Carolyn Coal is a writer/director with a portfolio in narrative film, advertising, and corporate branding.

With a degree in Communications from Pennsylvania State University, Coal began her career by moving to Los Angeles and working in television as a writer’s assistant. From there she went to the music video division of EMI Records, where she honed her production skills and discovered her desire to direct.

Coal attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where she earned an MFA in Film & Advertising. There she wrote and directed a Durex Condoms spec commercial, for which she was awarded a Gold Clio, and wrote and directed an award winning short film entitled Cache which toured the festival circuit internationally, culminating in a screening at Sundance and a distribution deal with Picture This Entertainment.

In 2000 Coal was recruited for a position with GSD&M Advertising in Austin Texas, a billion-
dollar agency whose clients include Wal-Mart, Land Rover, Pennzoil, The Air Force, Kohler and Seaworld. There she wrote and art directed commercials, participated in new business pitches, and directed long format projects produced for the agency’s clients. She also spearheaded an emerging media unit developing concepts for branded entertainment. Before returning to LA, Coal completed Tell Me Who Ruby Was, a short film currently touring the festival circuit and playing at AtomFilms.Com.

Coal has recently completed a feature script entitled “Smoking, Please.” This summer she will gear up for the production of Sex With Her, a fictionalized documentary that is an homage to Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March, and later this year, she will be shooting My California Home, a documentary that surveys a woman’s life in California.