W. David McBrayer | |
|---|---|
 McBrayer in 2004 while filming Beat the Drum in South Africa | |
| Born | US |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Film Producer |
William David McBrayer is an American film, television producer, writer and entrepreneur.
W. David McBrayer | |
|---|---|
| McBrayer in 2004 while filming Beat the Drum in South Africa | |
| Born | US |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Film Producer |
William David McBrayer is an American film, television producer, writer and entrepreneur.
McBrayer attended the University of Tennessee. He was president of the Student Art League and, while an under graduate, was published in Perceptual and Motor Skills , for his research in perception entitled "Effects of Social Influence in a Recognition Task of Auditory Intensity". [1] " His primary interest was the nexus of art/the creative process/psychology. He graduated from UTC in 1973 with a B.S. in psychology. He received a MA in advertising/mass communications from Michigan State University in 1976 and was recipient of the Graduate Award for advertising. While in graduate school at MSU, McBrayer co-founded PACE Marketing Group, a market research company that conducted consumer research on the UPC for a Senate sub-committee.
McBrayer began his advertising career on Madison Avenue in 1976, with Grey Advertising on the Procter & Gamble account, before joining Young & Rubicam/Worldwide, the world's largest advertising agency at the time. McBrayer went client side, at age 27, to become Senior Vice President, Advertising & Brand Management with Culbro's General Cigar Division, the youngest senior executive in the company's 75-year history. McBrayer later founded Ad Associates, Inc., an advertising and communications company and co- founded National Market Measures, a Cleveland, Ohio-based market research. company whose clients included The World Bank. [2] He sold National Market Measures in 1987.
During his ten years in the New York ad industry, McBrayer won numerous national and international advertising awards, including the prestigious Clio Award, the International Award for Advertising Excellence, the International Television Association Gold Medal Award for Multi-Media, and various print industry readership awards.
McBrayer co-founded Digital Solutions, Inc., an Atlanta-based technology company specializing in digital non-linear editing systems for the film and television industry. DSI was recognized as one of the most successful and innovative companies of its kind in the digital broadcasting industry. While president of DSI, he won the Outstanding AVID reseller award and McBrayer was selected by UPS for Excellence in Business for his Golden Rule approach to business-to-business marketing. Under his leadership Digital Solutions created the DSI-AVID Educational Center to train professional editors in the latest film and television techniques.
In the mid-1990s, McBrayer also co-founded Z Post, LLC, a television production and post-production company with facilities in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Z Post's clients included Turner Broadcasting, the Cartoon Network, Vanity Fair, Avid Technology, Fox Broadcasting, Channel 36, Warner Bros. Records, the Billy Graham Association and Walk Thru the Bible. Z Post produced "Creating Hollywood Style Special Effects on the Avid Media Composer," the first authorized training CD ROM for Avid Technology, the industry leader in television and film editing and special effects technology.
In 1998, McBrayer sold Digital Solutions for an undisclosed amount.
In 1999, McBrayer created, wrote (along with Touched by an Angel writer Bob Colleary) and executive produced a television pilot entitled Postcards From Heaven, starring Marion Ross and John Haymes Newton [3] Postcards From Heaven won the Global Association of Independent Television Award for Outstanding Drama Programing in 2000. McBrayer was awarded the top prize by famed writer/producer Stephen Cannell.
In 2000, Z Post produced "Hope For Africa", a hard-hitting, six-part television series highlighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa, which aired on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). [4] The series was shot on location in South Africa and Kenya. It was during this trip that McBrayer got the inspiration for his 2003 film, Beat The Drum. In 2000, SABC aired "Hope for Africa", in Swaziland and more newspapers were sold that day in the paper's entire history because of the special brochure that was produced to accompany the series. [5]
While filming "Hope for Africa" in Kenya, McBrayer and the production team met with Kenya's then-president Daniel arap Moi at Moi's private estate to discuss "Hope For Africa". The event was featured on Kenya television and radio. President Moi asked the team to continue its efforts to bring awareness about the AIDS crisis in Africa.
