Bill Pruitt is a renowned storyteller in unscripted television, boasting an impressive five-time Emmy Award winner. His professional journey began in the mountains above his hometown in Utah, where he worked for Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. Pruitt followed one of the founders of Sundance to the Columbia University School of the Arts, where he pursued a degree in screenwriting and directing.
During his academic tenure, Pruitt was awarded several academic fellowships to develop the producing curriculum and graduated with honors. He wrote and directed several award-winning short films, including "Bolo," which screened at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Additionally, his feature screenplay, "Dry Cycle," was produced by Newmark Films.
Following the completion of his Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia, Pruitt embarked on a global journey, producing television content for various networks, including CBS, NBC, MTV, Nat Geo, History, Animal Planet, Discovery, Vice, Magnolia, and Amazon Prime. His work took him to nearly every continent on the planet.
Pruitt's notable creation is the six-part series "Weed Country" for Discovery, which profiles growers and distributors of medical marijuana in the Northern California Emerald Triangle, as well as the law enforcement agencies aiming to shut them down. Critics praised the series as "groundbreaking" and "similar to The Wire in its complexity," and it developed a significant cult following in 2012.
Throughout his career, Pruitt has received numerous nominations and accolades. He has been nominated four times by the Producers Guild of America as Outstanding Non-Fiction Producer and won the Excellence Award from the Factual Entertainment Forum as Showrunner of the hit Discovery series "Deadliest Catch." The American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has nominated him six times for the Primetime Emmy Award, with Pruitt winning the award four years in a row as Supervising Producer of "The Amazing Race."
Pruitt's digital series, "Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse," for Amazon Prime, was nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award, the Realscreen Award, five Daytime Emmy Awards, including Best Directing and Best Editing, and won the Emmy for Best Culinary Series in 2017.
Today, Pruitt divides his time between California, New York City, and Utah, where he raises his two sons, both aspiring filmmakers, Jackson Stratton and William Wyler Pruitt.
