Tracey Trench
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Tracey Trench is an experienced builder of global content platforms and media businesses and an award-winning content producer. She is passionate about exploring new technologies and possesses a firm understanding of traditional media from her 30 years in global entertainment. She has connections deep and wide in tech and media, well-tested story expertise, and is versed in international market complexity.
Tracey has built two separate digital content edutainment platforms for Discovery Networks in Asia and LATAM. She also led a unique, worldwide wellness content and e-commerce platform founded by former professional athletes. Using her experience with content-based learning platforms and motivational design, Tracey has guided app builders on development of proprietary algorithms to gamify and highly personalize the user experience. She also produced over 500 shortform episodes of content for these platforms.
In 2011, Tracey was the #4 hire at DreamWorks Animation Studio in Shanghai. She was part of a small team that built the studio to over 200 employees leading to a sale to Comcast/Universal in 2016. She then headed the entry of the Russo Brothers (directors of Marvel's Avengers movies) into Asia where the startup produced one of the highest-grossing Chinese movies of all time, Wolf Warrior 2. She has been the president of overall deals at Universal, Disney and MGM, and has produced films for all of the major studios.
Tracey continues to produce and/or oversee film, television, documentary and theater productions grossing over $1B globally. Her work has been nominated for Emmy and Tony Awards, and has won major awards from the Sundance Film Festival, duPont-Columbia Awards, and Rockefeller Foundation.
She is a Harvard Business School guest lecturer, an advisor for UCLA's Producers Program and American Film Institute and teaches storytelling and production masterclasses at universities in North America and Asia. She was the Grand Judge of the inaugural Beijing International Screenwriting Competition and served for many years as liaison to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
Tracey has a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
She started her Hollywood career at Creative Artists Agency, and then became a studio executive at Twentieth Century Fox. There she helped develop and nurture the idea of franchise family comedies, including the original "Power Rangers" movies. During this time, she also financed and produced the award-winning documentary "Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary," about a ten-year-old immigrant girl in L.A.'s poorest neighborhood. The film won the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy nomination, and the DuPont-Columbia Award - given out by the Pulitzer Prize committee. It is also listed by the Rockefeller Foundation as one of the top ten films on American race relations.
Her skill at producing rich, commercial stories on limited budgets impressed then top Fox executives Peter Chernin, Bill Mechanic, and Chris Meledandri who offered her the opportunity to produce the Cinderella-themed film "Ever After." The film was shot in the medieval Perigord region of France, starring Drew Barrymore. It was a complicated shoot that involved actors and crew from five countries, international sales/lease-back deals and other production complexities. Tracey delivered the film on time and on budget. It became a sleeper hit for Fox, grossing over $100 million worldwide in 1998 and launching her producing career.
Tracey continued to produce films for Disney and Fox and soon after became President of Robert Simonds' company. Together, they set a goal of exploiting the under-served four-quadrant comedy market, producing a number of films including the comedy hits "The Pink Panther," "Yours, Mine and Ours," "Cheaper by the Dozen," "Herbie, Fully Loaded," and "Just Married."
She later joined the Lead Producers team that took the classic Albert Maysles documentary 'Grey Gardens' and turned it into a Broadway hit. The show won three Tonys. She also produced TV reality pilots for Bravo and Lifetime and developed a number of scripted shows before moving to Shanghai to help start the Dreamworks Animation studio there.
Tracey has built two separate digital content edutainment platforms for Discovery Networks in Asia and LATAM. She also led a unique, worldwide wellness content and e-commerce platform founded by former professional athletes. Using her experience with content-based learning platforms and motivational design, Tracey has guided app builders on development of proprietary algorithms to gamify and highly personalize the user experience. She also produced over 500 shortform episodes of content for these platforms.
In 2011, Tracey was the #4 hire at DreamWorks Animation Studio in Shanghai. She was part of a small team that built the studio to over 200 employees leading to a sale to Comcast/Universal in 2016. She then headed the entry of the Russo Brothers (directors of Marvel's Avengers movies) into Asia where the startup produced one of the highest-grossing Chinese movies of all time, Wolf Warrior 2. She has been the president of overall deals at Universal, Disney and MGM, and has produced films for all of the major studios.
Tracey continues to produce and/or oversee film, television, documentary and theater productions grossing over $1B globally. Her work has been nominated for Emmy and Tony Awards, and has won major awards from the Sundance Film Festival, duPont-Columbia Awards, and Rockefeller Foundation.
She is a Harvard Business School guest lecturer, an advisor for UCLA's Producers Program and American Film Institute and teaches storytelling and production masterclasses at universities in North America and Asia. She was the Grand Judge of the inaugural Beijing International Screenwriting Competition and served for many years as liaison to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
Tracey has a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
She started her Hollywood career at Creative Artists Agency, and then became a studio executive at Twentieth Century Fox. There she helped develop and nurture the idea of franchise family comedies, including the original "Power Rangers" movies. During this time, she also financed and produced the award-winning documentary "Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary," about a ten-year-old immigrant girl in L.A.'s poorest neighborhood. The film won the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy nomination, and the DuPont-Columbia Award - given out by the Pulitzer Prize committee. It is also listed by the Rockefeller Foundation as one of the top ten films on American race relations.
Her skill at producing rich, commercial stories on limited budgets impressed then top Fox executives Peter Chernin, Bill Mechanic, and Chris Meledandri who offered her the opportunity to produce the Cinderella-themed film "Ever After." The film was shot in the medieval Perigord region of France, starring Drew Barrymore. It was a complicated shoot that involved actors and crew from five countries, international sales/lease-back deals and other production complexities. Tracey delivered the film on time and on budget. It became a sleeper hit for Fox, grossing over $100 million worldwide in 1998 and launching her producing career.
Tracey continued to produce films for Disney and Fox and soon after became President of Robert Simonds' company. Together, they set a goal of exploiting the under-served four-quadrant comedy market, producing a number of films including the comedy hits "The Pink Panther," "Yours, Mine and Ours," "Cheaper by the Dozen," "Herbie, Fully Loaded," and "Just Married."
She later joined the Lead Producers team that took the classic Albert Maysles documentary 'Grey Gardens' and turned it into a Broadway hit. The show won three Tonys. She also produced TV reality pilots for Bravo and Lifetime and developed a number of scripted shows before moving to Shanghai to help start the Dreamworks Animation studio there.