In 2002 McBrayer formed Z Productions LLC in Los Angeles, California and moved the post production company, Z Post LLC, to Hollywood.
McBrayer began writing the script for the feature film, Beat the Drum following his initial trip to Africa. The film tells the story of a young Zulu boy, Musa, who is orphaned after a mysterious "curse" strikes his village. To help his grandmother, Musa sets out for Johannesburg with his father's last gift, a handmade tribal drum, in search of work and his uncle. The journey confronts him with the stark realities of urban life, but his spirit never wavers. He later returns to his village with a truth and understanding his elders have failed to grasp: that the "curse" that is killing their people is in fact AIDS, a disease that can be prevented. [6]
McBrayer assembled an all South African production team and shot the film in just 26 days during the summer of 2002 on-location in Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal. The film is dedicated "to Beatrice," his mother, who died in October 2002, during post production.
Starring Clive Scott and Owen Sejake, Beat the Drum premiered at the 2003 Mill Valley Film Festival. [7] The feature film has won numerous international awards including the prestigious Montreal Zenith D'Or, which was televised live on Montreal television, and the Monaco International Film Festival Angel Award, the festival's top honor, presented to Mr. McBrayer by Miss France.
McBrayer has said that he wrote Beat The Drum to "help give a voice to the voiceless. I simply wanted to be an honest witness to the plight of these kids. When there is a tear in the human fabric we should all feel it." [4]
Variety heralded the film as "Spectacular," calling it a "handsome well-crafted family drama...naturalistic performances...affecting human drama...first-rate!" [8] Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight called it, "a film with a big heart and a vital message." The Hollywood Reporter said, "Audiences were enthralled by this movie." In its on-air interview with director David Hickson and young star Junior Singo (Musa) CNN called the movie, "Profoundly moving and spiritually uplifting."
The movie is represented by Sidney Kimmel International. In 2008 MGM secured the international rights to "Beat the Drum"; Genius/Harvey Weinstein Company acquired the domestic U.S. DVD rights and the DVD was first released in 2008. Showtime/The Movie Channel has contracted for the exclusive North American television rights.
Beat the Drum has won over thirty international film festival awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (David Hickson), Best Supporting Actor, (Owen Sejake), Best Actor (Junior Singo), Best Music (Klaus Badelt and Ramin Djawadi) and several Audience Awards [9] W. David McBrayer wrote and produced the movie. Beatthedrum.com.
In cooperation with Sky Films, proceeds from airline sales of the movie, which was aired in-flight on all major international airlines, provided the financial resources to establish The Beat the Drum Village in Kenyan for AIDS orphans. [10] This non-profit project is on-going and provides family style housing, financial support, education, and medical care for orphans with HIV/AIDS.
In college, McBrayer developed a keen interest in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, and in particular, Jung's concept of synchronicity. McBrayer also subscribes to certain tenets of Eastern philosophy. His first screenplay, entitled Synchronicity, delves into this metaphysical phenomenon. McBrayer's feature film, Beat the Drum, explores the interconnectedness of life, chance encounters, and faith. He has written and co-authored several non-fiction books on New Testament Greek and theology including Seven Dynamic Word Studies in the Greek New Testament,The Original Word – Introduction to New Testament Greek, and Granville Sharp's Remarks on the Use of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament. McBrayer was Executive Editor of the Byzantine Majority Textform, often cited as the definitive work on the Majority text of the Greek New Testament.
In 1994, McBrayer won the Birmingham Open in fencing, a regional fencing tournament. He is a cross-country cyclist and has biked BRAG [Bike Riding Across Georgia] from Atlanta to Savannah. In 2005 he completed the Natchez Trace Trail—from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN., an approximately 590-mile trek, with his daughter Lauren Miller. McBrayer is a long-time scuba diver, past skydiver, and avid skier. He enjoys yoga, painting, sculpting, and exotic wood bowl turning.
McBrayer is an active member of the Writers Guild of America, East.
