Herb Kossover

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Herb Kossover attended Columbia University where he received his BA and Masters in Communications. In 1971, Herb left the Big Apple to work as a photographer in promotions and publicity with Phil Walden, President of Capricorn Records. Capricorn was the largest independent record label of its time and represented artists such as The Allman Brothers Band and The Marshall Tucker Band. In 1980, Herb moved to Atlanta and went to work as a cinematographer for Turner Broadcasting's first original film series "American Portrait with Hal Holbrook." During the 80s, with the birth of MTV and the rise of music videos, Herb founded Panther Productions. He was privileged to work on many iconic music videos such as "Uptown Girl," "For the Longest Time," "Keeping the Faith," and "Baby Grand" with Billy Joel, "Time After Time," with Cyndi Lauper, "Magnetic" with Earth Wind and Fire and "Rum Tum Tugger" for the Broadway musical CATS. The early 90s brought Herb back to the television market when he directed the A&E network series "First Flights" hosted by Neil Armstrong. This is the only television series that Neil Armstrong filmed during his post-astronaut career. During this time he also directed many regional and national commercials for Kroger, Coca-Cola, Buick, BellSouth, The US Post Office and CitiCorp. Corporate imagery is also a big part of his experience having lensed projects for Kraft Foods, The Palm, Siemens, Holiday Inn Worldwide, IBM, Samsung and Pioneer Electronics. New technology became available in the 90s for filming 35mm aerial motion pictures with the introduction of WESCAM. Herb was instrumental in using the WESCAM to film images of U.S. cities including, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, New York and Los Angeles. In addition, Getty Images Worldwide and Corbis Motion represent his images worldwide in over 35 countries In 1996, Herb founded Kossover & Company with his wife, producer/writer Amy Kossover. That summer, Herb began work as director of photography for the official 1996 Atlanta Olympic documentary film directed by the legendary Bud Greenspan. His work was so well received that he was asked to lens the 1998 Winter Olympic Games for Greenspan in Nagano, Japan. The new century presented exciting challenges when Herb was asked to work as Director of Photography for the first independently produced feature-length animated film "Delgo." "Delgo" was released in 2008 and featured the voices of many Hollywood A-listers including, Lou Gossett Jr., Anne Bancroft and Val Kilmer. During this time, Herb incorporated aerials and ground footage to create promotion campaigns for television networks including, Fox, ABC, CBS, WB and Turner Sports in Las Vegas, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta and New York. He also lensed transitional scenes for NBC's hit series "The West Wing," as well as aerials for the opening segment of CBS's "CSI-New York." Herb's work can also be seen in the pilot episode of the 2010 ABC series "Detroit 1-8-7." Most recently, Herb has worked on two national faith-based commercial campaigns for the North American Mission Board. He also directed the 2010 Emmy Award winning faith-based documentary "A New Hope" featuring the Angola Prison bible college. A feature-length film version of "A New Hope" is also in development. Through the years, political campaigns make up part of his resume including, television spots for Georgia Senators, Saxby Chambliss, Paul Coverdale, and Zell Miller, as well as Georgia Governor, Sonny Perdue. His images have also been used in a PSA for former President George W. Bush. Herb has many national awards to his credit such as, HBO's "Ace" award, 18 Telly Awards, The Houston International Film Festival "Best of Show," The New York Film & Television Festival, The Mercury Award, The Aurora Award, 2003 and 2005 National Emmys (NBC's "The West Wing") and over 20 other best of show awards, to include four Regional Emmys. Herb is a member of NATAS, NAPTE, Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and Georgia Production Partners. He lives in Marietta, Georgia with his business partner and wife Amy and son Harrison.