Introduce Yourself: Sign In Here First

Infamous? Ok, Vanessa, go fetch me a coffee. Oh wait, you're beholden to that slavedriver Lori, not me.

Anyway, you're only halfway in the door here at The D-Word. You need to register for full membership in order to get access to the lion's share of discussion topics. Do it now – that's an order!

Michael has worked all over Europe, South Africa and the United States with assignments taking him through Africa, the Middle East, Haiti, Mexico and South-East Asia. With more than 20 years of combined experience as a professional photojournalist and videographer, Michael brings extensive knowledge of media communications and marketing, having worked in those capacities at IBM in England, South Africa and the U.S. He continues to work on projects that aim to re-engage public interest in humanitarian and social issues on a local, national, and international basis.

In his years as a photojournalist, Michael has been doused in tear gas, nearly attacked by a mountain lion (which turned out to be a wild donkey), and brought in to land on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. His work has been featured in many leading daily, weekly and monthly publications as well as on MSNBC, CNN and other news-related channels.

Welcome Michael in the third person. Glad to see another Bay Area person.

Good to have you aboard, Michael. But, as Jason suggests, we talk in first person here. It's just that kind of place.

Yes, I caught that. Just a little lazy, this afternoon and cutting and pasting from another bio was much easier.

Good to meet you all!

Tom Dziedzic also welcomes Michael Fox on D-Word. 8>}

Hi, D-Word,

I was involved in various ways – writer, editor, narrator, some photography – in a documentary called "Saving Luna," about a lost killer whale who tried to befriend human beings. It had a good theatrical run in Canada and has been showing on CBC at a couple of different lengths. The film has also had some festival success. I've done a bit of writing in the IMAX nature genre – the films "Antarctica" and "Ocean Oasis" – and a narration script for "Under Antarctic Ice" for PBS's Nature. I've also done some writing for National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines over the years, and a few books. I'm relatively new to the documentary world and I find it to be full of truly awe-inspiring individuals whose ability to innovate technologically and creatively is astonishing. As is their ability to survive. There's a lot to learn.

Welcome Michael. I absolutely LOVED Saving Luna. Nice to have you here.

Well, thank you, Marj. That's very nice to hear.

Hello, D-Word. Shirley Thompson mentioned this group today, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to join for a while, so here I finally am.

I made (produced, directed, shot and co-edited) a doc called "The Key of G" (http://www.lateralfilms.com/), which played on PBS in 2007 and won a Golden Gate Award at the SFIFF. It follows a young man with multiple disabilities as he moves out of his mom's house into an apartment with a couple of his friends/caregivers. I'm distributing it to the educational market via New Day Films. Since I finished that film, I've been doing some editing, shooting, and DVD authoring for hire and looking for a new doc of my own. I've also been working on some short fictional pieces.

I'm excited to poke around this site and to meet some of the other members...

Good to have you here, Robert. Welcome and hope you'll leap right into the discussions.

Nice to have you Robert. New Day always well represented at Sebastopol. And tell Shirley she should be here conversing as well. I never see her here.

Thanks for the Welcome!

Hi
I have made my first documentary and Penelope Andrews suggested I look at your site. I must say this is an excellent site and I can see why she recommended you. Keep up the good work!! I will be referring to your archives from now on and may ask a few questions when required.

Regards Steve

Welcome, Stephen and Robert. Always nice to see new faces in the neighborhood. It's civilized but lonely here, kind of like Edinburgh.

So glad your are checking in to D-word Stephen
Dont to forget to tell everyone on D-word a little about yourself and the film your finishing!
I would also suggest you apply to be a member as soon as you can as it a wonderful community of filmmakers and very helpful.

I got into documentary making because I was inspired by reading my uncles book called 'Grow Jamaica'. The book is about using ganja for food, fuel, fibre and medicine in Jamaica. My uncle (Reverend Leeroy Campbell who died in January 2009 aged 78) was a ganja activist and scientist and under the banner of 'Friends International' they incorporated Cannabis Hemp Research Institute of Science & Technology. He had worked in this field for 20 years with his wife Janice who co-wrote the book.

The documentary and the book both provide a comprehensive look at the economic, social, spiritual and environmental impact of a cannabis industry in Jamaica. Basically on returning from my annual holiday to Jamaica I rounded up my friends who were studying film at university, gave them an outline of what I wanted them to do and paid them to go to JA and make this documentary for me in 2004.

I started a publishing company called Classic Black Press and a website currently being redeveloped and we agreed a fee that they would produce the dvd for me and I would own the rights to the film. They have kept some footage for their library and gone on to other things. As luck would have it I was able to attract some names to the doc (Stephen Marley & Oliver Samuels are probably the most well known people in doc) and a short 10 minute version was credited at the British Film Festival (see utube trailer 'Grow Jamaica').

I then got call to say they wanted to show the whole film at the Caribbean Film Festival. My uncle, his wife and I went to the festival where it was the only film that everyone was talking about. The press came and done interviews etc (which were not aired, as far as I know), an impromptu heated debate began at end of film, and I was approached by David Coy from Palm Pictures, a distributer from Apple and some finance people.

However, some of the music used had not been cleared and although Apple said they could possibly work around this I was new to this business and decided to try and get clearances first and then go back to distributers (probably a big mistake!) or perhaps even self distribute! That was 3 years ago and clearances has been a 'bit of a headache' so I ended up having to do cover versions of the songs that were not cleared (about 10 songs each running for approx. 10 seconds) and edit the movie to accommodate the changes.

Fortunately the musicians and editor (Penelope Andrews brother and his friend) were extremely good and the doc has been enhanced considerably since it was originally made. I have just begun the process of applying for synch rights to enable me play the cover songs in the movie legally in the larger festivals and possibly small theatrical run. It has been a long but enjoyable journey and I have never lost faith in the documentary which deals with a very important issue from a different perspective.

I hope I haven't dragged my intro on for too long but once I started to write it was difficult to condense into a few paragraphs.

By the way I forgot to mention the doc is 60 minutes long

Don't for get to put a picture of yourself at some point!
thats was really intresting...thanks for sharing

The film looks great Stephen. I really want to watch it. So what will happen with this film now? Maybe move the thread to the documentary films section?

Hello. I am a documentary filmmaker who's recent award-winning documentary, "My Name Is Alan and I Paint Pictures", about paranoid schizophrenic New York-based artist Alan Streets is now available for rent on Netflix. Add it to your queue and please feel free to comment. Thanks!

http://mynameisalan.com/

Hello! Been hearing about the D-word for a while and glad to have joined up. Let’s see… I’m in the middle of directing a project on physical perfection – it’s a series of shorts/segments that will be combined to be a feature. Three segments are finished: Wet Dreams and False Images, The Guarantee, and 34x25x36 – and while finishing the project as a whole, I’m distributing them as shorts to schools through New Day Films. Which is how I know Robert Arnold.
34x25x36 is currently airing on P.O.V. and is up at: http://www.pbs.org/pov/34x25x36/

Like Robert, I'm excited to poke around and see what’s on this site. What a great resource this is.

Welcome, Johnny. And a special welcome to the awesome Jesse, who's too modest to talk about her great work keeping Shooting People going all these years. Great to have you here, Jesse.

Welcome Jesse! Still clearly and often remember your short Wet Dreams and False Images from SilverDocs. Glad to have you here.

Hi there, My name is Ciaran and I am a professional photographer.Last night I had dinner with my friend Onno.The conversation eventually turned to the D word. I described a film doc. that I want to make and I talked about how little I know about making one. So this morning I woke up with a link to the D-word Onno e-mailed to me, so here I am. This is my website........http://ciarantully.com/