Fernando Ferreira Meirelles is a Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for co-directing the film City of God, released in 2002 in Brazil and in 2003 in the U.S. by Miramax Films, which received international critical acclaim. For his work in the film, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director in 2005 for The Constant Gardener, which garnered the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz. He also directed the 2008 adaptation of José Saramago's novel Blindness, and the 2011 film 360. In 2019 Meirelles directed and produced in Brazil the HBO original series Joint Venture and also directed The Two Popes for Netflix.
Blair Erwin Underwood is an American actor. He made his debut in the 1985 musical film Krush Groove and from 1987 to 1994 starred as attorney Jonathan Rollins in the NBC legal drama series L.A. Law.
The culture of Kenya consists of multiple traditions and trends. Kenya has no single prominent culture that identifies it. Its cultural heritage and modern expressions of culture instead consist of various cultures, shaped and practiced by the country's different communities.
Drum is a 2004 film based on the life of South African investigative journalist Henry Nxumalo, who worked for Drum magazine, called "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa". It was director Zola Maseko's first film and deals with the issues of apartheid and the forced removal of residents from Sophiatown. The film was originally to be a six-part television series called Sophiatown Short Stories, but Maseko could not get the funding. The lead roles of Henry Nxumalo and Drum main photographer Jürgen Schadeberg were played by American actors Taye Diggs and Gabriel Mann, while most of the rest of the cast were South African actors.
Jean-Marc Vallée was a Canadian filmmaker, film editor, and screenwriter. After studying film at the Université de Montréal, Vallée went on to make a number of critically acclaimed short films, including Stéréotypes (1991), Les Fleurs magiques (1995), and Les Mots magiques (1998).
Jungle Drums of Africa is a 1953 12-episode American serial film shot in black-and-white. It was an original commissioned screenplay by Ronald Davidson produced by Franklin Adreon and directed by Fred C. Brannon for Republic Pictures. The story is set in Kenya, and involves the efforts of an American uranium processing company's representative and a woman medical missionary, to thwart the efforts of agents of a "foreign power", abetted by a disaffected native witchdoctor, to gain control of a large uranium deposit on lands owned by the latter's tribe. This serial features black American actors in major roles, including that of a college-educated chieftain.
Bob Giraldi is an American film and television director, educator, and restaurateur. He is known for directing the film Dinner Rush (2000) and the music video for Michael Jackson's Beat It (1983). Giraldi has been inducted into the Art Director’s Hall of Fame, one of the few film directors to be honored; and, in 2014, was the first director ever to be inducted to the Advertising Hall of Fame. His work has garnered several London International Awards, Cannes Advertising Awards, NY International Awards, Addy Awards, Chicago Film Festival Awards, and dozens of Clio Awards. He has been named one of the 101 Stars Behind 100 Years of Advertising.
Mak ’Kusare is a Nigerian film director who won three awards for his first feature length film Ninety Degrees in 2006 at the Zuma Film Awards in Abuja, Nigeria. He wrote, directed and produced the film entirely on location in Jos, Nigeria. The film won Best Director, Best First Film/Video of a Director and Best Feature Film awards. ’Kusare has also produced for radio, television and video.
The cinema of Kenya refers to the film industry of Kenya. Although a very small industry by western comparison, Kenya has produced or been a location for film since the early 1950s when Men Against the Sun was filmed in 1952. Although, in the United States, jungle epics that were set in the country were shot in Hollywood as early as the 1940s.
Beat the Drum, written and produced by W. David McBrayer and directed by David Hickson, is a South African film starring Clive Scott and Owen Sejake.
Israel–Kenya relations are foreign relations between Israel and Kenya. The countries established diplomatic relations in December 1963. Israel has an embassy in Nairobi. Kenya has an embassy in Tel Aviv.
Wanuri Kahiu is a Kenyan film director, producer, and author. She is considered to be “one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture”. She has received several awards and nominations for the films which she directed, including the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2009 for her dramatic feature film From a Whisper. She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media collective dedicated to supporting African art for its own sake.
