During the summer we filmmed locations around Baltimore including a forgotten African American marketed suburbs in 1910, called Cherry Heights now apart of Overlea

This is an example of my approach to communal filmmaking through a new non-profit called Grassroots Media Makers. While the non-profit is geared to teach youth filmmaking skills creating mentorship and community, I see this as a creative opportunity to colaborate. The aim isn't to make educational films but to produce an artistic perspecitive that otherwide couldn't be gleened.  This piece wasn't just collaboratie but was a shared journey that is shared throughout, which I believe makes the documentary much more relatable and therefor impactful. 

The Birth of the Black Butterfly is a result of a summer workshop funded by a reparations grants from the Episcopal Church of Maryland. The workshops served as writers’ room, production studio, editing/animation suite for 10 youths ages 18 to 29 as they made a film of discovery investigating the origins of redlining not just in Baltimore but the nation. Redlining is the conspiratory act of banks and the federal government to color code maps

Rob Shearin, filmmaker, unpacks impressions after a hike in Leakin Park, the third largest wilderness East of the Mississippi, a place he and the others never knew existed. 

This trailer focuses on the experience of utilizing The On The Road approach, where the sense of exploration, generates the creative experience and with cameras in hand, we aim to capture the thrill of discover and weave that into the film. If you talk to filmmakers, writers and artists of all ilks, they often note (sometimes with some frustration) that the process, the act of creation is every bit as powerful or more so than the final result. 

This is one of our earlier films created in the now defunct program Baltimore Youth Film Arts Program. Our workshop, Off The Beaten Track, used an On The Road, communal filmmaking approach to discovering the grounds of the Benjamin Banneker park in Oella. Here filmmakers included their initial impressions as well as offered up verite moments of when they participated in star gazing the very act that Banneker was engrossed in more than 200 years earlier on that very spot

This is an example of the communal filmmaking approach. We not only included the voices of the filmmakers but showing the act of filmmaking, allowing the viewer to experience the sense of discover. Going from Baltimore where we drove past a mural to Tubman on North Avenue to walking the very Dorchester County marshes that she traveled to her journeys to freedom was a powerful experience that we wanted to communicate in the film. There was truly something powerful standing on that ground and by showing the actual reactions in real time is an attempt to bring the viewer in on that experience. 

What started as a mentorship program where returning citizens take young adults on simple nature based excursions to create bonding and fellowship has been part of a filmmaking approach where the subjects are also the creators. The act of filmmaking has also taken on the mission of the excursions in that making the story processes the sense of community they are finding on this journey. 

Deasia Alleyne is one of the more quieter filmmakers, but this winter she took a camera home and offered up this exquisite appreciation of finding herself as a role model for her family. She serves as an example of where we are heading with giving folks cameras to dive internally while we continue to head Off The Beaten Track.

This is a peak of the work that was done by our filmmakers in making this film. But it is also a look into how we are using film as a way to resonate with Baltimore and the community. Basically to do our own distribution, one screen, one venue at a time. This is still unfolding as we speak. 

Chiba in his storage/workshop area takes us through the process of employing the iconography of Dante's Inferno to the political and social conflicts of modern day Japan. He also pulls from American pop culture and tradition Christian text with his own Buddhist background all  mixed in to create a Baschian sensation. 

We go deep into a Tokyo to find out the motives behind an artist who calls himself the Japanese Chiba. By following him through his collection we get an insider's view of Japanese culture

Hidden in Plain Sight is at the early stages of production. Pictured is a now picturesque falls, which once powered more than 50 mills throughout this greenway.

Ariel Saber went to Tokyo to document how Chiba isn't merely referencing Dante's Inferno, but rather drills deep into the literature using nuanced references to mix in with contemporary pop culture and Western Religious Iconography as well. At the same time, we as filmmakers aimed to tell his story as an artist and his tenuous role as a critic of Japanese society and to explore his world from his family life to his concern about his relatives still living in Fukushima

What could easily be an entire painting in of itself is just a few inches of Chiba's wall sized installation focusing on the chaos of Covid as seen through the lens of The Japanese Dante. 

In four days we got to not only know Chiba and his passion for telling his truth through the use of Dante iconography but we also got to see a Tokyo for a locals point of view from his dinner table with his family to the side street cafe and bars to his favorite municipal garden. 

Chiba also is a prolific sculpture many times isolating the details found in his paintings. Behind is Hell through the Dante lens. While formative in scale, the artists pays painstakingly attention to the details as was depicted in the earlier slide of his Covid painting. We want plan to go back to Japan this year to film him painting. 

With extended family including grand parents living in Fukushima, Chiba is vested in what he sees as a inexcusable breakdown of the government's response to the nuclear plant disaster and its responsibilities in telling the truth about the environmental threat that still exists. He had done a series of pantings and there are plans to revisit the region

Chiba Kazumasa's tones burrow down into earthy, rich colors to emphasize the intense urgency of foils of life, but when it comes to Dante's Paradise not does his palit switch to an optimistic rich pastel, but his still takes on more vivid lines as he dares to draw a world that he dreams that could be possible, a place of harmony between humans and beasts, where historic figures of thought and inspiration intermingle. 

