Anne Basting is the Director of the Center on Age & Community, and Assoc. Professor of Theatre at the Peck School of the Arts. Anne took her first steps into filmmaking with DocUWM. In 2005, she worked with Brad Lichtenstein to produce and direct Talk Back Move Forward: 100 Years of Alzheimer's. DocUWM student Terry Caddell edited the 8 minute dvd based on interviews with people with dementia, and featuring still photographs by Jim Herrington. Talk Back Move Forward is available to view for free at www.aging.uwm.edu.

Alicia Boll works as a news tech at WISN-TV. As a photojournalist, she seeks and formulates the stories of southeast Wisconsin's people and environments. In addition to her position at WISN-TV, Alicia is a TA with the Journalism and Mass Communications department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she pursues a graduate degree in Media Studies. She has a BFA in photography, with a second major in broadcast and print journalism which includes a certificate in Digital Arts and Culture from UWM. Her term at docUWM included production work on the film Chosen Towns, a documentary exploring Jewish life in small communities.

Im Kellie Bronikowski and I will be graduating from the UWM film department in December 2008. I first got involved with DOC UWM during the Story Corpproject. This was my first experience in the documentary world and I couldnt have asked for a better one. It was working on that project that made me really excited when the opportunity to be a part of the DOC UWM Elder Abuse project came up this past semester. This was one of my first experiences work in group form for a project and I learned a lot about how I work alone as well as with other people.

I joined docUWM as a student my senior year to work on the documentary now known as Chosen Towns. After graduating, I stayed to edit the piece sacrificing my tan because our edit room doesn't have any windows. I'm learning a lot staying with the piece through post production on it's way to being a real documentary and airing on Wisconsin Public Television. Brad found a way for me to stay with docUWM by having me produce a documentary on David Greenberger. My other experience includes working as an additional production assistant on Public Enemies, directed by Michael Mann. When I grow up, I hope to make my own documentaries and am also interested in working on more major motion pictures. I'm looking forward to a career in the industry even if it means surviving on Ramen noodles for most of the time!

My name is Dao, pronounced Dow, like the Dow Jones, no association. My heritage is Hmong and my name translates to cloth. Im 22 years young and Im from a small town called Two Rivers or also known as Twrivers. My favorite pastime is sleeping. I do a lot of that. An odd thing about me is I dont watch a lot of movies. Its odd because Im a film major and I feel like I should be into movies, but Im not. Im really picky as to what I watch because I dont like wasting time, sleeping is an exception. Some of my favorite movies are A Beautiful Mind, Curse of the Golden Flower, and A Bugs Life. docUWM has been a wonderful experience for me. Im very grateful to be a part of the student films. Im currently working on the Hmong project with an outstanding team and its been quite a ride. I love sharing my culture with others wholl listen. One of the best parts about working with docUWM is that you learn something new everyday. Like, I never knew pineapples could grow in pots. Yep, thats all.

Linda Cieslik Ph.D., Community Programs/Marketing coordinator, Milwaukee County Department on Aging (MCDA) is a UWM Alum. Her academic career includes work in Bio Sci. (Dr. Newtol Press!), Cultural Anthropology, Fine Arts Art, (Adolph Rosenblatt!), Theater, Psychology, and Education, culminating in a BA-General, MS - Education and Ph.D. - Urban Ed&.. What can one say? It was the 70s! After BA and during graduate work she spent some 10 years caring for great apes and in charge of Monkey Island at the Milwaukee County Zoo - but thats another story. Dr. C works with docUWM in her capacity as a community educator and grant project developer for Milwaukee County. In 2007  2008 MCDA and MCWs Center for Healthy Communities contracted with docUWM for five short films on elder abuse for a project funded by the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership. She is also an actor who works with regional film students (for free) and appears in local features and television commercials (for pay). She played a lead role in The Wisconsin Idea an award winning film by a student at the Cooper Union in NYC. Other featured roles include those in zombie/slasher epics, suicidal women and dead-wife-come-back-to-drive-abusive-husband-mad. Critical comment has been overwhelmingly positive.

Hey everyone!!! I love video!!! and I love to Dj!!! One day these two things will hopefully be all I do, once I get done with school. I am always down to learn and work with fun and creative people. Which is one of the reasons I was involved in the 2008 Doc Uwm Elder Abuse project. There was very talented and smart people involved in the project and we all had a great time working on it. Feel free to hit up Alex Youngen for some free work!!! He is talented and won't charge you. I am currently very excited about post production and camera work. I hope to find my place somewhere in the world doing one of the two. Hope to see you out in the world of video. LATER!

