Director
The only member of the crew who is not a beekeeper (yet), Director David Knappe most certainly caught “The Bee Fever” after meeting with The Bee Guru for the first time. David is also a producer, writer, and editor and works in the New York market. Starting out as one of DuPont’s youngest producers at the company’s Wilmington, DE headquarters, David went on to serve a variety of clients in the corporate and broadcasting sectors including BMW, CBS News, Conoco Phillips, Fox, IBM, Morgan Stanley, NAPL, QVC, Pfizer and Yahoo Finance Vision.
He is also an accomplished screenwriter across several genres. Heartbroken in Hoboken is a semi-autobiographical romantic comedy with a collection of eccentric characters. On quite the opposite extreme, Games Without Frontiers is an intricate suspense thriller centering on a former IRA leader’s efforts to divert the peace process by orchestrating sectarian violence – and the media coverage of it – with funds from an American pharmaceutical company. Ram is mind bender reminiscent of Memento and Blade Runner, centering on a Homeland Security agent in the future who uses mind control to battle terror cells and stumbles into a web of intrigue that goes to the very core of his identity. Byzance is an epic tale of the final fall of the Byzantine Empire centering on the murderous Empress Zoe, who has a habit of dispatching her husbands. Aging now, Zoe has eyes on a former young lover to ascend to the throne so that she can hold power as the empire crumbles around her.
David was a director and producer in the field for America’s Most Wanted for the 2005-2006 Season. He has also provided support for The Secret Lives of Women for We HD.
In 2008 David directed, produced and edited TV and Beyond: Cable at 60, a decade-by-decade chronicle of the history of cable television for Multichannel News. This was his first collaboration with Leslie Ellis, who researched, wrote and appeared in the documentary. Over the past four years they have collaborated on many more pieces, profiling cable industry trends and innovations including CTAM events as well as many Cable Show conferences.
In 2011 David and Leslie began principle photography on their own venture outside of the cable industry and the feature documentary Bee People was born.