Joshua L Pearson

Joshua L. Pearson isn’t just some name buried in the credits—dude’s basically a documentary editing legend. He’s the guy behind the razor-sharp cuts of Summer of Soul (that wild, groovy doc that finally put Harlem’s 1969 festival on the map, bagging an Oscar in the process) and What Happened, Miss Simone? (yep, that one got an Academy nod too). If you’ve ever been sucked into a true crime binge or lost a whole weekend to Netflix, odds are you’ve crossed paths with Pearson’s work. Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, Bobby Kennedy for President—he’s sliced and diced all of those stories, turning hours of footage into must-watch TV. But Pearson’s not just about the dark and twisty—he’s got range. Under African Skies, Keith Richards: Under the Influence, Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger—his editing fingerprints are all over some of the coolest, wildest, and most soulful docs out there. He even tackled presidential icons for the History Channel—Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, FDR—and took a swing at NatGeo’s Mars, plus Showtime’s newsroom deep-dive, The Fourth Estate. Born in Philly, Pearson started out slinging paint at Rhode Island School of Design in the 80s, before diving into the video art scene with Emergency Broadcast Network. That crew didn’t just play around—they toured with Lollapalooza, got signed to TVT Records, and even cooked up visuals for U2’s Zooropa tour. Pearson’s got this vibe: art kid roots, music in his blood, and a knack for making stories hit way harder than you expected.