Magazine Spring 2024 Faith in the Film Industry
During nearly 40 years in the film industry, DAWN CARSON O’KEEFFE ’82 has served as vice president of finance for Academy Award-winning Breakwater Studios and produced award-winning documentaries at Blue Field Productions, the company she co-founded. Breakwater won an Oscar in 2022 for Best Documentary Short Film for “The Queen of Basketball” and again
in 2024 for “The Last Repair Shop,” about the craftspeople who fix 80,000 musical instruments for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“It’s about repairing school instruments for free and tells individual, personal stories that touch on so many important themes,” she says.
“The Queen of Basketball” features basketball legend Lusia Harris, and Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry served as executive producers.
Dawn and her husband, Jim, co-founded Blue Field Productions in 1985, providing production services and producing films for more than 200 clients. They also produced the award-winning feature documentary, “GO PUBLIC: A Day in the Life of an American School District,” which aired nationally on PBS and serves as a teaching resource for college and university education departments.
She worked as a producer/writer for Blue Field while also
running the business and raising four children. After three decades, she wanted to see how another documentary company operated. Ben Proudfoot, one of the directors for “GO PUBLIC” before founding Breakwater Studios in 2012, recruited her. “Ben’s an astute guy, and he presented me with a totally unexpected opportunity,” she says. “I started with Breakwater as one of five employees. We now have a staff of 20 and a separate feature film company, Beyond the Breakwater.
Breakwater’s sustainable business model involves creating films for clients such as Charles Schwab, Unity Technologies, LinkedIn and Amazon as well as award-winning original documentaries. “The branded films tell uplifting and meaningful stories about individuals,” she says. “Our clients wanted another way to connect with their target audience, and these short films have resonated.”
A double-major in English literature and economics and business, Dawn developed an early interest in broadcasting. In high school, she wrote to a local news anchor that she
planned to attend Westmont but the college lacked a broadcasting major. “The anchor said, ‘Don’t worry about that; get a strong liberal arts education. As a reporter and a journalist, you need to know about a lot of things, and you can learn the rest on the job.’”
In her junior year, Dawn studied economic policy in Washington, D.C., and won a competitive internship at NBC’s Consumer Unit with Lea Thompson, a familiar face on Today and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. “I was part of an eight-person research staff, and it fueled my interest in pursuing broadcast journalism,” she says.
Dawn landed another internship at KFWB, Los Angeles’ all-news radio station, and later attended a broadcast media summer program at Stanford. In her senior year, she got a job with the KEYT-TV (ABC) news department. “My college education was excellent on so many levels,” she says. “I took advantage of several unique programs and looked for opportunities outside of Westmont to deepen my knowledge and skills.”
Dawn chose Westmont to put down deeper spiritual roots. She remains an active member of Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, and she and Jim have held leadership positions in ministries for more than 35 years. She was one of the original members of Premise, a group of Christian writers, directors and producers in TV and film. “In those early years, few Christian fellowship groups served people in the industry,” she says. “Thankfully, we have more options today.”
Dawn and Jim meet each year with three other Page Hall A alumnae and their spouses: Dan ’82 and Kathy Watts Walker ’82; Tracie Collier ’82 and Eric Pinckert; and David and Karen Lusk Garcia ’82. “To have sustained these relationships and committed to getting together every year is very special,” she says.