Mike's Director's Bio

Check out Mike's Video Bio on the Tribeca's Youtube Channel.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

We are pleased to announce that our film 'In the Spirit of Laxmi' will screen at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who made this film possible, namely; Trina Dingler Ebert, Gerhard Wiehahn, Delanie Vos, Justin Matley, Michael MacAllister, Aaron Kotler & Dan Venne.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to screen four times during the Tribeca Film Festival.

In the Spirit of Laxmi will screen at the following dates and times:

Fri, Apr 22, 6:30PM
At: Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 6

Wed, Apr 27, 3:45PM
At: Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 8

Fri, Apr 29, 3:30PM
At: Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 6

Sun, May 01, 4:00PM
At: Tribeca Cinemas Theater 1

If you are interested in joining us for the screening, please see the Tribeca website for details on how to purchase tickets.

Elephants! Baby Elephants!

Here's a quick video from our most recent shoot in Indonesia. We are putting together a short video for some clients in Singapore over the course of the next few days. All will be revealed soon enough. Watch a quick clip that includes baby elephants, trumpeting and daily bath time.

Elephants... from Mike Rogers on Vimeo.

Our Time

We recently completed a video for the Our Time Theatre Company, Our Time is non-profit organization that uses the arts and unparalleled amounts of positive energy to create an affirming and supportive environment for young people who stutter. They are a truly inspirational group and we had the good fortune of spending a week with them at their summer camp in August shooting for this film.  

During the one week shoot at Camp Our Time, we met incredibly talented and thoughtful young people, many of whom feature in the film and many who do not. We want to thank the Our Time community; campers, staff, and artists for welcoming in and sharing your experiences with us.

You can check out the piece we, along with the talents of: Justin Matley, Michael MacAllister, Aaron Kotler, and Dan Venne put together. 

Thanks to Oscar nominated film The King's Speech, Our Time has been receiving much deserved national coverage on their programming. They have recently been featured on The Today Show and CBS Morning News. Our hat is off to you guys - Congratulations!

DiNapoli is In

This fall, we worked on a series of doc style political ads for the campaign of NY State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.  We want to send a big congratulations over to him and his team as yesterday marked his inauguration.  

Click here to check out the spots. 

2010

I’ve wrestled with doing a year in review entry as the possibility of it coming dangerously close to a family Christmas card frightens me; however there is something alluring about  the new year providing an opportunity for reflection and recognition…so here goes: 

In 2010 we continued to divide our time between the US and Singapore, finding adventures in both hemispheres. We premiered two of our films, Shooting For Democracy and In the Spirit of Laxmi and were able to dip our toes in the pond of film festivals and the general whoopla that surrounds the screening circuit.  Bend Film Festival, set in idyllic central Oregon, was the highlight of our tour.  Bend had a fantastic line-up of films, awesome parties, great directors, and we were proud to be a part of it.

We had fun working with friends and creative minds such as Owen Palmquist on the film ‘Bad Air’, a short doc on the air quality in the San Joaquin Valley, Justin Matley on Going With the Flow, a film featuring speech therapist Phil Schnieder as he follows the journeys of three patients who stutter, and photographer  Scott A Woodward on our Singapore bird singing shoot.

Mike celebrated his long running working relationship with producer Chris Billing as their film, 'Lost Sparrow' had it's Television premier on PBS's Independent Lens in November.

We had some great video collaborations this year with non-profits including; The Chain Reaction Project in East Timor, the Our Time group in NYC (film soon to be released), and Mike worked with Run Riot Films on their doc for DC Central Kitchen.  

The biggest change for our films themselves this year was the incorporation of the DSLR system into the core of our production work. The quality of video images these cameras produce combined with their small-ness and portability have made them indispensable and tremendously fun to use. The Cannon 5D and 7D are now staples in our production kit. 

Below is one example of our work from the last year which was shot using the Cannon 7D. The clip is from our ‘Sea Nomads’ shoot on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The focus of our shoot was the Baju, a fishing community that has lived in close connection with the ocean.   Mounting ecological and economic pressures challenge their traditional way of fishing and way of life. This piece is our first pass at a portrait of this community.  

For this shoot we teamed up with the writer Johny Langenheim and photographer James Morgan; the two are incorporating content and research from this shoot, and are working on a year long project for the WWF on the coral triangle region. 

In closing we wanted to say that one of the best parts about our semi nomadic existence is getting to see (and stay) with friends when we travel. We really appreciate being supported by and getting to see so many awesome people. Thanks to all you who were there with coffee dates, extra bedrooms, film screening support and inspiring ideas! 

The World in 2050

We spent a few days this November looking into the future....well sort of. We were working on a show for In Focus Asia  that examines what the world will look like in the year 2050.  Asking the questions: How can the world be different and better in the future?  How will our cities be organized and how will we travel? And how can we best preserve our natural resources.

For the shoot we interviewed some of the leading minds on urban planning and transportation. First stop Harvard University to speak with Professor Toshiko Mori. Professor Mori ideas for the future is based on an interdisciplinary approach to urban planning. Mori believes that architects and designers are ideally suited to interact between different urban planning disciplines and 'silos' of information to create a more holistic and integrated future.

From Harvard we traveled up the Charles River to MIT's Media Lab where Bill Mitchell's team is designing the CityCar, the car of the future. The CityCar is an small super efficient electric car that is designed to transport commuters around urban landscapes and campuses.  The car is smaller than a smart car and gets up to 200 miles per gallon and is well suited to redefine sustainable urban mobility.