About NLP

Northern Light Productions (NLP) creates distinctive media including immersive environments, interactive installations and well-crafted narrative films. We believe in exceeding expectations with our integrated team of content experts, media designers, and producers. We view our clients as our partners and strive to create experiences that reflect our shared vision.

About NLP

Northern Light Productions (NLP) creates distinctive media including immersive environments, interactive installations and well-crafted narrative films. We believe in exceeding expectations with our integrated team of content experts, media designers, and producers. We view our clients as our partners and strive to create experiences that reflect our shared vision.

Our Story

Northern Light Productions (NLP) was founded in 1982 as a documentary film company firmly rooted in the principles of co-creation. Our earliest film is also one of our most personal, exploring the relationship and tension between returning Vietnam Veterans and a nation eager to find "morning in America." Made by veterans, told by veterans, and set against the backdrop of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, How Far Home became a landmark documentary on a generation's lost innocence and the challenges faced when coming home.

How Far Home set the standard for what would become a hallmark of Northern Light: a deep commitment to first-person storytelling and a belief in harnessing the power of media as a means to better understand one another and the larger world.

Our company has grown to become one of the premiere production companies in the nation, creating distinctive interactive and immersive media experiences for museums, visitor centers and institutions around the world. At the same time, we are always continuing to develop and produce independent film and media for broadcast networks and streaming platforms. It is this commitment to the spirit of independent film and documentary arts that sets us apart in the field of museum visitor experiences and makes our work unique.

Visitor Experiences

Creating meaningful and inclusive visitor experiences is at the forefront of our minds during the entire production process. How can we tell a story that draws people in and includes diverse perspectives? How can we design media that is intuitive and accessible for all? Our recent work has been on the cutting edge of technology, harnessing the power of pixels to create memorable interactive and immersive experiences.

Our Team

We are an integrated team with decades of experience in media design and visitor activations. Our collaborators and advisors include an Academy Award® winning archival researcher and content experts from across many disciplines and areas of academic study. We are a founding member of the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers, a global network of film production companies. We have been named by RealScreen Magazine as "one of the top production companies in the world."

Rich Remsberg, Archivist

Rich Remsberg, Archivist

Fellowship

Co-creation has has been our guiding principle since our founding, Our Northern Light. It is fundamental to everything we do, from our independent and broadcast films – to our work for museum, corporate and institutional clients. Throughout our history, we have always maintained a deep commitment to a diverse creative team.

Northern Light is a fellowship site for The Loop Lab, an organization dedicated to training womxn and people of color for careers in media. Our fellowship is run concurrently with Lesley University, complementing their education in the media arts with on-the-ground training at our company. Our collaboration with The Loop Lab has enriched our team and provided powerful opportunities for collaboration.

Xavier Asamoah, NLP Fellow 2024

Fellowship

Co-creation has has been our guiding principle since our founding, Our Northern Light. It is fundamental to everything we do, from our independent and broadcast films – to our work for museum, corporate and institutional clients. Throughout our history, we have always maintained a deep commitment to a diverse creative team.

Northern Light is a fellowship site for The Loop Lab, an organization dedicated to training womxn and people of color for careers in media. Our fellowship is run concurrently with Lesley University, complementing their education in the media arts with on-the-ground training at our company. Our collaboration with The Loop Lab has enriched our team and provided powerful opportunities for collaboration.

Accessibility

Accessibility has long been a consideration in all of our media design and production work. Having worked on government and public museum projects around the country, including major museums for the Smithsonian Institution, we have significant experience responding to evolving guidelines around accessibility and universal design, including the use of captioning, audio description, assistive listening systems and navigational keypads (navigation aids) for our interactive media.

We know that all visitors need to quickly understand how to navigate a program for an enjoyable experience and aim to design clear user interfaces. Our commitment to engaging users through the design and production process, including a commitment to prototyping is key to our success. We implement user testing to confirm usability, accessibility, visitor interest, comprehension, and key takeaways.

Interpretive Films

We have been a long-standing contractor for the National Park Service, having created visitor center films and multimedia installations for over three decades. Over our robust career managing remote and rugged film production and nature photography in our nation's parks, we have amassed a core team of cinematographers and production experts with significant experience capturing beautiful shots in rugged terrain.

Currently, we are engaged in directing a documentary for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. This film will play in all 400+ National Park Service sites around the country. Other federal and state agencies we have worked for include the American Battle Monuments Commission, for whom we directed a feature documentary for their centennial year, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States National Forest Service.

Interpretive Films

We have been a long-standing contractor for the National Park Service, having created visitor center films and multimedia installations for over three decades. Over our robust career managing remote and rugged film production and nature photography in our nation's parks, we have amassed a core team of cinematographers and production experts with significant experience capturing beautiful shots in rugged terrain.

Currently, we are engaged in directing a documentary for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. This film will play in all 400+ National Park Service sites around the country. Other federal and state agencies we have worked for include the American Battle Monuments Commission, for whom we directed a feature documentary for their centennial year, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States National Forest Service.

Documentaries

To date, we have produced and released over 40 independent documentaries, an average of about one per year, often in collaboration with individuals from the communities being profiled. From You Don’t Know Dick, a 1997 documentary profiling the lives of six courageous transexual men to Circus Without Borders, produced in collaboration with Inuit circus performers from Igloolik and West African performers from Guinea.

Our nationally recognized work in the arena of civil rights, with films such as Birth of a Movement, Midnight Ramble, and Long Road to Justice, featured a producing team that included members of the NAACP and SNCC. Our work in the arena of criminal justice reform, with films such as The Dhamma Brothers and Beyond The Wall, have been screened before judges, lawyers, sheriffs, prison officials, and state representatives and decision makers and continue to be used as an educational tool to understand the ways in which treatment services can help curb recidivism.

Over the past four decades, our independent films have been nominated for Emmy Awards and NAACP Image Awards and have been released theatrically in the United States and Canada. Our films have premiered at festivals including Sundance, AFI Silverdocs, Full Frame Hot Docs, the Austin Film Festival, the Canadian International Documentary Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

Our films have been broadcast nationally on PBS, Discovery, Sundance Channel, Investigation ID and America ReFramed on the World Channel and internationally on Sky TV and BBC. Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, co-produced with C-Films, was broadcast on ZDF/ARTE and distributed by Sony Pictures. Our recent work includes a two-hour holiday special for PBS profiling Anthony William’s Urban Nutcracker, as well as the two-hour History Channel Special, Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden, which features interviews with Presidents Obama and Bush, Secretaries Clinton and Gates, and members of Seal Team Six.

Selected Partners

Selected Awards

2023 First Place, Video Category, National Association for Interpretation Awards
2022 Second Place, Video Documentary Category, National Association of Government Communicators Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Award
2021 ISHY Award, New Exhibit Category, International Sports Heritage Association
2021 Second and Third Place, Video Category, National Association for Interpretation Awards
2019 Second and Third Place, Video Category, National Association for Interpretation Awards
2018 Silver Muse Award for Multimedia Installations
2018 Silver Muse Award for Video, Film, & Computer Animation
2018 Gold Southeastern Museums Conference Excellence in Exhibition Competition
2018 Outstanding Public History Project
2017 NAACP Image Award Nominee
2017 Emmy Award Nominee
2016 Gold New York Design Award
2012 Gold Muse Award for Video, Film, & Computer Animation

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