META TEAMS UP WITH iMOVIEi TO ESTABLISH NEW "POSITIVE IMPACT"
GENRE FOR MOVIES & TV

iMOVIEi, the new online resource for everyone who works in or supplies the film industry has reached agreement with META to create a new genre for film and television called "POSITIVE IMPACT."

Message from the Executive Director

META Event at the Santa Monica Place

You are cordially invited to a FREE outdoor screening of the Academy Award nominated movie "The Blind Side" starring Sandra Bullock on Wednesday, October 19th at 7:00pm. This event is open to the public, so it is advisable to arrive by 6:00pm in order to capture group seating with other META invitees and purchase food on the premises. This is a social networking event so remember to bring your business cards.

Look for META's Chairman, Elizabeth Estrada, who will be wearing a red flower on her left shoulder. Let's have some fun and enjoy a great movie!!

Robert W. Plath, Executive Director of the World Wide Forgiveness Alliance, is a well-known San Francisco Bay Area defense attorney.

The Northern California Reception to introduce the META Board to our new affiliates was held at the beautiful, lagoon side home of Norman McVea and META Advisory Board member,Sharon Hart .

45 enthusiastic former ATMA members and colleague guests attended. The outgoing Board of ATMA, including co-founders, Peter Tjeerdsma, Sharon Hart as well as co-founder, Daphne Laurel, thanked attendees, many of whom had been charter members of ATMA since 1996, including filmmaker, TV and radio producer, Jan St. John, screenwriter and Emmy awarded PBS producer, Brian Narelle,visionary artist, Daniel Holeman, and film and video producer, Ken Jenkins for their loyal support of ATMA over the 14 years that it stood for transformative media throughout the world. Sharon Hart shared her great satisfaction in reaching the long term goal of helping to bring together the Northern and Southern California transformative media communities, which will insure more support and resources for independents as well as mainstream  producers.

Cynthia Stringer, former ATMA Board Member, and the current META Executive Director, introduced META Board Chair, Elizabeth Estrada, who shared her delight at co-creating a Northern California branch of the Los Angeles based association in the San Francisco Bay Area--her former home, where she once created elegant, black-tie, social events.

L.R.: Andrew Orgel, Elizabeth Estrada and Cynthia Stringer
with affiliate members and guests sharing their work

 
She went on to express her heart-felt commitment to the mission of creating positive media that transforms lives to an even greater degree of impact and visability than ever before due to the strategic positioning of META within the mainstream Los Angeles media community.

Cynthia shared that META's outreach includes a mailing list of 1500 with more added each month, and approximately 200 members and affiliates since the March organizational launch in Los Angeles.

She then introduced Vice Chairman, Andrew Orgel, who added his total commitment to creating the grounded action necessary to create the resources, opportunities, and connections it takes to produce the media content and kind of organization that makes a global impact and a real difference in the media world. Andy, a founding executive of the MTV networks and the Arts and Entertainment Network--is well qualified to help craft META into a recognized trade organization. 
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MEMBER SERVICES

Cynthia H. Stringer, master professional coach and META Executive Director, Sharon Hart, META website content creator, co-founder of META, and Dr. Norm McVea, META affiliate member, have launched Coherent Coaching Institute, a new company that offers personal and professional coaching and healing arts practitioner training programs, plus energetic products for reducing stress and increasing vitality and wellbeing. The Institute's method is leading edge combining HRV Biofeedback & EFT. It also offers multi-media sound and video energy applications. Attend a FREE Teleclass on November 2, 2011, 6:00pm-7:30pm PDT by sending an email to:

media@coherentcoachinginstitute.com

Logon to the website for more details

www.coherentcoachinginstitute.com

AFFILIATE NEWS:
 

Worldwide Web--Award-winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball announce the winner and runners-up of their first-ever contest for cover art for the new addition to their Celebration series of poetry chapbooks. The winner is META Affiliate member, JACQUIE SCHMALL.

Jacquie developed a style she calls “rainbow geometry.”

After spending time in theatre productions, and on film sets, she was compelled to paint a series of watercolors reflecting the powerful energy of women in the process of co-creation. The selected painting it one of them; it will be reflected in three iterations on the cover.

Jacquie can be reached at: jacquiefilm@gmail.com


MEMBER MEDIA FORUM - FILM REVIEW by member, Don Schwartz

 

Bravo!: Common Men, Uncommon Valor

Ken and Betty Rodgers' riveting documentary, "Bravo!", begins with three lines of text: "This is not a pro-war film. This is not an anti-war film. This is a film about what happened." During the next two hours the viewer is propelled through a 77-day siege of 6,000 Marines by at least 20,000 North Vietnamese soldiers.

It is 1968. A leadership decision is made to entrap as large a number of North Vietnamese fighters as possible. The battleground: Khe Sanh combat base. The bait: 6,000 Marines, additional military units, an ammo dump, two HQ bases, and an airstrip. The North Vietnamese take the bait, the two fighting forces become mutually entrapped.

Through heart-breaking, jaw-dropping, tearful interviews with 15 survivors, through archival footage and stills, audio recordings made during and after the siege, and through accurately-created sounds of battle, we experience this eleven-week siege as lived by the men of Bravo Company, First Battalion, 26th Marines. These 120 Marines, in their late teens and early twenties, comprise the Company placed at the end of the airstrip, next to the ammo dump, between the First Battalion headquarters and the HQ of the 26th Marine Regiment-in the cradle of prime military targets.

