Summer, 2012

The Wagner family is spending summer 2012 on the MV Explorer, cruising to several ports in the Mediterranean. It's our second outing on Semester at Sea, the shipboard study abroad program run by ISE, the Institute for Shipboard Education. The academic program is created by the University of Virginia and our friend and neighbor Craig Barton is the Academic Dean. So it seemed like a good fit for me to teach documentary film and to bring along the Wagner family. Mary, Danny and Frankie are on for the whole trip and Casey is joining us in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The other ports we're visiting are Barcelona, Rome, Naples, Athens, Istanbul, Casablanca and Lisbon. My students, hailing from universities all over the country, have been terrific. 

Winter-Spring, 2012

Recently, we produced a short video for Monticello that will be part of their exhbition at the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, opening in mid-January. The exhibit is on Thomas Jefferson and slavery, and the video focuses on Monticello's "Getting Word" project--an effort to interview the descendants of THomas Jefferson's slaves.

With the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, we're returning to work on our documentary about the Erie Canal. This is our collaboration with old friend Steve Zeitlin of City Lore in New York. We've completed the bulk of the live action filming and will begin the editing in January, 2012.

Fall, 2011

We're happy to report that we're completing work on Faith in the Hood, a one hour documentary about religion in the inner city. The bulk of the film was shot a few years ago in "Southeast," the poorest neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where we documented the work of several churches and ministires. More recently, we filmed some amazing interviews with leading scholars on the subject of black religion, including Eddie Glaude of Princeton, Wallace Best of the Harvard Divinity School and Rev. Eugene Rivers of the Ella Baker House in Boston.s The goal of the film is to draw a portrait of the people of the inner city as seen through the prism of their spirituality. We'll be finishing the film by the end of the year and plan to enter it in film festivals in 2012.

Recently, we completed a short video for the Center for the Consitution at James Madison's Montpelier. The Center sponsored a series of meetings with a visiting group of attorneys from Zimbabwe, including several scholars and consultants, to assist them in their efforts to write a new constitution for the nation of Zimbabwe. The vid is up on the web.

Spring, 2011

Kentucky—an American Story: the Land was broadcast on KET on May 24. Many thanks to Executive Director Shae Hopkins, Program Director Craig Cornwell and Producer Matt Grimm of Kentucky Educational Television for making it happen. Our partner on the project is writer/historian/film producer Daniel Blake Smith.

We also want to thank KET for entering our documentary Thoroughbred in the competition for a regional Emmy Award. The film was broadcast on PBS nationally the week before the Kentucky Derby. And we loved presenting it in April to our friends here in Charlottesville at the Paramount Theater, along with the "star" of the film, Arthur Hancock, and his wife Staci.

The other very nice news is that we have been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete editing on Heartland Passage, our half-hour documentary about industrial decline along the Erie Canal. This is a project we’ve been working on with longtime friend and colleague Steve Zeitlin at Citylore. The grant was to our non-profit organization, American Focus, Inc. The project is a co-production with Steve’s New York-based non-profit, City Lore. We’ll be doing some archival research and pick-up filming along the canal later this year, then completing the editing in the spring of 2012.

Winter, 2010-2011

We’re happy to announce that we have received an excellent broadcast date for Thoroughbred on PBS—9:00 pm, Thursday, May 5, 2011. That’s two days before Kentucky Derby Day, exactly when you want a documentary about Thoroughbred horse racing to be broadcast! Many thanks to Craig Cornwell of Kentucky Educational Television for setting up the broadcast and distribution of the film with PBS.

We’re completing work on a new program for KET—the first episode of Kentucky – An American Story.  We recorded the narration with Ashley Judd just before Christmas and are delivering the program to KET shortly after New Year’s. Written and Exec Produced by Dan Smith, this first episode examines the complex story of land, what it has done to us and what we have done to it. KET anticipates a spring broadcast. Filming of the second episode, about the people of Kentucky, has been completed; we hope to raise funds to support the editing later in 2011.

We’ve also completed work on a “trailer” for the Legal Aid Justice Center, narrated by John Grisham. The trailer will be used by Alex Gulotta, Susan Kruse and our other friends at the LAJC to raise funds for the proposed half-hour film, entitled Justice Denied, about the challenges faced by low-income people who cannot afford legal representation.

Work continues on two other projects with old friends/colleagues. We filmed several days in November on the Erie Canal film in and around Buffalo, New York, with Steve Zeitlin of City Lore.  And we continue the editing of the Master Craftsmen in the Building Arts film with Margie Hunt of the Smithsonian Institution.

Best wishes in the New Year to all our friends!