Steeplechase Films is a documentary production company founded in 1989 by filmmaker Ric Burns. They produce films focusing on historical events and people, most frequently for the PBS series American Experience. Ric has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for over 20 years, since his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War, (1990), which he produced with his brother Ken and co-wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward. While Ric has directed some of the most distinguished programs in the award-winning public television series, American Experience, including Coney Island (1991), The Donner Party (1992), The Way West (1995), Ansel Adams (2002), Emmy Award winning films Eugene O'Neill (2006) and Andy Warhol (2006), and the recent Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World (2010), he is best known for the eight-part, seventeen and a half hour series, New York: A Documentary Film, which premiered nationally on PBS to wide public and critical acclaim when broadcast in November 1999, September 2001, and September 2003.