By any measure, Nate Barlow’s career defies easy categorization. Actor, screenwriter, producer, documentarian, silent-film restorer—he has done a little of everything and seems happiest when juggling multiple projects at once.
“I’ve always been fascinated by history—film history, Los Angeles history, Burbank history. It’s all interconnected.”
Barlow spent most of his childhood in central Connecticut, but a two-year family sabbatical to Tanzania left a lasting impression. His father, a professor at Wesleyan University, accepted a post at an international school and moved the family overseas.
“It was as different as it gets. No television, no home phone, power that came and went. But it shaped how I see the world.”
Returning to Connecticut, Barlow finished high school and enrolled at Carnegie Mellon—not for film but for engineering. Yet even then, he was sneaking into acting classes and shooting films through a loose partnership between Carnegie Mellon and Pitt. “I knew engineering wasn’t my future. I was already planning the switch.”
After graduation he tried the corporate world, taking a job on Long Island. But a business trip to San Francisco reignited his passion for the arts. A few weeks later, landing in Los Angeles on another work assignment sealed the deal.
Barlow’s first break came in January 1998, working on an AFI student film. There he met Greg Swartz, the future director of The Water of Life, a relationship that has fueled several documentaries.
“That was my first producing job—shooting out in the desert in July. Pleasant!”
The early years were a patchwork of shorts, indie features, and acting gigs. He and Swartz co-created Hollywood, Pennsylvania, a prescient feature about a man live streaming his life—years before reality TV and YouTube exploded.
Nate met his wife at a Carnegie alumni group and soon they had a family. While she worked at Disney Nate stayed home with the kids and used the time to write and pursue his passion project: A Brief History of Hollywood, a nine-minute experimental documentary simulating a time-lapse of the Hollywood sign while charting the evolution of film-making technology—from silent films to stereo sound to digital effects.
In 2010 he sold a screenplay whose production could have itself been made into a movie. The film Random Encounters starred Meghan Markle the future Duchess. It gets re release in, the UK DVD. and was a little controversial because she’s in a negligee in a scene. So it gets all the tabloid press. And then suddenly, socials light up because there was, a three episode documentary on Netflix called Dancing with the Devil. Apparently, the financier of the film was this guy, Robert Shin, a cult leader.
About seven years ago, Barlow’s focus shifted from narrative to nonfiction. He directed an experimental short while co-producing a feature documentary on Scotch whisky with his friend Greg Swartz. That film, “The Water of Life”, aired on PBS and became a cult hit among whisky enthusiasts. It traced the craft revival of Scotch after the “whisky loch” glut of the 1980s.
“We had so much footage—especially of independent bottlers—that it became a second film.”
That second project, “Independent Spirits”, premiered earlier this year and is now on Amazon Prime. It delves into the little-known world of independent bottlers who helped shape modern whisky culture. Another recent release, “Prost”, celebrates the beer and brewers of Upper Franconia, Germany.
Barlow’s love of film history also led him to restore His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz, a 1914 silent feature produced by L. Frank Baum’s long-forgotten Oz Film Manufacturing Company. Using materials from the Library of Congress—including reels no one knew survived—Barlow assembled the best version yet, transferring nitrate footage to 4K and recreating period-accurate title cards.
“It was my Indiana Jones moment—finding the original negative spliced at every scene cut.”
The restored film premiered in September 2024 and had its UK debut this year on an IMAX screen alongside the MGM classic. He’s now applying for grants and raising donations through the International Wizard of Oz Club to save the rest of the company’s films before the nitrate decays beyond recovery.
Barlow has lived in Burbank since 2004, drawn by its blend of small-town feel and media-industry access. His two children have dabbled in acting and filmmaking themselves.
He praises Burbank’s diversity and community spirit.
“My kids have friends from so many different backgrounds. And as a history buff, I love Burbank’s own story. It really is the media capital of the world.”
Even with multiple documentaries in circulation, Barlow is far from slowing down. He’s rewriting a true-life narrative screenplay with a female director attached, preparing a voice over demo, and juggling new documentary concepts with his core team of collaborators.
“We complement each other’s strengths. With enough overlap that we can slide into each other’s roles. It creates trust—and freedom.”
Funding remains a constant puzzle—private equity, crowdfunding, tax-deductible donations—but Barlow has learned to view outreach as part of the art. The virtual premiere of The Water of Life became an interactive event with distillers joining live Zoom sessions, thrilling fans and broadening the film’s reach.
He thrives on blending research, history, and storytelling—whether charting whisky’s revival, reconstructing a lost silent film, or animating a century of Hollywood sign changes.
A Brief History of Hollywood played at 34 festivals worldwide, winning awards despite the pandemic forcing many screenings online
What drives him through these disparate pursuits is a single through-line: curiosity.
“I’m sure there were more elegant ways to do some of it, but I was a bull in a china shop.”
In Barlow’s hands, the past isn’t static; it’s material for fresh stories, new formats, and unexpected connections. As his slate of projects shows, the medium hardly matters. What counts is the chance to explore—and to share what he finds.
“On any given day I’m jumping between four or five different things. That’s how I like it.”
Originally Published in www.theburbankblabla.com
