 She has an associate degree from Simon's Rock of Bard College, a bachelor's degree from Wellesley College and a Masters of Fine Arts in film directing from the University of California, Los Angeles's Graduate School of Film and Technology.While at UCLA, she wrote, directed, and produced the student film A Dry Heat, for which she won a CINE Golden Eagle Award.Giese wrote and directed the 1996 British film "When Saturday Comes", produced by Capitol Films, UK, starring Sean Bean, Pete Postlethwaite, and Emily Lloyd.