Difference between revisions of "Scott Swofford:Mormon Producer"

Revision as of 20:00, 15 October 2019

Scott Swofford is an American film and IMAX producer. He has shot film in 55 different countries. Besides Roving Mars for Disney, he produced the $100 million IMAX hit Mysteries of Egypt for National Geographic, Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure for NOVA, and Amazon, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

He was also the BYU (Brigham Young University) Broadcasting creative director and director of content for BYUtv from 2010 to 2016. He is the former director of media for the missionary department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he is a member. He is the creative mind behind the “I’m a Mormon” publicity campaign for The Church of Jesus Christ.

After leaving BYU Broadcasting, Swofford was president of Radiant Studios, part of Deseret Management Corporation.

His filmography includes Seasons of the Heart (1993), Rigoletto (1993), The Great American West (1995), Olympic Glory (1999), The Testaments: One Fold and One Shepherd (2000), The Work and the Glory (2004), and The Work and the Glory: American Zion (2005).

He also created the BYUtv vision, a revolutionary sister channel to KBYU-TV, which ventured into scripted dramas with the premier of Granite Flats. Swofford is director of BYUtv’s family drama television series, Granite Flats. The show’s first season, aired in 2012 and received very positive reviews and a very large fan following. Granite Flats is about a small town near a military base in the 1960s. The show focuses especially on a trio of children who are trying to live normal lives, and who unravel what they think are chilling mysteries, all while cold war tension surrounds them. After the abrupt cancellation of the show, Swofford was involved with a spin-off series called Web of Spies, but that too was dropped by BYUtv.

Under Swofford’s initiative in 2009, film crews followed LDS missionaries laboring each day in the mission field in order to provide new missionaries with some useful training and show new missionaries what to expect on a mission. In 2012 the project, called The District, was turned into a reality TV series on BYUtv.

Under his leadership, ten new series were launched in fall 2011. He also directed the BYUtv series Extinct. In 2012 BYUtv won 11 Emmy awards for it's professional family friendly programming.

Swofford was also the executive producer of the BYUtv series The Song that Changed My Life. Each episode features a popular singer or band as they describe a song that means the most to them. He also was the executive producer of the Christmas film, Silent Night, written by Christian Vuissa. In 2013 both the series and the film were accepted into the LDS Film Festival.

Swofford earned a bachelor’s degree in motion picture and TV from Brigham Young University in 1979.