Biography

Philip Shane is an award winning documentary filmmaker with over 35 years of experience. He is currently producing & directing a feature documentary, THE WORLD I WANT TO LIVE IN, about MYST, one of the most important video games of all time that is now residing in The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

His previous works as Producer, Director and Editor include the beloved documentary film BEING ELMO (Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival), and History Channel’s EINSTEIN (2008). As Editor of DANCING IN JAFFA (2013), which had its World Premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival, he won the Best Editing Award at Israel's DocAviv Film Festival. He was a member of the editing team on the award winning film by Sandi DuBowski, SABBATH QUEEN (2024) which is currently in theatrical release around the world.

With Paul McCartney and his family, Shane was the Editor of WINGSPAN (2001), about the McCartney's life after The Beatles. Shane’s previous project, THE BEATLES REVOLUTION (ABC, 2000) told the story of the band through the memories of musicians, artists, politicians, writers, and other celebrities. Other artists he's worked with include CARLY SIMON (Lifetime), BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (Disney) and THE BOSTON SYMPHONY (NHK).

At ABC News for nearly a decade, Shane edited many distinguished long form programs including Ted Kopple's Iraq War documentary, TIP OF THE SPEAR (2004), which won the DuPont Columbia Award for Broadcast Journalism, and MARTIN LUTHER KING: Searching For The Promised Land (1999) which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program. A short film he made with Peter Jennings, WITNESS TO HISTORY (2001), preserved Jennings' personal memories of 9/11 and has been placed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Beyond filmmaking, Shane also produces and hosts the long-running podcast, WHAT THE IF. Each week he invites scientists, science historians, journalists to show us how they would use real science to explore extraordinary imaginary scenarios.

Shane has also become a regular speaker and consultant on the use of Artificial Intelligence in documentary filmmaking and beyond. His appearances include SiriusXM, DOC NYC, The World Congress of Science & Factual Producers, The NY State Bar Association and many more. He’s spoken at many documentary filmmaking events including The D-Word, Doc NYC, The Woodstock & DC/Dox Film Festivals and more. He teaches in depth classes at Desktop-Documentaries.com and produces the weekly webinar, AI CAFE, a professional series for film & video creators.