About

I am an MFA candidate in film and electronic media at American University in Washington, DC, and my primary interests are writing, editing, and producing films and multimedia. This blog showcases the film and media arts work that I’ve done over the past few years and will also be a place where I document progress on my MFA thesis.

In my previous career, I was a university professor for many years, so it’s fair say that this MFA represents a career change for me. On the surface, these two fields seem drastically different, and they are in most ways. But they are also very similar in that filmmaking and teaching — at least what I consider to be effective teaching — relies on strong storytelling. A classroom lecture or seminar can be fluid like any story and can build characters and suspense and end in resolution; it can have a three act structure and engage the audience just as well-written narratives and documentary films do. And, of course, films inform and educate viewers and expose perspectives on what we believe to be true in a similar way to the discovery process that occurs in the classroom. As such, I consider this new career in filmmaking a natural progression of my interest in stories, especially those that help us learn something about the world we live in or ourselves.

In addition to filmmaking, I am also a photographer and have a companion photo blog, ISO 100, where you can view some of my photographs. My interest in photography began when I was completing my other graduate degree and, along with my dogs, was a much needed distraction from my dissertation.

Unlike my filmmaking work, my still photography tends to be more formal and less documentary, but this wasn’t always the case. Up until a few years ago, I’d generally considered my photographic style to be more photojournalism than fine arts; but I’ve actually discovered that the photographs that I liked to make were more about texture, line, space, or light value than story and narrative. Over time, I hope that I can evolve as a photographer to where both styles, form and narrative, are balanced effectively in my work.