Randy W. Schmidt

Randy W. Schmidt grew up making stop-motion animated Super-8 movies. After graduating from UCLA film school he worked for "Die Hard" producer Larry Gordon at 20th Century Fox and wrote several feature-length screenplays. Seeking more adventure, he relocated to Japan in 1996, worked as a staff cameraman at the CNN Tokyo Bureau and freelanced as a cameraman-editor-producer for dozens of production companies. In 2006, Randy joined CBS News as a cameraman-editor based in Tokyo and Beijing, covering all of Asia, including nine assignments in North Korea. In 2019, he formed a just-for-fun production company called RanDyLan Productions with his 8-year-old son Dylan! Together, they began making side-project stop-motion animated movies which have won multiple festival awards.