Biyografi
Allen Moore, born in 1952 and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, earned his diploma from Gilman Private High School for Boys in Baltimore before attending Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he graduated with a BA in 1974.
He began his career as a movie cameraman, director, and producer, remaining active in the field, notably contributing to Ken Burns and Ric Burns television documentaries during the 1980s and 1990s.
For over three decades, Moore has worked as an independent filmmaker, producing, directing, photographing, and editing his own 16mm documentary films.
He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, teaching film production courses.
His teaching projects included: 1) a Special Projects production class where students created two one-minute shorts on super 16mm film, reminding Charles Theater patrons in Baltimore to turn off their cell phones; 2) a 15-minute documentary on Maryland Charter Schools, shot in Sony HDV format, used as an advocacy tool for the local charter school community; and 3) a documentary project in Panasonic DVCProHD high definition format promoting biodiesel as a renewable energy source while encouraging environmental stewardship.
Moore acted as director of photography for several Ken Burns historical films broadcast on PBS, including the multi-part series The Civil War and Baseball, the two-part series Thomas Jefferson, and films on Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, and Horatio's Drive. His cinematography for The Civil War and The War attracted a national audience.
In 1981, Moore completed The Shepherds of Berneray (56 minutes), a documentary capturing a year in the life of a Gaelic-speaking island community in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The film received a CINE Golden Eagle, a Red Ribbon at the American Film Festival, and a Special Mention from the Jury at Cinema du Réel. Shortly after, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Filmmaking from December 1982 to November 1983.
Baltimore Sun critic Linell Smith praised Moore’s award-winning 1990 film Black Water (28 minutes), a documentary portraying an artisanal fishing village in northeastern Brazil struggling with industrial water pollution, noting his poetic depiction of the intimate relationship between culture and environment.
Moore’s 1996 film A Sheepherder's Homecoming (40 minutes) is a stylized documentary blending personal history, verité camerawork, polemical narration, and dynamic music to tell the story of a Mexican migrant sheepherder working in the Nevada desert and his eventual return home.
In fall 2000, Moore completed The Pursuit of Truth: 200 Years at Middlebury College (40 minutes), a documentary illustrating the vibrant history of Middlebury College as a venerable liberal arts institution. This Betacam SP video earned a CINE Golden Eagle in 2001.
Most recently, in January 2004, Moore finished Albert Alcalay: Self Portraits (56 minutes), an inspiring documentary exploring the life and personality of painter and teacher Albert Alcalay.
Moore has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council. As director of photography, he worked on numerous acclaimed documentaries including Wild by Law, The Donner Party, The Way West, Divide Highways, The Harriman Expedition, New York (The Series), Monkey Trial, and Store Wars.
His cinematography on Wild by Law contributed to its 1992 Academy Award nomination for Documentary Feature. Moore was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for Ken Burns' Baseball series in 1995, and received another Emmy nomination in 2000 for his work on Ric Burns' American Experience series New York. His cinematography on the Nebraska ETV/American Experience program Monkey Trial earned a George Foster Peabody Award in 2002.
Alongside his filmmaking career, Moore served as a full-time visiting faculty member in the Electronic Media and Film Department at Towson University during fall 2004 and spring 2005. Since fall 2004, he has also been a faculty member in the Video Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
