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The Company
Kieran Baker is the founding director of Political Bytes Productions, and Executive Producer, Emmy Award winning Director, and three times nominated TV journalist; he began his career with CNN in the Middle East working across the defining stories of the 1990’s, from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia to Iraq, India to Israel, Gaza and Qatar. In 2002 he joined Fox News to spearhead their International operations and then moved to Los Angeles to teach Journalism and Film at the Annenberg School of Communications.
While in Los Angeles he worked for Fox Searchlight Pictures on the global box office sensation “Borat”- being asked to use his newsgathering skills to set-up scenes for the Global Globe & BAFTA award winning Ali G team. He acted as a news consultant and researcher, working directly with Sacha Baron Cohen.
In 2005 he went back to journalism to help start up one of the most ambitious projects in the history of TV news - Al Jazeera English. Based in Washington DC he brought together a team of journalists, technicians and presenters to launch the news hour from Washington, and 4 additional hours of news programming a day. He was also Executive Producer for feature programming and oversaw the documentary strand that he created called Political Bytes.
After two and half years leading the DC operation for the Americas he left to set up his own boutique independent production company- Political Bytes Productions - specializing in program making across the Middle East. In 2009 he teamed up with the Oscar nominated Loki Films to produce "Terror Rehab", a major documentary film for the prestigious NOW strand on PBS & Channel 4.
During this period he returned to LA to work on the sequel to “Borat” – “Bruno”- the recent $42 million budget Universal feature film. Last year he directed a viral video for the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project and a Climate Change special (“Why the Rainforest could cost us the earth”) for Bloomberg News in London, which is where he is now based.
Baker has just completed work on the IMAX Arabia 3d and a special half-hour feature for PBS called Inside Arabia- a look at the incredible filming that took place in Saudi Arabia.
Political Bytes Productions is currently adapting, for the big screen, the pioneering story of Lady Anne Blunt and the inspiring history of Fahreddin Pasha. Baker has also been asked to develop Terror Rehab for Nat Geo TV.
Political Bytes recent clients and production partners include:
MacGillivray Freeman Films
www.macfreefilms.comPrince's Rainforest Project
www.rainforestsos.orgAl Jazeera
english.aljazeera.net