RIGHT AT HOME
For Ty Kim, a long career in journalism and filmmaking driven by the power of story (Photo: Christina Gandolfo)

When Ty Kim (MBA 2000) joined the television news magazine 60 Minutes, the correspondent Ed Bradley gave him a nickname: “He called me ‘Bulldog,’ because once I’d latched onto a story, I’d never let go.” Ty chased stories to remote corners of the world, including Pyongyang, North Korea, in 1989, “which was like going to the moon.” After HBS, he worked as an executive in Hollywood, then returned to television news journalism in Los Angeles, winning six Emmys and the national Edward R. Murrow Award. The common thread? “Powerful stories about people living on the edge of human existence,” he says. “Story is my religion.”

The same is true for Ty’s latest, Earl, an award-winning documentary that profiles the late American composer and Harvard professor Earl Kim (no relation). Raised in poverty, Earl received free piano lessons and eventually studied with composer Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA, but his career was interrupted by World War II. Earl served as a combat intelligence officer, flying over the ruins of Nagasaki the day after the atom bomb was dropped. He later collaborated with Samuel Beckett. “It is absolutely the most extraordinary narrative I have ever discovered,” says Ty, who spent over two years filming more than 33 interviews on three continents, including violinist Itzhak Perlman and composer John Harbison. As the film continues along the festival circuit (it screened at Harvard in March), Ty has new projects underway, all driven by the same credo: “When you make a film, whatever the topic, you have to make it with love. That’s the secret sauce.”

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