Rick Sebak

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Rick Sebak
Born	Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Film director and producer

Rick Sebak (born 1953) is an American film director and producer who lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S..

Sebak is the creator of the "scrapbook documentary" genre,^[1] many of which he has created for WQED and PBS.^[2] Sebak attended Bethel Park High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate.

Sebak's first foray in the nostalgia documentary is the 1984 documentary Shag for South Carolina ETV, about a dance popular in the region. Four years later at WQED, Sebak produced The Mon, The Al & The O, about Monongahela and Allegheny rivers and the Ohio, which the two meet to form at Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle; and Kennywood Memories, about Kennywood, a historic local amusement park.

As of March 2006, 313,227 copies of Sebak's films had been sold or given away as pledge gifts by public television stations nationwide, which WQED credits with largely helping it become financially solvent.^[3] Sebak's scrapbook documentary format has been copied by other stations, many of whom see record pledge drive numbers when their documentaries air at pledge time.^[2]

[edit] Filmography

The Mon, The Al & The O (1988)
Kennywood Memories (1988)
Holy Pittsburgh! (1989)
Our Neighbor Fred Rogers (Two versions: 1989, 1990)
Flying Off The Bridge To Nowhere! And Other Tales Of Pittsburgh Bridges (1990)
Things That Aren’t There Anymore (1990)
Downtown Pittsburgh (1992)
The Pennsylvania Road Show (1992)
Pennsylvania Diners And Other Roadside Restaurants (1993)
Stuff That’s Gone (1994)
Houses Around Here (1994)
The Strip Show (1996)
An Ice Cream Show (1996)
Shore Things (1996)
North Side Story (1997)
South Side (1998)
Things That Are Still Here (1999)
A Hot Dog Program (1999)
Great Old Amusement Parks (1999)
Something About Oakland (2000)
Pittsburgh A To Z (2001)
A Flea Market Documentary (2001)
Sandwiches That You Will Like (2002)
Happy Holidays in Pittsburgh (2002)
Things We've Made (2003)
Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor (2003)
It's the Neighborhoods (2004)
A Program About Unusual Buildings & Other Roadside Stuff (2004)
A Cemetery Special (2005)
What Makes Pittsburgh Pittsburgh (2006)
Underground Pittsburgh (2007)
To Market To Market To Buy A Fat Pig (2007)
Invented, Engineered, and Pioneered in Pittsburgh (2008)