Biography
Dennis F. Stevens is best known as the producer of the hit feature "The Harrad Experiment" (1973), starring relatively unknown Don Johnson. But he also produced two other feature films: "Harrad Summer" (1974), and "I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?" (1975); together with writing and directing over 75 television commercials, including some for the Accor Group and the best known wineries of France and California.
Working with companies such as Cinema Arts Productions, Inc., Air Log, and RFG Associates, Inc., Stevens was involved in the writing, directing and/or photographing of specialty projects for the Department of Defense (DoD), Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Gould Electronics, and Phillips Electronics, among many others. These specialty films, sometimes referred to as business, industrial or, "fill" films, with the exception of the latter, were produced mainly for exhibition at trade shows and corporate meetings.
"Fill" films were those distributed free to schools and television stations. In the case of schools, the Insurance Institute of America or the Plastics Institute of America, both non profit educational and research institutes, distributed films directed by Dennis F. Stevens. One of these films, entitled, "Plastics: The World of Imagination," won a prestigious Chris Award for Stevens as director. These sponsored films provided details, or "filled in" the teachers' lesson plan for the day.
Other "fill" films, sponsored by the DoD, were distributed free to television stations for the possibility of increasing military recruitment. In the 1960s, television stations played these half-hour films whenever they found themselves short of something else to screen, thus the term "fill." Today, the military itself in-house produces most of these films, thus contributing to the demise of companies such as Air Log, which specialized in military aerial photography and filming aboard aircraft carriers.
With the success of "The Harrad Experiment," Stevens could likely have continued producing feature films but instead chose to team with mentors Robert Lawrence Balzer and Duke Goldstone to do commercials, together with the above described specialty films. Robert Lawrence Balzer was the wine critic for the Los Angeles Times and the person responsible for choosing and bestowing the Holiday Magazine awards. Louis "Duke" Goldstone's RFG Associates, Inc. was the production and editorial arm of the Swift-Chaplin Agency, which agency was responsible for creating the Jolly Green Giant, Hamm's Bear (animated) and Speedy Alka Selzer commercials.
Thanks in large part to Balzer, Stevens made television commercials for 43 wineries in California and France. Working with RFG Associates, Inc. Stevens wrote, directed and/or photographed some 32 additional television commercials and business films.
From August 1979 thru April 1980, Stevens covered the final days of the Zimbabwe War of Independence for Reuters. The news service bureau also hired Stevens to cover the Gulf War from Israel, in 1991.
In 1980, Dennis F. Stevens directed 26 half-hour episodes of "AD LIB," a jazz show for the Black Entertainment Network, hosted by Phil Moore and featuring jazz legends (in order of production date): Ella Fitzgerald, Freddie Hubbard, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr., Jon Hendricks, Freda Payne, Jimmy Witherspoon, Dianne Reeves, Linda Hopkins, Charles Brown, O. C. Smith, Billy Daniels, Kenny Rankin, Willy Bobo, "Scat-man" Crothers, Sergio Mendes, and many more.
That same year Stevens produced 52 half-hour episodes of the "ROCKY ROAD" show, distributed to MTV, featuring: Missing Persons, The Bus Boys, Romeo Void, Tower of Power, James Harman, Meatloaf, Crystal Gale, Huey Lewis & the News, Marshal Tucker, and many more.
In the early 1980s, Stevens directed 20 musical videos for Capital/EMI, and other record labels. Among others produced and co-directed (with Chris Donovan) the Missing Persons, "I Like Boys" video, winner of the 1982 ACE award.
Mervin Leroy and Mike Frankovich sponsored Stevens' membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in 1974. He became a member of the Writers Guild of America when hired by Dick Powell and Four Star Productions to think up plots for its then vast television programming. Stevens has written a number of as yet unproduced screenplays.
Stevens retired in 2003 to become an adjunct professor lecturing on the subject of Journalism bias.