The survivors describe the battles, the deaths and woundings, the fear, and the heroic actions. They speak of their time in the trenches under constant bombardment. The quiet on-camera presence of these men, their voices, their faces, their eyes, their tears, and their words-all scream as powerful a statement about the nature of war as any still photos or moving images of battle, as any of the finest or grittiest Hollywood war films. Approximately sixty Marines of Bravo Company are killed, many wounded, and all the survivors' minds are seared by this journey through Hell.

"Bravo!" is an astounding motion picture, made more so by the fact that this is Ken and Betty Rodgers' first film-one that looks, feels, and sounds as if it were produced by seasoned filmmakers. An instant classic, "Bravo!" is a timeless portrayal of this ageless / undying / everlasting / perpetual human activity called war.

 

Please visit Cinesource Magazine to read Don's full-length interview with actress turned filmmaker Cassie Jaye. Here is an excerpt:

"Don Schwartz: Why the moves behind the camera and to Marin?

Cassie Jaye: The main reason I went behind the camera was because I never felt fully fulfilled acting. I never acted in a film that spoke about what I wanted to put out in the world. And so that's what began "Daddy I Do". I wanted to do something that was personal to me. In my acting career I was probably in about eight horror films, died eight times. I've done a lot of films, they were fun to work on, but I wasn't telling the story I wanted to tell. The move to Marin was a collision of a lot of things-a breakup, the high price of living in L.A., I wanted something different. I was going behind the camera, and I was working a lot with my family who live here. I was editing with them, doing all my post production up here, so it just made sense to be up here. I thought it was going to be a Summer in the Bay Area, and I ended up loving it, never moved back."

 

Facing Death

A Film Review of the work of META Affiliate, MICHELE PETICOLAS
by META member, DON SCHWARTZ

Many Suns ago – around 2001 – I had the pleasure of meeting a beautiful young woman by the name of Michelle Peticolas. She informed me that she was  working on a project about death.  Immediately I thought of the seventies, and of a few authors: Stephen Levine, Ram Dass, and an inspiration for Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz”, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. I thought, as I still do, ‘death’… about as taboo a topic you cannot hear, addressed in mainstream media or pop culture – except for the above-mentioned “All That Jazz."  Wonder what she’s going to do?

Dr. Peticolas did it. She produced and directed "Facing Death," a 26 minute docu-mentary featuring people speaking frankly as they, to put it simply, are facing their imminent death. I’m in total admiration and respect for Peticolas’ intentions and accomplishments. With camera work by filmmaker, Bob Mohr, Peticolas firmly but gently knocks on the door of our defensiveness to the topics of death and dying. I especially appreciate Michelle’s decision to put herself in the mix as she describes, with utter vulnerability, her responses to her parents’ passing.

"Facing Death" is the first in a series called" Secrets of Life and Death."  The second work, "Caring for Dying,"  has been released, and there are at least two more in the works. Visit her web site at:  www.secretsoflifeanddeath.com

Don Schwartz, Ph.D., an actor/writer from Larkspur, California, received his doctorate in Integral Counseling and Psychotherapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies.   Wendy Weir, his business partner, and he have written two spiritually-based adventure fantasy scripts. 

The 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day was celebrated at Dominican University in San Rafael, California. The 14th is in the planning stages.

Last year's Forgiveness Day Celebration was honoring Congressman John Lewis with the Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award for his lifelong work towards peace, justice and racial equality and Marianne Williamson with the Champion of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award.

A Masters of Forgiveness Workshop, called "The Heart and Soul of Forgiveness was given by Marianne Williamson on Saturday, August 1st.

POSITIVE NEWS is a publication anchoring us to the higher truths as well as reminding us to be positive in a time of economic meltdown, contraction and fear.

POSITIVE NEWS' mission, in their words, is "to  bring hope, exemplify solutions, inspire to action, and connect with those who create positive change.  We envision a world where people treat each other with respect and kindness, where we consider the earth to be our home to care for and enjoy. . .and we know that this world is in the process of emerging.  POSITIVE NEWS is a reflection of this widespread emerging movement and tells its stories."
 

Call for entries in the "15-MINUTES OF FAME" film festival!
They are looking for films that are 15-minutes or shorter. http://15minutefilmfest.com <http://15minutefilmfest.com/

By Catherine Ann Jones

In 1994, Quentin Tarantino wrote a fictional story about Mickey & Mallory Knox, a honeymoon couple who, as a perverse aphrodisiac, randomly shot and killed over 50 people. Oliver Stone directed the film and the week it opened, a real young couple in the Midwest went on a rampage killing 4-5 strangers. When apprehended by the police and asked their names, they replied that their names were Mickey & Mallory Knox - the fictional character’s names from Stone’s film. The film was Natural Born Killers, and this film made a difference. 

I wrote for a popular television series called Touched by an Angel. Among the fan mail one day, we heard from one viewer. This man had decided to kill himself. It was a Sunday night and he happened to have the television on CBS where he watched an episode of Touched by an Angel.Moved by the story, he wept then decided to give life another chance. He wrote to us and thanked us for making a difference in his life.