John Dietsch
Encyclopedia
John Dietsch is the author of the book Shadowcasting: An Introduction to the Art of Flyfishing.
On the film A River Runs Through It
Dietsch supervised the fly fishing production, was instrumental in teaching the cast how to fly fish, and doubled for actor Brad Pitt. Dietsch also hosts a TV series called Adventure Guides, currently on Outdoor Channel.
Production and creative oversight
As the founder and CEO of Castle Creek Productions and Hook.tv, Dietsch is known as a pioneer in digital media with a diversified and award-winning history of production, direction, and creative media successes including more than twenty awards for television production.
Over the last two decades, Dietsch has established himself as a leader in non-fiction production, branded entertainment, and new media. Dietsch has created and produced more than 300 programs, including over 200 original episodes for television, and nearly twenty-five award-winning pilots, series, or one-off in more than 35 countries across the globe, and throughout the United States.
He has been a showrunner on hundreds of episodes, including series for Scripps Networks, Discovery and Versus.
Dietsch’s eclectic background includes soliciting and integrating brands into original programming. Client/partners have included Chrysler, Honda, Apple, Bank of America, Toyota, Suzuki, AMTRACK, The State of California, ORVIS, The National Park Service and many others to integrate them seamlessly into programming.
Dietsch has also produced and directed dozens of corporate videos and films for clients like Merrill Lynch, Kaiser Permanente, Edison International, and Hewlett Packard. Dietsch also produced and directed Rancho Alamitos: An Island in Time—a 16-minute Ken Burns
–style exhibit documentary about California history that will debut in the summer of 2011. He has produced or directed nearly 100 episodes about the subject of the Golden State.
Dietsch was the VP in charge of production at K2 Communications before reforming Castle Creek Productions Inc. in 1999.
Previous to that, Dietsch produced and wrote several brand-based TV series and films featuring sports like skiing, surfing and outdoor sports for other production companies that aired on ESPN.
As a department head on Robert Redford
’s Oscar-winning feature film A River Runs Through It, Dietsch was in charge of all the fly fishing scenes in the film. He has produced, directed, consulted on and been featured in innumerable fly fishing-based media across the world, and has produced many award-winning TV episodes on the subject.
Digital media
Dietsch is the founder and CEO of Hook.tv (www.Hook.tv). He raised more than $1.2 million to develop a web-based portal to help create niche-based video communities for adventure travelers and associated brands. Launched in April 2007 as a beta site, Hook.tv Fly Fishing is the first niche network on the Hook.tv platform, with partnerships that have included Outdoor Channel, VERSUS, ORVIS®, and Suzuki. The Hook.tv Fly Fishing Network launched its beta video community in Spring 2007, using third parties, and has migrated to a fully owned proprietary engine based on scalable architecture. Hook.tv Adventure Guides: Fishing Edition is a sister TV series that was designed to cross-promote the Hook.tv brand with a four-season run on VERSUS and Outdoor Channel.
Dietsch also consults with a variety of clients on how best to utilize video-based strategies across multiple platforms and is currently involved with an IMAX theatrical film called Cool Planet to create a proprietary social networking platform for brands leveraging a large-screen theatrical media property.
Fly fishing talent and consulting work
Dietsch is perhaps best known for doubling as Brad Pitt’s stunt double in the dangerous final scene of Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning feature film A River Runs Through It. Dietsch is known world wide as a fly fishing celebrity and has consulted on and starred in a half-dozen TV commercials for the sport in places like Japan and New Zealand, and is the co-author of the book Shadowcasting. Dietsch currently hosts Adventure Guides, a prime-time TV series on Outdoor Channel scheduled to air in its fourth season later in 2011. Dietsch travels the globe to the world’s most exclusive fly fishing destinations profiling the world’s most colorful guides. The series is set to expand into a multitude of reality-based stories about guides in other outdoor sports upon acquisition of sponsorships and co-production partners.
When not working on media projects, speaking on panels, fly-fishing or skiing, Dietsch spends as much time as he can in the Pacific Palisades with his family.
Biography
John Dietsch, an innovator in the field of traditional and digital reality-based media, is best known for his pioneering efforts in the area of lifestyle, outdoor, adventure and travel-based television. He has produced over 300 media projects, including over 175 TV episodes and segments on Adventure Travel, Outdoor Sports and Lifestyles. Dietsch founded Castle Creek Productions in 1988, and founded the video community called Hook.tv.On the film A River Runs Through It
A River Runs Through It (film)
A River Runs Through It is an Academy Award winning 1992 American film directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt, Craig Sheffer, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, and Emily Lloyd...
Dietsch supervised the fly fishing production, was instrumental in teaching the cast how to fly fish, and doubled for actor Brad Pitt. Dietsch also hosts a TV series called Adventure Guides, currently on Outdoor Channel.
Production and creative oversight
As the founder and CEO of Castle Creek Productions and Hook.tv, Dietsch is known as a pioneer in digital media with a diversified and award-winning history of production, direction, and creative media successes including more than twenty awards for television production.
