I began experimenting with storytelling through film as a freshman at the University of Montana with Professor Sean O’Brien and refined my skills through a six-month internship with Michael Murphey at Kalahari Pictures in Cape Town, South Africa. I was lucky to watch the process of that goes into producing large films and am currently working on my biggest project yet – a documentary about renewable energy in the Western Cape.

Wilderness. is my most recent project. I visited ten of the thirty Wilderness Study Areas named for reduction or “release” in Montana’s largest proposed rollback of protected public lands in history (S.2206/HR 5149). Montana Sen. Daines and Rep. Gianforte have continued to deny public input on the bills so in response I created a film showcasing the areas in question.

Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) are a strange land designation created in 1976 under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Congress could not agree on which land deserved full wilderness protections at the time and a group of senators including Montana’s Lee Metcalf introduced the idea of WSAs to study and protect nearly one million acres of wild lands. There has not been comprehensive review since, but WSAs are currently managed as wilderness. If these bills pass, those protections will disappear.

I believe in compromise. Some of these lands may not meet wilderness criteria, and we need to extract some natural resources. All I’m asking is that Montanans be involved in the process. National Forest and BLM land reviews should be completed and local landowners, stakeholders, and the general public should have a seat at the table before any final decisions are made.

Manipura was created in 2017 by myself and my partner Lione Clare. The short documentary highlights renewable energy retail store, consultant, and installer Solar Plexus in Missoula. The company was established in 1994 by Lee Tavenner and Mary Hamilton and has had an incredible impact on developing a sustainable economy in Montana. 

This film was released for free and not-for-profit through the University of Montana.

An Occurrence was my first narrative project and was filmed and edited on a low-end digital video camera for a class. Our assignment was to adapt a short story into a film and I chose An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. Read the short story here.