Film Work

Before settling in to thesis work, I shot a short film riffing on classic Soviet comedies of the 60s and 70s. These films, unknown in the US and many directed by Leonid Gaidai, have a familiar charm even when the title is something like Kidnapping, Caucasian Style 1967. We sought to replicate the production feel of the era with actors playing multiple roles, asynchronous audio, questionable dubbing and in-camera effects. 

With a Stone Soup narrative playing up the differences between a city girl and her in-from-the-country roommate. I wrote, directed and edited the final piece with performances by Nursoltan Annamuhamedova. 

El Duelo (The Duel) is a color 16mm narrative short I developed as a teaching component in Gary Griffin's Cinematography class at American University. The short was designed to give the class set experience shooting on 16mm under partially controlled lighting. The action involves two young men in detention passing the time with increasingly high-stakes games.

Doctor's Orders is a 16mm b&w short I wrote and directed. The film, developed in a Lynch-ian mode, depicts a father whose daughter is undergoing surgery in an adjacent room. The story is told through his dream.  

DO NOT EAT is a short narrative film I wrote and will direct as a component of my MFA thesis-work at American University. DO NOT EAT tells the story of a teacher accused of poisoning her students by sprinkling packets of silica gel over a class snack. 

NSLC|DCW Promotional Video was shot as a component of a dSLR Photography boot camp in Washington, D.C. with students in the National Student Leader Conference. In a live teaching environment, program attendees had the opportunity to conduct on-camera interviews with each other. Photography created by the students during the course of the boot camp is featured in the video.

Jeriko|Sheraton Jiaozhou is a music video I wrote and directed featuring musical performances and appearances by the band Jeriko. The film, developed in collaboration with RedStar Media for Sheraton Hotels, was shot in and around the newly constructed hotel.  

DAB Pumps Qingdao Promotional Film is a corporate video developed in collaboration with Red Star Media.

Photography

Exhibits

Working under the name Nanrou, I developed the China Triptych while working in Qingdao, Shenzhen and Beijing. Originally painted on large canvases, the works focus on the intersection of Chinese popular culture and international media. My on-going work investigates fabrication and co-option, iconography across language and perceived cultural divides. The jiazi of China meets the pizza of the West.

Canvases in the China Triptych were first displayed at RedStar Media offices in Qingdao, China. They have recently been included in an exhibition at George Mason University.  

China's social media scene is chock full of puns, appropriations, colloquialisms, crass handles, frank talk and whole-cloth mythologies constructed to obliquely space forbidden talk. 

I created the comp for "ni dong de...know what I mean!" drawing on a popular Internet meme. I shared it with a friend. A month later I discovered the comp had been used in a magazine's online contest. To copy is to admire.

Share What you Know

I teach film, photography and podcast production. CBEST-certified and currently completing an MFA, I have taught students of all ages. Current sites include the National Student Leadership Conference and Cairo American College's Week Without Walls in Egypt.

My first memories teaching were in the Scout Craft tent at the Boy Scout's Camp Kern at Huntington Lake, California. At 16, I was tasked with teaching First Aid, Emergency Preparedness and certifying CPR to 30 fresh scouts every week. Sitting still at the bench doesn't work for boys. Sitting still was not what I was trying to teach them. Anyone can learn if they get to engage with the material without getting tripped up by protocol. I carry that into my class design today. Outdoor voices welcome here. 

For more information about boot camps use my Contact form.

Week without Walls-Film Boot Camp

CAC is Cairo's premiere international private day school. With a long history in the Maadi community, the school attracts faculty from the world over. Its annual Week Without Walls pushes students to new corners of the earth and new forms of creativity. 

Students in the Film Boot Camp create shorts built around stories by the creation of contrasting images. They learn to connect camera techniques to cinematic language. They plan. They execute. They deliver. 

NSLC - Leaders using dSLR Photography

The NSLC program focuses on teaching leadership skills alongside academic and creative skills. My dSLR photography course begins with camera basics but opens up to some of the more directorial modalities today's devices open up to content creators. As an example, we look at studio photography lighting set-ups and use that foundation to step to interview lighting and step to conducting an interview beside a camera anticipating eye-lines.  

Digital Arts Program

I began teaching a podcasting course I developed at LTCC all the way back in 2007. With the recent #trypod campaign, podcasts seem to still be