Rick Sebak

Rick Sebak
Sebak in La Palapa, one of his favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh's South Side
Born	(1953-06-05) June 5, 1953 (age 63) Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Film director and producer
Known for	Nostalgia documentary

Richard "Rick" Sebak (born 1953) is an American film director and producer who lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Sebak is the creator of the "scrapbook documentary" genre, many of which he has created for WQED and PBS. This scrapbook style incorporates lots of old films, home movies, postcards, old photos and memorabilia of all sorts. Rick does not appear on-camera in these programs, but audiences have learned to recognize his voice and distinctive narrative style.

Sebak attended Bethel Park High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate.

His work is supported by the Buhl Foundation.

Sebak's first foray in the nostalgia documentary is the 1984 documentary Shag for South Carolina ETV, about a dance popular in the region. Four years later at WQED, Sebak produced The Mon, The Al & The O, about the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers, which meet to form at Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle; and Kennywood Memories, about Kennywood, a historic local amusement park.

As of March 2006, 313,227 copies of Sebak's films had been sold or given away as pledge gifts by public television stations nationwide, which WQED credits with largely helping it become financially solvent. Sebak's scrapbook documentary format has been copied by other stations, many of whom see record pledge drive numbers when their documentaries air at pledge time.

For his 25th year at the station, WQED produced a program called What Makes Rick Tick. Special photos of Sebak to celebrate this 25th anniversary were added to Yinztagram. The City of Pittsburgh declared the 1st week of December "Rick Sebak Week."