Mark Richard Smith

After a twenty-year career as a graphic designer, I decided to pursue a lifelong dream of presenting history on film in the most vivid and energetic ways possible. In 2005, I left the design firm I had founded and led for ten years to take the first step in my new career by earning a master’s degree in American history from Loyola University Chicago. Immediately upon completing graduate school in 2007, I began researching Sullivan that would culminate in the completion of this, my first film, in 2010.

During the past six months, while the film has played at film festivals and other special screenings, I’ve answered a lot of questions from audiences not just about Louis Sullivan, but my motivations for making the film, its production, my creative decisions, even what I learned about myself in the process.

Up to this point in my life I haven’t been particularly interested in exposing much about myself to people I don’t know and may never meet. But one thing I’ve learned about this new career I’ve chosen is that many people are as interested in the filmmaker as they are in his film. So, to that end, I am planning on starting a blog in 2011 that will address many of the questions I’ve received in the past year. If you want to be notified when this blog goes live, please go to the Contact page and send an email.

Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture — a documentary film. All content © 2010 Whitecap Films, Inc.