John Gordon Hill is an award-winning filmmaker, documentarian, and director. His filmmaking career spans more than 40 years of directing and shooting dramatic pieces, documentaries, web series, dramatic programs, television commercials, corporate communications, and music videos. Mr. Hill’s most recent documentary for KCTS’s When Seattle Invented the Future, aired on 240 PBS stations.
Mr. Hill has been involved in the arts his whole life, participating in film and music in high school. He graduated college with a degree in cinematography and filmmaking, and then started a film company. He has directed many Youth Theatre Northwest shows, and loves to play keyboard music. When asked why he is involved in the arts, Hill said that to him, that question is synonymous to: “Why do you breathe?” The arts are “not apart from his life”, instead they are a major piece of who he is.
John has also had a long history with the administrative side of the arts too. He was on the board of Cornish College of the Arts, and actually spearheaded the first campaign for Youth Theatre Northwest’s original theatre 34 years ago. So, when YTN lost its theatre in 2014, Hill knew that he wanted to help find a new location for the children’s theatre. With YTN’s support, he decided to reach out to other arts organizations in the area, forming the idea for an arts center where different arts groups could gather and celebrate the diversity and variety of arts and culture.