Live Action Projects is an integrated storytelling agency founded in 2005 by David Modigliani.

David is a creative strategist, storyteller and documentary filmmaker with 14+ years of experience reaching broad audiences through stories of purpose. He directs a best-in-class roster of cinematographers, photographers, extended film crews, editors, composers, motion graphics designers, audio engineers and social media community builders to execute award-winning storytelling work, from concept to Cannes.

In film work, his feature documentary Running with Beto, which took us behind the scenes with then-U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, premiered at SXSW in 2019, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary before a critically-acclaimed release on HBO. His 2020 feature documentary, Ready Or Not, which Texas Monthly calls “tenderhearted and entertaining,” follows 17 year-old Black activist Marcel McClinton as he comes of age through his campaign to unseat a powerful incumbent on Houston City Council. The film premiered on Fuse TV and Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.

Modigliani’s first feature documentary, Crawford, takes us inside the tiny Texas town that George W. Bush turned into the Western White House. The film world premiered at SXSW in 2008, played 33 festivals and became the first new movie to air on Hulu. His second feature doc, 61 Bullets, reveals the untold story behind the 1935 assassination of populist U.S. Senator Huey P. Long in the Louisiana State Capitol Building. The film follows the son of the alleged assassin, Dr. Carl Weiss, as he fights to clear his father’s name.

In addition to directing features, Modigliani co-produced the documentary Trust Us, This Is All Made Up, about legendary improv comedians TJ Jagedowski and Dave Pasquesi, which the New York Times called “as entertaining as it is astonishing” and co-produced More Than T, a feature documentary that weaves together the stories of six transgender Americans, which premiered in 2017 on Showtime. He directed the viral documentary short Dress Rehearsal about the organizers who won Wisconsin’s “pandemic primary,” which premiered during the 2020 DNC, and produced and co-directed a 12-part documentary series about young veterans returning from combat for Wounded Warrior Project called Wounded: The Battle Back Home, which aired on MSNBC and was acquired by Netflix.

He has spoken frequently at SXSW and has appeared several times on CNN and MSNBC, as well as in the Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair to discuss his work.

Through his commissioned brand work, he has enjoyed partnerships with leading PR agencies such as Praytell, Devries, Euro RSCG, Cone, Kaplow, Havas, Team Detroit and MSLGROUP.

David loves storytelling in all its forms – on page, stage, or screen. He’s a published poet and playwright. His play HOLED won the American Repertory Theater’s Phyllis Anderson Prize; his play WIRELESS-LESS premiered at the Fusebox Festival, was published in Theater Magazine, and was nominated by the Austin Critics Table for “Best New Play.” He co-founded improv comedy group, The Knuckleball Now, which was named one of Austin’s best by the Austin Chronicle and won the B. Iden Payne award for outstanding improv troupe.

He holds a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a James A. Michener fellow in creative writing, but he’s most proud to be a founding member of the Texas Playboys Baseball Club – leaders of the Sandlot Revolution.