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    • Assistant Professor of production at University of Oregon, Cinema Studies Dept.

    • Founder of Saltfish Co a production company with clients like PBS and Google, where ten percent of profits go to supporting micro-budget films helmed by rural filmmakers.

    • Senior Producer for Google in the Global Learning and Design space, leading creative initiatives that blended education, innovation, and design thinking on a global scale

    • Collaborated as Creative Director at ITVS for Independent Lens to help evolve the legacy public media brand into a nimble, multi-platform, digital-first series; as a PBS Fellow, provided creative guidance on projects including an investigative vertical series with the Dallas Morning News, pairing filmmakers and Pulitzer-nominated journalists to explore the carceral system.

    • Executive Producer of The Invisible Pilot (HBO) with Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries, a critically acclaimed documentary series exploring a surreal true-crime mystery.

    • Executive Producer of Southern Fried Lies with Scout Productions, the Emmy- and Academy Award–winning team behind Errol Morris’s films, known for sharp investigative storytelling.

    • Showrunner & Director of Mineral Explorers, a National Public Television series, aired on PBS for two seasons before becoming a popular Youtube series.

    • Director and storyteller behind award-winning queer Southern documentaries such as Pink Houses and Tell Me A Memory, highlighting authentic, underrepresented narratives.

    • Creator of experimental and narrative short films, including his MFA thesis Dog Meet Goose, recognized for its provocative storytelling and festival acclaim.

    • Known for evocative, documentary-style portraiture that captures intimate, authentic moments—often focusing on queer and Southern communities.

    • His photographic work complements his filmmaking by emphasizing storytelling through visual composition, mood, and cultural identity, and has been exhibited in galleries and curated shows.

  • Accomplished writer with essays published in various outlets, including The Nation, where his piece Training a Dog uses dog training as a metaphor to explore coping with life’s challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic; he is currently working on a book offering creativity as a practical toolkit for navigating trauma and healing through artistic expression.

Knock Knock.

Jon Bryant Crawford is a dynamic storyteller whose work bridges the worlds of documentary film, creative leadership, and cultural advocacy. Raised in the American South, he is deeply rooted in exploring identity, culture, and authenticity — often shining light on underrepresented stories through a uniquely empathetic lens.

  • Jon is a Guyanese American who grew up in the American South. While in college he made a feature documentary for $400 about two gay men in rural Arkansas putting on the first pride parade in their town. The film won multiple awards and was broadcasted on National Public Television. He graduated with a degree in English Literature from Hendrix College and became an NBC affiliate news cameraperson covering stories like hurricane Katrina. He moved to San Francisco in his mid-twenties to attend SFAI where he promptly dropped out and concentrated on being a full-time homosexual. After a brief career with the circus, he moved to Los Angeles to earn his MFA from UCLA, TFT.

    While in California he directed several notable short films and worked with artists like George Kuchar, Ernie Gehr, Doug Hall, as well as with Hollywood producers Bobby Moresco, Ted Skillman, Belisa Balaban, Gary Ross and Beau Marks. Jon’s first show-running experience was for the National Public Television series - now on Youtube - Mineral Explorers.

    He then went onto work for Google as a Sr. Media Producer, where he produced content with the Global Learning and Design team. He took a hiatus from Google to launch his personal project, Tell Me A Memory, interviewing and sharing stories within the Queer community. He is the founder of the creative collective, Saltfish Co, which uses profits from commercial projects to support micro-budget filmmakers in rural communities.

    Saltfish’s first supported narrative feature by Noah Woods, I Do This For A Living, won the TRANSlations film festival in 2024.

    An avid photographer and short filmmaker, his own personal work has had gallery shows and screening in film festivals world wide.

    Recently, he Executive Produced projects like Adam McKay’s Invisible Pilot on HBO & Scout Productions’ Southern Fried Lies available on Peacock.

    He currently serves as the Creative Director for ITVS, the iconic film incubator and presenter of the award winning PBS series Independent Lens and produces commercial work for select clients on the side.

    He has received a Stonewall Society Pride in the Arts Award and has been has held residencies and fellowships at Film Independent, Crosstown Arts, Kopkind Colony, NALIP, PBS, and the Smithsonian. He has received the Four Sisters Scholarship, Edie and Lew Wasserman Grant, and Carl David Memorial Fellowship.

    Be it hand developing 16mm film in his bathtub, to creating a homemade telecine from an old camcorder, he enjoys the creative process more than the souvenir it leaves behind.