Libby Geist, whose new documentary “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” has become a giant hit, never went to “film school,” per se.
Not exactly.
In fact, the Rye resident didn’t set out to work in film at all — she studied political science at University of Wisconsin in Madison. But when she moved to New York City and landed a job as an assistant to documentary film director Dan Klores, she was going to either sink or swim.
“I always say that was my film school,” said Geist. “Immediately, on day one, I had to rent cameras and set up a shoot. And I realized, ‘Somebody should probably be holding that camera. And we probably need to insure that camera.’”
Though she was nervous, Geist “knew that the job had to get done.” She remembered knocking on the doors of nearby production offices and asking for advice. “I was not afraid to tell people I needed help, and to patch things together, because in those early years, I had absolutely no business being in charge of some of the things I was told to do.”
Luckily Geist, now 44, had storytelling in her blood. Her father, Bill Geist, is a celebrated journalist who focused on human interest stories for The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times. When Geist was growing up, her dad became a correspondent for CBS Sunday Mornings.
“He had camera crews often in our house, filming trick or treating, Halloween, my little league team,” she recalled. Her father’s love of his work, and his ability to tell stories that resonated, seeped into her concept of what a career should be. “I always say my brother and I grew up with that mentality of, love what you do. It never really occurred to me that I would have a job that didn’t make me feel that way.”
You could say that Geist’s brother, Willie Geist, has stuck with the family business as well. He is a co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and hosts “Sunday Today with Willie Geist.”
Libby, the mother of two, lives in Hix Park with her husband, Kevin Wildes, who hosts the sports talk show, “First Things First” on FS1. She has held many titles throughout her career, and lately her credits say “Executive Producer.”
Geist is the President of Words + Pictures Productions, and she and her partner, Words + Pictures CEO Connor Schnell, typically produce and edit their work out of their New York City office.
“Super/Man,” their latest project, came to them in a new way. The documentary, which currently holds a 98 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, tells the story of the Reeve family both before and after the accident that left the “Superman” star paralyzed at age 43.
“We heard about the Superman project from Will Reeve,” said Geist, referring to the actor’s youngest son. “They already had a team together, so we financed the project.”
But Geist and Schnell are not “passive producers.”
“We were creative executive producers, we watched every rough cut and gave them notes,” Geist said. “We helped with some of the shoots that they had to do in New York.”
The most important task, she said, was making sure that Will Reeve and the entire Reeve family “really trusted us as filmmakers and storytellers.”
Geist and her team were thrilled to learn that the Reeve family had extensive footage to share. “Super/Man” includes home video of the actor’s early days in the hospital, when he was recovering from the accident and accepting the new reality that he was paralyzed.
Photo by Alison Rodilosso
“That’s a dream for a documentarian,” she said. “For a family to say, ‘OK, no one’s ever seen all this footage, we filmed all of it. It really brought [Reeve] to life on both sides of the accident.”
During the filmmaking process, Geist was amazed “not only by Reeve’s attitude, but the work that he [and his wife, Dana] did after the accident that just showed what an unbelievable human being he was.”
The best surprise of all, however, was how audiences have responded to the film.
“With so much unscripted content in the world, it’s hard to break through,” she said. “So when something gets this kind of exposure and interest and the emotion that people feel after seeing it, it’s really exciting.”
Beyond its box office success — it’s rare for a documentary to even get a theatrical release nowadays — the positive response “Super/Man” has received from the disabled community has been “overwhelming,” said Geist.
“Just the exposure of his story has been really wonderful for fundraising and research,” she said, citing how Reeve’s appearance at the Oscars in a wheelchair led to a surge of public interest in spinal injuries and paralysis. She hopes the exposure that “Super/Man” is getting “will continue to help not only The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, but also the understanding of disabled research and support.”
And while no release date has been announced, “Super/Man” eventually will be streamed on Max, because Warner Brothers owns the distribution rights to the film.
The rest of the projects Geist is working on typically involve sports and are more in line with their usual development process.
“Our development team will research and discover stories on their own, and then we’ll go out to celebrities and athletes and say, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about doing this?’” she said.
Words + Pictures is “still very much in the sports business, because of our relationships and our expertise,” she explained. Geist spent 12 years at ESPN, where she produced sports documentaries, including episodes of the “30 for 30” series, “O.J.: Made in America,” and “The Last Dance.”
But “Super/Man” serves as an example of the kinds of subjects Words + Pictures would like to continue exploring in the future: “Human beings, relationships, leadership, and the complexity that makes a team,” she said.
As Words + Pictures continues to develop projects from its New York City office, Geist gets to balance her passion for her work with her peaceful home in Rye.
“As busy as we are, my favorite days tend to be going to the dog park in the morning, being able to work from home, and going to Milton School for pickup,” she said. The family’s bernedoodle, Rocket Ship, was named by her sons.
Geist and her family moved to Rye eight years ago, and she’ll never forget her first impression of their new home.
“I remember the first night we moved to Rye, the Playland fireworks went off,” she recalled. “Not only could we feel them, like in our bones, but we could see them from our front porch.”
She grabbed her boys — “they were little at the time” — and pulled them outside to watch. “I remember thinking, ‘This place is magic,’” she said.
Now her sons are 10 and 12, attending Milton School and Rye Middle School, respectively. To this day, she said, her extended family is “oddly close.” Her parents live 15 minutes away in Riverside, Conn., “so we see them quite often. It’s just great to have grandparents around.”
For any budding documentarians in Rye, Geist had some encouraging news.
“A lot of people think you have to move to LA to get into the film business, but for unscripted and documentaries and what I do, there’s so much opportunity in New York,” she said. When getting started, Geist advised, young filmmakers should “just say yes, even if that means just ordering lunch for the crew or holding a tripod.”
In her spare time, Geist doesn’t actually watch many documentaries. She prefers “comfort food” shows, like Netflix’s “Emily in Paris.”
“I watch a ton of what my friends are up to and working on” — including her fellow Rye resident Stu Zicherman’s “American Sports Story” series, she said.
“With two boys and a husband that works in sports, we watch almost exclusively the NFL and NBA,” she said. “That’s my happy place: on our big couch, snuggling, and seeing how my sons know every player on the field. It’s hilarious. And that makes me happy.”
Words + Pictures’ next project, “Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley” was released on Netflix on Nov. 13.