Rory Alec Stephen, better known as Rory Alec, is a South African Christian broadcaster and media executive. He co-founded the GOD TV network in 1995, and was Chief Executive Officer from 1994 to 2014. Alec is now pursuing other projects in film, television, staging and music through a new company called The Internationals.
The Life, also known as We Are ODST is a television and cinema advertisement launched in 2009 by Microsoft to promote the first-person shooter Halo 3: ODST in the United States. The 150-second piece follows a young soldier through enlistment, training, and battle as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST), analogous to a paratrooper that drops from space to a battlefield. The Life was created by advertising agency T.A.G., an offshoot of McCann Erickson. Production of the commercial itself was handled by production company Morton/Jankel/Zander (MJZ). It was directed by Rupert Sanders, and post-production was conducted by Asylum. It was filmed in Hungary, just outside Budapest in a coal mine and abandoned factories to give the sequence an "Eastern Bloc" aesthetic. The commercial and its associated campaign proved hugely successful; on the week of its launch, Halo 3: ODST became the top-selling game for the Xbox 360 worldwide, and over 2.5 million copies were sold within the first few weeks of release. The Life went on to win a number of honours from the advertising and entertainment industries, including two Clio Awards, a London International Advertising Award and several honours from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry.
Steven Markovitz is a South African film and television producer. He has produced, co-produced and executive-produced features, documentaries and short films. Steven has been producing and distributing for over 20 years. Since 2007, he has worked all over Africa producing documentary series' and fiction. He is a member of AMPAS, co-founder of Electric South & Encounters Documentary Festival and the founder of the African Screen Network.
Simon Njoroge, popularly known as Shrekeezy, was a Kenyan advertising strategist. He was also largely involved in art and entertainment as a radio host, TV presenter, rapper, DJ and Entertainment Executive. He first gained major attention for his successful online radio show Shrekeezy Live which was later taken up as a daily radio show on Hero Radio Kenya after gaining over 40,000 fans on social media. As a marketing executive at Hero Radio, Simon developed huge interest on Internet marketing and took part-time classes with Chartered Institute of Marketing. During this period, he played a major role in marketing muicbook.com, a social networking site that was founded by his colleague and close friend Samuel Keige. The site was however sold to Afroleo.com. He left Kenya a year later to be the personal assistant of Tanzania-based Indian entrepreneur Nilesh Bhatt. He later that year joined Pilipili Entertainment, a Tanzanian film production company owned by Nilesh Bhatt as the marketing manager. He had since worked as a Digital Strategist in major East African Advertising agencies like Scanad, MetropolitanRepublic, Express DDB and BrandVision Advertising.
Kendra Oluchi Etufunwa is a Nigerian model and actress, best known for her lead role on the M-Net hit TV series Jacob's Cross. She has been featured in top publications such as South African Elle magazine, Glamour (SA) and modelled in advertisements for brands such as Castle Milk Stout, Pepsodent and Knorr.
Robert McLachlan is a Canadian cinematographer. A successful cyclist in his youth, McLachlan quit the sport to take up cinematography, and entered the field after studying at Simon Fraser University, McLachlan was mentored by Richard Leiterman. His professional career began with documentary work for Greenpeace, before he became involved in both television and feature films; his work has subsequently earned him several industry awards and award nominations.
Platige Image S.A. is a Polish company founded in 1997. It specializes in computer graphics, 3D animation, and digital special effects. Its core business includes advertising as well as film, art, and educational projects. The studio employs a staff of over 150 artists, including directors, art directors, graphic designers, and producers. Platige has received over 200 awards and honors, including four Best of Show awards at the SIGGRAPH festival and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. The studio was nominated for an Academy Award, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival.
Judy Kibinge is a Kenyan filmmaker, writer and producer. She has produced, written and directed a number of films, best known are Something Necessary (2013), Dangerous Affair (2002), and Project Daddy (2004). She is also known for establishing DocuBox, a documentary film fund for African filmmakers to help them produce and distribute their film. She released her first film, The Aftermath, in 2002 and critics have said that she uses her films to impart stories about Kenya, particularly those about women and others that are typically not told in mainstream Hollywood.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)