Todd Douglas Miller

• 1. Introduction

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  Todd Douglas Miller won the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019. The honor came in the film category, for his documentary Apollo 11. That same year, Apollo 11 also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Picture Editing and a Peabody Award for Documentary. Miller is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, though his path toward that world began not in Los Angeles but in Columbus, Ohio. What first drove him toward nonfiction filmmaking? And how did a filmmaker from the Midwest reach the highest levels of documentary recognition with Apollo 11?

• 2. First Steps

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  In the 1990s, Miller studied at the Motion Picture Institute in Detroit and at Eastern Michigan University. His first film, Gahanna Bill, appeared in 2001 under the screen credit Todd Miller, not his full name. A second film, Scaring the Fish, came out in 2008 under the same shortened credit. Both works predate any major festival recognition. In 2014, a new film would shift that entirely.

• 3. Dinosaur 13

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  At the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Dinosaur 13 earned Miller a nomination for the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize. The Black Hills Film Festival named it Best Documentary that same year. In 2015, the film won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Programming. Four years later, Miller released Apollo 11.

• 4. Apollo 11

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  At the 2019 American Cinema Editors Awards, Apollo 11 won Best Edited Documentary Feature. That was one of five distinct editing awards the film collected that year. The Sundance Film Festival gave Miller a Special Jury Award for Editing. The Cinema Eye Honors named him for Outstanding Achievement in Editing. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association also recognized Apollo 11 for Best Editing. The Critics' Choice Documentary Awards added a Best Editing prize. Three further Critics' Choice wins followed: Best Documentary Feature, Best Archival Documentary, and Best Science/Nature Documentary.

  The Producers Guild of America recognized Miller with the Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures award. At Sundance, Apollo 11 also received a nomination for the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize. The British Academy nominated it for Best Documentary. The Independent Spirit Awards added a nomination for Best Documentary Feature. The Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program was one of 17 separate recognitions Apollo 11 received in 2019 alone.