Mark Edwards -- Principal

Mark has been a fine artist and photographer from very young. His father, Lawrence Edwards, is a painter and taught art for his entire professional career. His mother, Mattie Edwards, is an interior designer. Between the two creative parents, he had his eyes opened to both fine art and the commercial side.

His initial higher education, at Memphis State University, included 3 years of foundation work in Fine Art and additional work in Commercial Music. He completed his studies some years later at San Francisco State University in the highly competitive Film Production core program. During this time he shot and edited a number of experimental films.

Growing up he was tortured by two wicked sisters who are also artists.

After college he worked as a producer at Red Sky Films in San Francisco making some of the most engrossing miniature films in the history of television. These shorts frequently played before, after, and during the evening’s entertainment on nationally known networks including NBC, CBS, ABC, and even PBS. Though only commercials, he put his heart and soul into each one.

Seduced by the siren-call of Interactivity, Mark began producing multimedia CD-ROMs and helped found a spin-off of the film production company, Red Sky Interactive. Realizing the difficulty in budgeting for the new media, he learned many of the major software packages to ameliorate this task and gradually moved back into the creative side of production.

As his skills in design developed, he continued in this vein for several years, working both as a freelance and as employee in graphics, photography, and art direction. He presently focuses on website design and print with the occasional documentary.

At the end beginning of 2005 he was asked to teach Typography in the Art Department at James Madison University. His students are smarter and faster than him and he dreads the day when they become his competition.

Mary Michaud -- Principal

Mary Michaud grew up in suburban Boston. Roving the swamps of an old pig farm as a child, she collected rocks and bones. She soon began making jewelry from stones, beads, shells and seeds. Fascinated by the natural world, she earned a degree in biology from Boston University where she also studied metal sculpture, jewelry design and photography.

After moving to San Francisco to pursue a Master’s degree in nursing, her jewelry designs incorporated increasing amounts of rusted metal and industrial found objects. Her intentional use of primitive techniques struck an archetypal chord and found a home on the necks of bicycle messengers, social workers, movie moguls, dancers, and psychologists alike. While her homages to the flotsam and jetsam of the streets challenged people to re-examine their system of assigning social value to objects, her work as a nurse practitioner challenged her to do the same with the marginalized people of our society.

She continues to create jewelry and sculpture. Her designs include paper sculptures highlighting found photographs and ephemera. Her work can be seen at the Artisan’s Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, in various group shows, and online at www.marymichaud.com.

Mark and Mary will be offering a series of documentary workshops in 2005-06 covering preproduction, production, and post-production, including distribution and marketing. They will also complete production and editing of two films, "Angerhead," and "Who's Looney Now: The Story of John Armstrong Chaloner."