ARTIST STATEMENT

I have been making films for nearly 3 decades, primarily in the roles of editor and producer, though I have also worked as a cinematographer, director, and executive producer. Today I combine my industry, teaching, and research experience into an independent filmmaking practice explicitly built around media justice frameworks.

I recognize that the social dynamics of production influence the content of media. Therefore, my work goes beyond the on-screen politics of “visibility” and “representation” and moves toward a more socially aware production practice. I reject the classed model of “auteur” filmmaking and instead continually reach toward a practice of non-hierarchical communication and collective authorship.

I cannot create this kind of practice alone, in a “top-down” fashion, so I seek out filmmakers with shared values. Together, we work to foster production environments that celebrate difference and creative growth while openly addressing conflict. If I practice filmmaking with growth and learning as its core tenets, I believe anyone––regardless of experience or access to resources––can belong.

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When my career began in 2003, I could only land work in reality television or corporate branding, not in “the cinema” I had dreamed of during my film conservatory education. Instead, I faced the reality of a changing industry––the booming digital revolution and push for corporate media conglomeration helped turned Hollywood from a “dream factory” (1) into a content farm.

In 2007, I witnessed how a massive writers’ strike transformed television, and I realized the industry did not protect its workers. Instead, the industry intentionally exploited the unregulated digital “frontier,” pushed for media deregulation, and gutted labor rights. For me, this revealed the shadow side of Hollywood that its own products obscure.

I therefore turned to independent film in my spare time, where I could relish in the joys of craft and experiment with strategies for building less exploitative conditions of production. Ultimately, however, the toxicity and abuses typical of the industry inspired me to find another means of material sustenance; in 2016 I left to become a professor.

Graduate school introduced me to media research and I fell in love. I realized that my career could guide and deepen my research which could in turn guide and deepen my creative practice.

I first wanted to understand why the industry changed paradigmatically in the wake of the digital revolution but could not change its patterns of discrimination and abuse toward its working-class labor force––something I had experienced first-hand, countless times.

This led me to research the historical forces that quashed civil rights battles in Hollywood, and how this led to today’s ongoing production inequities (2). As my research expanded, I found my scholarly home in the fields of production studies, cultural studies, the political economy of communications, internet studies, and group theory.

Through research, I position myself as a filmmaker-activist. I connect critical media theory to my practice, and I build coalition with others who seek to transform the harmful dynamics of media production.