Biographie
During high school, Neal filmed his varsity football team every Saturday using a windup Bolex camera with 16mm film. He can still load a daylight reel effortlessly with his eyes closed.
Neal’s 30-year career spans film, network and cable television, and the Internet. He spent over 20 years as a film producer and cinematographer on NBC's Saturday Night Live and worked as a producer/director of videos with playwright Edward Albee.
His television credits include roles as production company, producer, and director of photography for NBC's SNL film unit. Notable projects include Java Junkie with Teri Garr and Peter Aykroyd, Falling in Love with Jon Lovitz and Victoria Jackson, Love is a Dream featuring Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks, The Best of Saturday Night Live, The Land Before Television with Dana Carvey, The Best of Phil Hartman SNL, and SNL’s 25th Anniversary special.
Neal also served as executive producer and director for two one-hour specials: The Comedy Channel's Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search and the Third Annual event, directing talents such as Ray Romano, Steve Harvey, Judd Apatow, and Ellen Cleghorne.
For PBS, he produced and directed award-winning documentaries, including The Conspiracy of Silence with actress Kathleen Turner, distributed by Pyramid Media.
He worked as director of photography (videographer) for the Shoah Foundation Visual History Project interviews in Westhampton, New York. Under Steven Spielberg’s direction, the Foundation has archived over 52,000 testimonies from Holocaust survivors, liberators, rescuers, and war crimes trial participants.
Neal’s interest in the Internet began in 1983. In 1995, while contracted with the BBC, he pioneered streaming web video. Since then, he has developed numerous award-winning interactive projects, including interactive toys for Mattel and a website he created with Eliot Feld for Ballet Tech, a public high school in New York City focused on dance.
He has earned more than 30 awards in interactive design, film, and television, including an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing and Cinematography. Neal was recently named one of the Top 100 Producers in the industry. He earned his BA in Film and TV from NYU in 1974 and currently resides in New York City.
