On this episode of Making Media Now, host Michael Azevedo catches up with multi-talented Filmmakers Collaborative member Mike Silva of Vessel Productions to learn about the path he took to becoming a filmmaker and editor. Mike brings us up to date on the making of his latest documentary, JUMP,  which tells the story of 26-year-old Maria Smirnova as she strives to high dive professionally for Cirque Du Soleil and Red Bull. The film will explore the sport of high diving as well as the recreational, and often dangerous, counterculture of freestyle cliff diving. 

Joining host Michael Azevedo on this episode are filmmaker Fax Bahr and activist and fisherwoman Diane Wilson who discuss their documentary "Waterkeeper," which is now in production

"Waterkeeper" explores the astonishing and uplifting life of environmental activist Diane Wilson, Waterkeeper for the San Antonio Bay Estuarine system.

As writer, director, and producer, Fax Bahr won a Directing Emmy for Hearts Of Darkness, A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. That film also won Best Documentary from the National Board of Review. Fax has also served as a Community Organizer in the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. He currently volunteers for InsideOUT Writers, teaching creative writing to incarcerated youth in Los Angeles.

Joining host Michael Azevedo on episode #52 of Making Media Now is Mark Cronin, one of Hollywood’s most successful and prolific reality television producers. He is widely credited with co-creating the celeb-reality sub-genre with the breakout hit of “The Surreal Life” (The WB) in 2003.

It's episode number 51 of Making Media Now and host Michael Azevedo is talking with journalist Dan Kennedy.

Dan is a professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism and writes a weekly column on media and politics for the GBH News website. From 1991 through 2005  he worked at The Boston Phoenix, mostly as the alt-weekly’s media columnist. Dan has also contributed articles to a number of other publications, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and Nieman Lab. From 2007-2011 he  wrote a weekly online column for The Guardian.

His book on a new breed of wealthy newspaper owners, “The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century,” was published in 2018. “The Return of the Moguls” has been critically praised by the academic publication Journalism, the trade magazine Editor & Publisher, The Boston Globe and other publications.

And from 1998 to just this year he was regular panelist on “Beat the Press,” a weekly roundtable program on media issues broadcast on GBH-TV. Most recently, Dan entered the world of podcasting with "What Works," a podcast about the future of local news. Dan’s collaborator in that effort is former Boston Globe editor Ellen Clegg.

On episode 49 of Making Media Now, Michael Azevedo speaks with Elizabeth Deane and Judith Vecchione, co-executive producers of American Veteran, a multi-tiered project that traces the veteran experience through a four-part broadcast series, a nine-part podcast, and a ten-part series of digital shorts. 

From the citizen-soldiers returning from the Revolution to today’s warrior class, it is a deeply moving story, highlighting personal remembrances, drawing civilian viewers into an unfamiliar culture, and showcasing the evolving relationships between Americans who have served in the military and those who have not. 

Elizabeth Deane’s best-known work includes films she wrote and produced over two decades for PBS’s American Experience, notably Nixon; The Kennedys; Ulysses S. Grant; and Reconstruction: The Second Civil War.

On this episode, host Michael Azevedo speaks with journalist and author Katie Hafner, and bioethicist Amy Scharf about the Lost Women of Science Initiative, a new educational nonprofit organization created to research and promote the stories of the forgotten women of science. The initiative's mission is to raise awareness of the pivotal role women have played in scientific discoveries and innovations, and to promote interest in STEM education and careers - especially among girls and young women.