Skip Blumberg

Skip Blumberg is a filmmaker, video artist, photographer, and media pioneer who has created several hundred independent and commissioned works over a 55+-year career, and continues to create media and media events. He is a founding member of the Videofreex pioneer video production group and of the current Videofreex Partnership and Videofreex.com.

Freex, family and friends 2019Videofreex circa 1974, Skip Blumberg 2nd from right

Blumberg’s TV shows have been broadcast and cablecast on networks including PBS, Showtime, National Geographic TV, Disney Channel, and internationally, with footage acquired for numerous movies and TV shows, including featured in Martin Scorsese’s documentaries on Bob Dylan and Fran Lebowitz.

His Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show is considered a classic early video documentary and has been screened in festivals and venues around the world, including MoMA’s "Black Heroines" series.

He produced and directed 150 shorts for Sesame Street, and shows and segments for PBS’s Great Performances, Alive TV, the Sci Fi Channel, and others. Through his company, In Motion Productions, Blumberg has produced many award-winning educational and fundraising films that helped raise millions in donations to non-profits.

Skip’s productions have received over 5 million views online and are featured on SkipBlumberg.com, SkipsClassicVideos.vhx.tv, SkipsNewMovies.vhx.tv, MoreArtistsMovies.com, MediaBurn.org, and www.myhero.com, with dozens pirated on YouTube.

With work in permanent collections of major museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Centre Pompidou (Paris), and others, Blumberg’s multi-media installations have been at venues worldwide, including MoMA, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC).

Skip appears on screen in documentary films, including Here Come the Videofreex, TVTV: Video Revolutionaries and Other People’s Footage: Copyright and Fair Use. 

Blumberg has received numerous awards, including three NYC Emmys, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Ohio State Journalism Award, and recognition in the 1984 Esquire Magazine “Register of Outstanding Young Americans” and the Museum of Broadcasting’s screening series “Critic’s Favorite TV Shows of All Time.”

Blumberg’s movies present to its audiences previously hidden extraordinary events, phenomena, and people whom he discovers in world culture, avant-garde performance, and work situations, to celebrate the individuality of each of us and that by trying hard to accomplish what you believe in, you can succeed.

Skip Blumberg at Ron Kovic Hero Celebration

Blumberg curates and manages the Jane Aaron Collection, Videofreex.com, Mayday Video, and MoreArtistsMovies.com. 

Skip has led hundreds of workshops and classes globally, including as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy, and as a professor at Hofstra University. He recently lead “Multi Smart-Phone Recording & Playback “events at the University of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art.

Blumberg lives and works in lower Manhattan, where he is civically engaged. His campaign to improve City Hall Park began in 1995, first just cleaning up the park on his own so his 5-year-old son and he could play, then founding a neighborhood coalition called Friends of City Hall Park. FCHP’s mission is to assure public access, run volunteer gardening events, and advocate for more funds for parks throughout NYC. The organization pushed for the 1999 renovation, the reopening of the northern section of the park in 2006 and moving NYPD barriers 150 feet closer to City Hall in 2024. FCHP keeps a running list of maintenance issues and compiles them in a regular “state of the park” report, works directly with NYC Parks and NYPD, and produces gardening events throughout the year. The current project is to acknowledge the Lenape homeland in NYC’s civic center, which currently ignores the first people who lived in Manhattan Island for thousands of years before the Dutch arrived.

In April 2025, with neighbors and NYC Parks, Skip organized 10 Friends of City Hall Park "Tree Days," featuring corporate and community volunteer gardening teams who planted six trees and dozens of bushes, five arboreal walking tours, a tree-themed art gallery exhibition, sidewalk chalk art forest, a NYC Parks “Great Tree” demarcation, and an Arbor Day civic ceremony with local elected and NYC Parks officials.

Skip Blumberg and MY HERO

In 1994 working with Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Tom Weinberg, Rita Stern and Joel Cohen, Skip Blumberg collaborated with Jeanne Myers to produce a TV Pilot for a MY HERO TV Series, featuring segments on author Michael Crichton, teacher Laurel Greenber,  NY Fire Department’s “Hero” Awards, and Laguna Beach Life Guards. You can see the Pilot here:  myhero.com/film_MY_HERO_PILOT.

Later, Blumberg again collaborated with MY HERO on the U.S. State Department-funded Global Exchange project. As Artistic Director and trainer, he conducted digital arts workshops for videomakers, educators, artists and students on behalf of MY HERO in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Senegal, Herzegovina, and Montenegro. There, with site contacts they’d met at a prep workshop in Laguna Beach, he and My Hero’s Tony Mendoza taught locals how to create hero videos and web postings, and organized shows, providing filmmaking and Photoshop mentorship and technical training. “One of my personal rewards has been that the project led to many long-lasting, warm friendships with MY HERO contacts in the Balkans and Senegal.”

Said Jeanne Meyers, Co-founder and Director, The MY HERO Project:

Jeanne and Skip 

Skip Blumberg is a true pioneer. He has been the master of video portraits for over three decades. His love of movement, light, art, nature and sound make his work stand the test of time. His expert camera and editing techniques capture slices of life; his talent for communication, humor and compassion make him a true master digital storyteller. I am so pleased that Skip Blumberg has shared his vision, work and lesson plans with MY HERO.

MY HERO Festival Tony Mendoza, Wendy Apple & Skip Blumberg

In 2007, MY HERO presented Skip with a Special Hero Award at the MY HERO International Film Festival and he continued to submit films and serves as a Festival Judge annually. MY HERO commissioned Blumberg to create 8 plus films about heroes for the MY HERO Library. See them all here: myhero.com/org_Skip-Blumbergs-Heroes

In an interview at the 2024 MY HERO Film Festival, Blumberg emphasized the value of mentoring in media and storytelling, explaining, "I'm a big believer in learning by doing and making mistakes and pushing the mistakes to create your own style."  He highlighted the role of mentors in teaching not only technical skills but also "values and teaching strategies to be successful as a professional career."  On the importance of hero-centric storytelling, Skip said, "Look, the world right now is in rough shape. Wars should be obsolete. It's ridiculous. There shouldn't be wars. Climate change... Budget cuts for Federal domestic and international humanitarian programs… Attacks on personal liberties.  We need more, better leaders. And so making  Hero Videos is a route to find better leaders, support them, and at the same time  develop the filmmaker in many ways.” Skip believes starting hero storytelling in primary school can significantly impact children as they develop their skills and understanding. He also underscored the need to engage teachers, remarking, "One thing that MY HERO does that's great is they engage teachers. Training the teachers has more of an impact than training individual students." 

Skip Blumberg Interview

Reflecting on his role as a mentor, Skip shared his broader perspective: "Even though we have smartphones, I think that our species is not that smart. We're still learning how to do what's right."  He stressed the importance of kindness and the moral obligation to help others: "In the wealthiest country in the world, we should be able to help everybody... There’s no reason for people to suffer so much."  Concluding with a call for systemic change, he advocated for wealth redistribution: “Nobody, no family needs more than $500 million... There should be a tax on wealth. Our democratic government, on behalf of all the people, should take the excess from them...and give it to MY HERO!"                      

Over the years, Skip Blumberg has earned plenty of recognition for his work, but perhaps his greatest achievement is that he’s inspired other filmmakers and artists to embrace authenticity and innovation. Today, we can see Blumberg’s influence everywhere—from DIY filmmaking to the handheld, documentary-style videos that fill our social media feeds and even cable and broadcast TV news coverage. He’s always believed in the power of exposing real, unscripted moments, and that belief continues to resonate_.

 We at MY HERO are very grateful for his continued support of our mission.