John D. Scott is Associate Professor of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies and he is the director of the documentary studies and production degree at Ithaca College. His films have won multiple awards and many glowing reviews. His short films have played internationally in over twenty countries. He has directed two critically acclaimed feature-length documentaries that have been broadcast or streamed nationally in Canada by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Reviewers called Scouts are Cancelled a “cinematic marvel … ” and “a literary portrait you won’t soon forget” and Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing, “a mesmerizing 84-minute masterpiece.” Prior to joining academia, he worked as an independent director/producer and editor. He also worked on two seasons as a field producer for the consumer and media-advocacy show for teens, Street Cents. In one of those years it won a Gemini Award (Canada's Emmy) for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
His films often find creative intersections between fiction and documentary approaches to filmmaking and distinct visual approaches to each project. His latest independent project Modern Fables for Complicated Times is a visual album that features multiple short films and was finished in 2026. The project braids music, poetry and space flight visuals into a fantastical animal-character-world whose protagonists struggle against the ever-isolating forces of modern life. One of the short films in the series was a finalist at the NASA sponsored CineSpace Short Film Competition in 2025.
Scott earned a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University, a BA in Honours English from Dalhousie University, and an MFA in Film and Video Production from the University of Iowa. He teaches documentary production, fiction production, video essay, and editing courses. Scott grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada and identifies as a Maritimer.