More