Over the last two decades, Dietsch has established himself as a leader in non-fiction production, branded entertainment, and new media. Dietsch has created and produced more than 300 programs, including over 200 original episodes for television, and nearly twenty-five award-winning pilots, series, or one-off in more than 35 countries across the globe, and throughout the United States.
He has been a showrunner on hundreds of episodes, including series for Scripps Networks, Discovery and Versus.
Dietsch’s eclectic background includes soliciting and integrating brands into original programming. Client/partners have included Chrysler, Honda, Apple, Bank of America, Toyota, Suzuki, AMTRACK, The State of California, ORVIS, The National Park Service and many others to integrate them seamlessly into programming.
Dietsch has also produced and directed dozens of corporate videos and films for clients like Merrill Lynch, Kaiser Permanente, Edison International, and Hewlett Packard. Dietsch also produced and directed Rancho Alamitos: An Island in Time—a 16-minute Ken Burns
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
–style exhibit documentary about California history that will debut in the summer of 2011. He has produced or directed nearly 100 episodes about the subject of the Golden State.
Dietsch was the VP in charge of production at K2 Communications before reforming Castle Creek Productions Inc. in 1999.
Previous to that, Dietsch produced and wrote several brand-based TV series and films featuring sports like skiing, surfing and outdoor sports for other production companies that aired on ESPN.
As a department head on Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
’s Oscar-winning feature film A River Runs Through It, Dietsch was in charge of all the fly fishing scenes in the film. He has produced, directed, consulted on and been featured in innumerable fly fishing-based media across the world, and has produced many award-winning TV episodes on the subject.
Digital media
Dietsch is the founder and CEO of Hook.tv (www.Hook.tv). He raised more than $1.2 million to develop a web-based portal to help create niche-based video communities for adventure travelers and associated brands. Launched in April 2007 as a beta site, Hook.tv Fly Fishing is the first niche network on the Hook.tv platform, with partnerships that have included Outdoor Channel, VERSUS, ORVIS®, and Suzuki. The Hook.tv Fly Fishing Network launched its beta video community in Spring 2007, using third parties, and has migrated to a fully owned proprietary engine based on scalable architecture. Hook.tv Adventure Guides: Fishing Edition is a sister TV series that was designed to cross-promote the Hook.tv brand with a four-season run on VERSUS and Outdoor Channel.
Dietsch also consults with a variety of clients on how best to utilize video-based strategies across multiple platforms and is currently involved with an IMAX theatrical film called Cool Planet to create a proprietary social networking platform for brands leveraging a large-screen theatrical media property.
Fly fishing talent and consulting work
Dietsch is perhaps best known for doubling as Brad Pitt’s stunt double in the dangerous final scene of Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning feature film A River Runs Through It. Dietsch is known world wide as a fly fishing celebrity and has consulted on and starred in a half-dozen TV commercials for the sport in places like Japan and New Zealand, and is the co-author of the book Shadowcasting. Dietsch currently hosts Adventure Guides, a prime-time TV series on Outdoor Channel scheduled to air in its fourth season later in 2011. Dietsch travels the globe to the world’s most exclusive fly fishing destinations profiling the world’s most colorful guides. The series is set to expand into a multitude of reality-based stories about guides in other outdoor sports upon acquisition of sponsorships and co-production partners.
When not working on media projects, speaking on panels, fly-fishing or skiing, Dietsch spends as much time as he can in the Pacific Palisades with his family.
Notable work
- Founder Castle Creek Productions
- Fly Fishing Coordinator for Theatrical Release A River Runs Through It (film)A River Runs Through It (film)A River Runs Through It is an Academy Award winning 1992 American film directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt, Craig Sheffer, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, and Emily Lloyd...
(1992) - Adventure Guides (2007-2011) TV Series (executive producer)
- Creative Juice (2006) TV series (executive producer) (Episodes 1-26)
- Creative Juice for the Holidays (2005) (TV Special) (executive producer)
- The Great Adventure (2005) TV series (executive producer)
- The Best of California (2002) TV series (executive producer)
- Rancho Los Alamitos: An Island in Time (2001) Exhibition Film (executive producer)
- Wild California (2000) (TV) (executive producer) (producer)
- California Tomorrow Today (1997) TV series (executive producer)
- Self-Made in California (1995) TV series (supervising producer)
- Explore the Undiscovered (1996) TV series (executive producer)
- Extreme Surfing (1994) One-Hour TV Special (co-writer)
- Full Moon Show (1994) TV Series (writer)
- Ski the Undiscovered (1996) TV series (executive producer)
- ESPN Interactive Fly Fishing School (1995) (CD-ROM Video segments) (writer, director, co-producer)
- Ski with Andy Mill (1986) TV special (Writer/Associate Producer)
- Hook.tv Fly FishingFly fishingFly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...
Social Video Site (2007-2011) (Founder/CEO)