LAWRENCE FRANZEN began his media career working as a sound designer/composer for film and television.  He has over 40 national television credits and his clients included the Emmy-award-winning “Press Box” on Prime Sports (a show that became “Fox Sports News” on Fox Sports Net).  He also had a contract to compose music for promos for “Star Trek:  Voyager” and other shows on UPN (United Paramount Network, now “The CW.”)  In addition, he scored the music to “Inner Shadow,” an independent horror film distributed in Taiwan.

Larry then began working as Production Manager for Viewpoint, a 3D graphics house whose digital models appeared in visual effects sequences in films such as “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Independence Day,” “Godzilla,” and “The World is not Enough” (007).  After being promoted to Director of Audio Visual Services, Larry shot and produced marketing videos and commercials, including editing an interactive spot for the Sony Aibo robotic dog, featuring footage from the television show “VIP” (Columbia TriStar) starring Pamela Anderson.

After Viewpoint, Larry worked as a video producer for LessonLab and Pearson Education, a fortune 500 company, where he produced research videos and documentaries.  While at LessonLab he developed a unique approach to classroom filming and designed and built specialized video equipment for that environment.  At Pearson he produced and directed a feature-length documentary film with a budget of $200K called “The SIOP Model for Teaching English Learners.”  He also produced and directed a 45 minute documentary called “Enhancing Instruction in Science:  What the TIMSS Taught Us about Teaching Science.”  This video summarized the results of the TIMSS international science study that compared teaching methods in a number of countries.  The study conclusions and video examples were presented at National Geographic.

After Pearson, Larry began working as an independent producer.  Projects include producing, shooting, and editing a documentary about the “Para Los Niños” school in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles—a collaboration with UCLA and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He also worked on projects for Teach for America (funded by the Gates Foundation); a research study filmed in Brownsville, TX for Texas State University  (funded by the National Science Foundation); and a teacher-training documentary project with the Miami-Dade school district (funded by the US Department of Education).

In addition, he wrote, directed, and produced the independent feature film “The Explorer” (2006); the sci-fi short “XF-1” (2013); and the sci-fi feature “Alien Prophecy” (2018), now streaming on various platforms.  He is presently in production on his next feature, “Alien Ocean.”

Larry also hosted a webinar discussing how he used a visual effects program called “Particle Illusion” in his film “XF-1.”  The client was GenArts, a company whose software has been used to create visual effects for films such as “The Twilight Saga:  New Moon,”  “Iron Man 2,” “Avatar,” and the Academy Award-winning drama “The Hurt Locker.”  Larry has a bachelor’s degree in Literature (focus - creative writing).  He grew up in Belgium, France, and the US and speaks French and Spanish.