If you've been anywhere near a television in the past 15 years, chances are you've seen something Chris Cranford has directed.
If you saw him when he was a boy in Little Rock, you would have recognized him by the shopping cart he requested from his parents one Christmas, to use as a dolly. "They were mortified that people would see me walking around the neighborhood and think I'd stolen it from Kroger," the film and commercial director says today.
From rolling around with a handheld VHS recorder, Cranford went on to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts and return to Little Rock to direct a feature, "Sagittarius."
After stints working in New York and again in southern California, doing projects for the likes of A&E and the History Channel, he returned to Little Rock, where he has made the documentaries "Without a Paddle: A Dark Tale of Whitewater" and "Brother Will & Colonel Jim: Faulkner Family Stories."
He won the best director prize four straight years at the Little Rock Film Festival, supports the Arkansas Arts Center and the Historic Arkansas Museum and shoots footage around Arkansas for the state's tourism advertising.
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