Perry Hallinan ’94 – An Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Perry Hallinan ‘94 about his 25 years of documentary filmmaking. Perry has traveled the world to capture unique stories and scenes from a variety of cultures that he shares with audiences everywhere. Perry brings a distinctive and energetic style as a cinematographer and editor to documentaries and multimedia theatrical productions. Much of Perry’s storytelling involves innovations in healthcare, municipal labor as first responders, water management, arts and culture.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 with a BFA in Film/Animation/Video, Perry began working as an intern, eventually becoming an editor, with Northern Light Productions, a Boston based documentary film company. There he worked with a creative team to develop documentary films for national parks, universities and museums. In 2001, Perry left the East Coast to settle in San Francisco.

On one return flight, the plane was rerouted to Atlanta, Georgia; it was the morning of 9/11. That chaotic experience led him to connect with San Francisco Bay area resident, Takashi Tanemori, an elder who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. During the 60th anniversary of the bombing, they traveled to Japan to make a film about life in postwar Japan as an orphan. The film took 14 years to complete. Building on that experience he was able to edit a second documentary in just a few months. This one was about an overseas military performer, drummer in the 1959 film “Some Like It Hot”, sultry powerhouse, Joani Hannan. The documentary showcases her life as a lesbian in the entertainment industry in the ’50s through the ’70s.

Filling in his time as an independent contractor in San Francisco, he taught video production to high school students, made short videos for a health tech conference, and worked within the performing arts scene as a multimedia artist. Perry made quick friends with a group of performers, who created their own festival along a river in rural California. Perry was astonished as he recorded one performance – dancers floated with the current, made their way to the stage, and performed a form of Japanese dance theatre called Butoh. Perry spent several years with these dancers, who are part of Salt Farm, working as a multimedia artist and collaborating closely with the company’s director and international artist, Ledoh. 

After leaving San Francisco to return to the Boston area in 2009, Perry then focused his film work on infrastructure projects and local climate resiliency initiatives. Good examples of this work include documentary films on coastal flooding, water sheds, and storm water infrastructures. Perry has received two national American Public Works Awards for Journalism and Best Infrastructure Project on video projects he produced for the New England Chapter of American Public Works. 

At times, Perry works with other Fenwick alumni. He collaborates with Shane Corcoran ’95, who works within the corporate healthcare space to make documentaries from the perspectives of patients, doctors, engineers, and designers. Elayne McCabe ’02 Cronin works on documentaries within the energy startup sector and Perry edited a trailer for her project about decarbonization conversations in the trucking industry of the South Bronx . Joe Cultrera ’76 and Perry shared a creative office space in Salem, MA for a decade. They co-produced a series of short documentaries called, Salem Sketches, which are quirky short stories about Salem that are played before the feature film at the annual Salem Film Fest. There are 70 of these short films to date, and though they have paused on future episodes, the collection will be on view at the Peabody Essex Museum during Salem’s 400th Year Celebration in 2026! You can view them at vimeo.com/salemsketches.

When asked how he chose to attend Fenwick, Perry told us that it was because of his family. Perry has two older siblings that attended Fenwick, Sean ’88 and Samantha ’92, and his mother, Brenda Hallinan, was the Chair of the Fenwick Art Department. According to Perry, “I knew I wanted to pursue art as a career and to attend an art college after Fenwick. My mother assured me that a Fenwick education would help me get where I wanted to go, which it did!” Perry told us one of his favorite Fenwick memories was attending the annual Massachusetts Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards with his Fenwick art class each year. “It was eye opening for me to see the caliber of artwork being done at the high school level across the state. I was fortunate to have my portfolio selected to compete on the national level my senior year and the award it received helped me to get into Rhode Island School of Design with a scholarship!”

“I learned many valuable things while at Fenwick. Most importantly, I learned about the process in doing artwork. It takes time and dedication to follow the many steps of producing art and films,” explained Perry. When asked what words of advice he might give to today’s Fenwick students, Perry quickly said, “Spend time, even if you don’t have anything in common, with as many of your classmates that you can. Ask questions and learn more about your peers; you will learn so much about the world and yourself!” 

Thank you, Perry, for sharing your professional journey with us! Your love for art shows in everything you do! If you wish to view some of the film documentaries in Perry’s portfolio, please visit his website at perryhallinan.com.