About Joan
Joan Prowse is a writer, producer, and editor with 30 years experience creating TV, video and on-line content that connects viewers to compelling well-told stories using the most up-to date technologies and distribution platforms. Joan’s documentaries, arts biographies, and factual series and short videos have explored timely issues and been broadcast worldwide including contracts with Discovery, TLC, A&E, CBC and TVO.
Joan has a track record for completing projects on time and on budget, and selling them around the world. She licensed programs from her celebrity profile series Lucky Breaks to A&E Television in the United States and the international hit, Beauty and the Beach, was licensed to broadcasters in twelve countries on four continents. Now in international distribution, her Juno nominated music biography Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life showcases the multi-faceted career of this Native American icon and her contribution as artist, native rights activist and educator.
She’s produced the new multi-platform initiative, Green Heroes, with TVO. The project encompasses a series of television programs and short Internet video profiles about everyday and celebrity people who have championed an environmental cause. Her interest in the environment is further demonstrated with the production of documentaries for the Discovery Channel, an appointment to the board on the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival and leadership training with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Corps.
Joan has gained valuable expertise telling compelling stories in a short video format. She's created 28 one-minute video profiles of celebrated Canadians commissioned by Global Television for their Northern Lights series and over a dozen two-minute videos for Paul Kane Interactive, CineFocus Canada’s interactive documentary on DVD and a museum exhibit located at the Royal Ontario Museum. Developed during an eight-month CineFocus Canada residency at the Canadian Film Centre’s, Paul Kane Interactive pushes the boundaries of storytelling by engaging users to interact with arts based content aimed at showing early settler’s influence on aboriginal life.
In addition to her interactive, biography and documentary programs, Joan has produced over 50 videos for the non-profit sector and for federal and provincial governments. These projects cover a range of topics including: cultural issues, environmental initiatives, community health, social programs, international development, and labour initiatives. Several of these programs have been produced in French and English.
Joan is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre, the National Screen Institute, the Banff New Media Centre, OCADU's Imagination Catalyst, and Ryerson's Radio & Television Arts program. She began her career as a researcher and field producer on TVO’s flagship literary series Imprint, hosted by Daniel Richler.