Yes this is a selfie, but it's done to show the bond that has developed between the crew and Kazumasa's family all pictured here. Through following The Japanese Dante will have also steeped into the culture and experience that we hope to further explore on our return trip. 

password glitter This is a near final cut of "Into The Light" barring some sound mixing and color correction. This was a two year editing experience with me returning to the subjects after the Peabody Ball to expand upon storylines.

This is a project that was taken to my workshop, Profiles in Activism. This also represents my process of sticking with the narrative by finding outlets for my filming. As the story is always evolving, it is vital that I continue to create renditions, processing the context and the additions of new considerations. 

This was made as short point of view, call to action video. But it also serves as a editing and shooting style that I want to employ in the final cut of the documentary The Sonia Eaddy Playbook, When Winning is Not Enough. I am aiming for this feel of being out in their lives in this case being with Porche and her daughter Trinity in the grass and exporing their family home now condemned. My goal is to get away from the talking head approach as much as possible. 

Baltimore horse-people known as Arabbers, say their love for the equestrian life is due to being "horse crazy" at a very young age. We witness this phenomenon right before our eyes. This film while raw also reflects my stripped down approach, usually traveling with mics, camera, but no lights and definitely no boom pole. I believe the lighter you enter a story the  deeper you can go.

In 2008 I started filming the plight of a group of A-rabbers, who were evicted from a stable and then were moved by the city to a parking lot at Pimlico Race Track and then to under a bridge in West Baltimore. From that story emerged Dorothy Johns, who went from owning two horses to owning a stable and represents the best hope for this unique Baltimore tradition's survival.

