Carmelle Danneman '16S

Emmy-nominated news producer and filmmaker Carmelle Danneman ’16S shares stories on both the big and little screen On March 11, 2018, a sightseeing helicopter crashed into New York’s East River, killing five passengers. Carmelle Danneman ’16S had been a news producer at Spectrum NY1 for a little more than six months, working with the executive producers and technical crews to choose story lineups, camera shots, video, sound bytes and graphics for newscasts. March 11 was a Sunday, a day when many of the higher-level producers and executives were off for the weekend. Carmelle, then 23 years old, was required to step in and step up, leading team coverage for three hours of wall-to-wall reporting on the tragedy. “It was definitely very eye-opening,” she says. The following February, Carmelle was nominated for a New York Emmy Award for that coverage. While Carmelle, now 25, says that her experience at NY1 fueled her passion for the news and taught her how to tell stories through broadcast reporting, she already had an impressive history of sharing stories on film. A media studies and advertising major, she started her own production company, Georgia Peach Productions—as well as the YU Film Club—while at Stern College for Women. At 20, she wrote, directed, produced and starred in the short film Send in the Clowns, which won the Audience Choice Award at the 54 Film Fest in Nashville and the Atlanta Shortsfest. The film, which was inspired by her volunteer experience at Hadassah Hospital during her year studying at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim in Jerusalem, is about a young girl with cancer who is inspired by a medical clown. “The film is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother,” explains Carmelle, who started her current position as a segment producer at MSNBC’s Morning Joe in June. “We were very close and she died of cancer in 2012.” At its Hanukkah Dinner in 2015, YU recognized her as a Point of Light for her ambition and her achievement. In 2016, she was named one of the Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36.” Encouraged by the success of Send in the Clowns, Carmelle wrote another short, The Puppeteer, which was accepted into the Cinequest Film Festival in California in 2016. The film is about a 9-year-old boy named Jordan who sees puppet strings up to the sky, attached to everyone. He and his friend, Emma, wonder who really controls the strings joined to their wrists. Working with young actors is something that is comfortable for Carmelle, who hit the boards as a child in her native Atlanta. (Her parents told her she was “so dramatic” that she should be on stage. The rest is history). Stage acting morphed into film and TV roles, including Law and Order and HBO’s Crashing. The transition to the other side of the camera was a move that she says felt natural. After graduating from Stern, Carmelle found a career in news, a field that she hadn’t previously considered. But a job opportunity as a producer at News 12 was too good to pass up and she jumped at the chance. As with Send in the Clowns, her work in news broadcasting seems inspired by her grandmother as well. “She loved watching the news, and I think of her every day now that I’m working in the industry,” says Carmelle. “It’s certainly widened my knowledge and my perspective of the world. It’s also a very interesting time to be working in the field with the 2020 election coming up. I’m embracing the opportunity to learn.”