This is from the feature story I wrote for the now defunct magazine The Urbanite. I took the photo of the man with the horse. I also provided a video series covering the eviction of the Arabbers from a large stable near North Avenue. Below is the article I wrote for the New York Time in 1995 and I have documenting the Arabbers ever since. For Horse-Drawn Carts, Hurdles in Baltimore By The New York Times Published: November 12, 1995 (Being a stringer, I didn't get a biline.) • BALTIMORE, Nov. 11— Boom Boom knows how to make his horse cart look like a gourmet produce market on wheels. And he, his grandfather, fiancee and son have more than a century of knowledge among them in the Baltimore peddling tradition known as arabbing. Loading from a sidewalk, Boom Boom, whose given name is James Chase, packs a bounty of cantaloupes, tomatoes, collard greens, sweet potatoes and tangerines. He crowns the spread with bunches of grapes, which he'll pluck and eat as he plods his way through some of the toughest streets in Baltimore. But these days being an arabber (pronounced AY-rab-ber) isn't just a matter of creating a splashy cart to compete with the supermarkets and convenience stores. The arabbers find themselves trying to weather urban development and some stormy politics. The neighborhood where some arabbers stable their horses, Sandtown-Winchester, is undergoing a major development project that will include block after block of new town houses. In addition, in the last two years an animal rights group, the Maryland Horse Protection Coalition, has tried to shut the arabbers down, saying that the horses are mistreated. On the other side of the debate, some neighbors -- a carpenter, an artist and other residents -- have formed the Arabber Preservation Society, which has taken on the city bureaucracy and has helped rebuild one of the stables. The debates are a stark contrast with the low-key life of arabbers, who spend their days walking beside the carts through the city's neighborhoods, calling out a litany of their wares. They are known simply as Fat Back, Cabbage, Popeye and just plain Fruit, rarely revealing their given names. Most of their horses were bought from auctions where they would otherwise have been sold to slaughterhouses. Now the horses clip-clop their way through their second life under the names Overdose, Tumble-Weed and Snake Eyes. The arabbers, almost all of whom are black, live an old-fashioned life. Even their name has an antiquated echo in an ethnically sensitive era. The term arab comes from a 19th-century description of people who made their living on the streets, or of homeless children, according to Mary Makey of the City Life Museums. At the turn of the century, most of the arabbers were white. Some were simply farmers bringing their produce to town. The black peddlers covered the ground on foot, selling oysters and deviled crabs. But during World War II, the white arabbers abandoned their horses and carts. Today, about 25 arabbers are licensed by the city, said the Preservation Society's president, Steve Blake, who has a wagon, horse and peddler's license. Only about a dozen earn at least part of their living from hauling produce around town. The remainder are retired or "horse-crazy" and hang around the stables. Four stables clustered in West Baltimore are all that remain. The Whatcoat Street Stable from which Boom Boom works, which has been owned by Fat Back's family for 50 years, is slated to close in January to make way for the new housing development. From his cart, Boom Boom can see a shiny block of new town houses across the street, the kind seen in the suburbs. The city is considering a proposal to relocate the Whatcoat Street Stable to nearby historic Lafayette Market, but the arabbers who remain are more concerned about the animal rights forces. On Friday, the debate came to the stables themselves when Baltimore City Animal Control inspectors arrived to check the horses. Animal rights people carrying clipboards also tried to enter to check the animals for themselves. Welcoming them were Preservation Society members, who advised the stable owners of their rights -- particularly the right not to let anyone in who was not wearing an inspector's badge. The animal-control investigation supervisor, Bill Morris, made his rounds, checking hooves and temperatures and examining the stable roofs for leaks. When refused entry, the animal rights people milled around in the alley, peering into locked buildings. At one point, an older arabber yelled, "When white people owned the horses, you never saw them." Members of the Maryland Horse Coalition defended their presence at the inspections, and they credit their persistence with recent stepped-up city inspections. "If we back off, they're not going to do anything," said one coalition member, Colleen Brown. Another coalition member, Mark Rifkin, said, "The only thing we're willing to negotiate is when will they go out of business -- five years, four years?" The coalition's efforts to persuade the city to end arabbing or at least insure the welfare of the horses is backed by the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Ms. Brown said that in March, a horse died in the street after escaping from its owner. The owner is being investigated by city officials. Mr. Morris, of animal control, would not elaborate on the details, but Ms. Brown provided a city Department of Health memo that said a witness had seen the owner riding and whipping the horse. The owner, according to the memo, denied whipping the horse and said he had been trying to stop it from bolting. In January 1994, two horses froze to death, and three others were taken to a farm from unlicensed stables that have since been shut down. Mr. Morris has heard this criticism before, but he rejects the coalition's stance that the horses do not belong in the city. "My question is, Why shouldn't they have the animals in the city?" he said. After reading the book, "The Arabbers of Baltimore" written by ex-arabber Roland Freeman, Mr. Morris said that he was convinced that the horse-powered peddling trade was part of Baltimore's indigenous culture. At 21, Mr. Chase knows his history. He's been "horse crazy" since he was old enough to walk. One Christmas, his grandfather gave him a pony. Next year, he and another arabber are planning to go to a blacksmithing school in Oklahoma on a grant obtained by the Preservation Society. On this cold November day, Mr. Chase is the last one to pull off with his horse Dirty White and his partner -- Twin, or 15-year-old Kevin Chesley -- in the bright sunlight that offers no warmth. He leaves behind his grandfather and the other old-timers to huddle around a barrel fire and tell stories from the Depression. "If you work two days, if you made a dollar, you made money," said Cabbage, wearing an Irish-style cap. Boom Boom and Twin are the new generation arabbers, a world away from when arabbers could be seen in every direction. Now when he turns the corner, he sees a long street in which the first block of lipstick-red row houses are deserted. But the street corners in the next block are jumping with people. Boom Boom and Twin navigate the scene to get to their steady customers. A gray-haired woman yells down from the second-floor window: "How much are your bananas?" A tow truck driver parks in the middle of the street to check over the wagon. Unlike the old-timers, Boom Boom never belts out the traditional arabbers' refrains. "They know when I'm coming," he said. During his rounds, Boom Boom waves at his mother and meets up with his fiancee, Shawnta Crampton. Last year, he left her with the cart and the next thing she knew, she was walking the horse down the street selling produce. Now she's vying with Boom Boom to take the cart out on the weekends. Later on, they'll meet their 5-year-old son, Binky, who will walk alongside them. "Yeah, he's into it," she said. "He says, 'Can I go with you and make some money?' "

These will be the two story threads thus far.  Elaine a cousin of Bob Marley who lives on the block where Marley lived. Her house is painted with murals inside and out and she has an "island backyard" where she has performances. She cooks Marley's original stew and many of his surviving family members return. Ginny will also be a main thread as her husband the late Ibis Pitts, was a tight friend of Marley and would jam with him in Wilmington and is said to come up with a reframe for one of this songs, "Could you be Loved" This is a film in production and more interviews need to be gotten 

Delaware Bob for an exhibit at the People's Festival in Wilmington, Del. Password Exodus. This is the first draft. I now have more footage 

While Old Time music has been embraced by younger people as a tactile break from the digital frantic feed of info, this micro-edit is an an attemp to live within that world and offer up a quick contextualization of the richness of a culture that furmented in the hills  and could have easily died off like the shacks now abandoned hadnt it been for some folks who recognized the importance of this music

This edit came from my return trip in 2025 to witness a scene that hadn't existed back when I was making my film The Crooked Tune. The Hammons had since influenced this third annual gathering in a town, more like a village, Marlington West Va. With this new surge there is opportunity to repurpose my work including joining forces with some family members looking to create a museum dedicated to the Hammons familiy. The Hammons was recorded by folklorists from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress Folk Life Center in the 70s.. Plus there was a local folklorist who lived with them not mention the subject of by film, Dave Bing who is arguably the lead keeper of this family music as he learned directly from the old timers before they passed. I am interested in utilizing the contemporary appreciation of the analogue and the field recording esthetic but repackaging that for social media. Thus I have a work in progress on my hands.