My involvement in docUWM came in the spring of 2008 when I was asked to work in a group to create documentaries on "Elder Abuse." Myself and (thee) James Michaels (from Public Enemies) told the story of Bert, an 83-year-old single man whose money and possessions were stolen repeatedly by a couple of guys. Our goal was to portray both sides of Bert, one being gentle, humble, and proactive and the other being lonely and forgetful. I feel like I learned a lot from making this doc, even though the story was sad. This was my first doc filmmaking experience and I enjoyed it a lot. Trying to craft an evolving story was the most challenging part, but the pressure surrounding that made our efforts and therefore the final piece stronger. I also stayed with the project after the semester to do the final edit. Ever since the completion of this doc, more opportunities opened up. I am making three videos for the Milwaukee Art Museum, all focusing on getting youth involved in the museum and interested in art. Soon I will be helping develop a set of podcasts, which will be used as a teaching tool, on themes and issues surrounding The Great Lakes.

Ben Krutzik is a UWM alum (journalism '05) working in the production industry. In his current position at True North, Ben makes short documentaries for non-profit organizations and also serves as a production manager on commercial shoots. Along with co-director Andrew Rosas and DocUWM, Ben helped create a video to recognize the UWM Foundation's capital campaign. Ben could not be happier than while bicycling, listening to old funk & soul music, and participating in the wonderful snail mail project that is postcrossing.com.

Brad Lichtenstein started docUWM in 2006 to create a way for students to work on professional productions and learn the art, craft and business of making media. docUWM makes media for clients as diverse as the Milwaukee County Department on Aging to Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning. Students work is regularly featured on Wisconsin and Milwaukee Public Televison. docUWM also presents docUquarium, a combination class and screening series open to the public that features the latest documentaries from the Independent Television Services Community Cinema program. Brad has been working in documentary production in1992. He associate produced FRONTLINEs Peabody award-winning presidential election year special, Choice 96, and Lumiere Productions PBS series, With God on Our Side: The History of the Religious Right. With Lumiere, he produced and directed Andrés Lives, a portrait of the Jewish Schindler; The Discovery Channels Safe, which follows 3 women who seek refuge from domestic violence; PBSs special Caught in the Crossfire, chronicling the lives of 3 Arab New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11; and the BBC/Court TV co-production of Ghosts of Attica, about the infamous 1971 prison uprising and aftermath, for which he was awarded a Dupont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Journalism. His producing credits also include the PBS series Local News and Now with Bill Moyers. He was consulting producer for the film Army of One, about 3 army recruits who joined shortly after 9/11 and consulting editor for A Lion in the House, a film that tells the difficult stories of kids with cancer. His most recent film is Almost Home, a PBS Independent Lens documentary about people who live and work in a elder-care community. Next up is What We Got: DJ Spookys Quest for the Commons, a documentary-fiction hybrid about the over-privatization of what belongs to all of us, from the sky above to the water below, to the Internet at our fingertips to the art, culture and knowledge all around us. Brads films are supported by foundations that include the Ford, Helen Bader, Tides, Nathan Cummings, HKH, Retirement Research, Panta Rhea, Christensen and Langeloth as well as the Independent Television Service and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. docUWM was created with start up funds from UWMs Research Growth Initiative.

Jessamy Meyer is a senior at UW-Milwaukee majoring in Film and Conceptual Studies. To date, her work has concentrated on the extremely personal; making short documentaries and portraits of her family. Jessamys other interests are in studying the history and structure of film to better inform her own work and her love for the changing film culture. She plans to continue but adapt her work with portraits into more narrative frameworks and pursue a career in film editing. Jessamy is currently working as an editor on Meet the Yangs; a film that documents a young filmmaker and the people she meets through her journey to discover what it means to be a Hmong woman in America.

I am the Project Director of docUWM, which is great because I get to do anything and everything from producing, teaching, filming, editing, organizing, reviewing, coordinating, guiding, keeping track of details, pushing paperwork, & pushing forward. I graduated from the UWM Film Department with a BFA and used my experiences working with UWM's Community Media Project to continue teaching and coordinating youth workshops in a variety of media including film and video, audio production, visual arts, and dance. I have had much fun working on the docUWM projects for StoryCorps, Discovery in Progress, Poetry Everywhere, Two Walks, Chosen Towns, and Finding Home.

Ryan Sarnowski is a digital video artist whose work includes, installations, documentaries, video essays, fictional narratives, and photography. Ryan holds both a BFA (Florida State University) and MFA (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) in Film Production. Themes of social justice, personal experience, and the pursuit of the transcendental run through a majority of his personal work. Ryan sees all his work as a form of thinking or meditation. Presently, Ryan teaches at the UWM in the Visual Arts Department and the Film/Video/New Genres Department. He has taught classes on the Digital Arts, Documentary Production, Collaborative Cinema and Autobiographical Documentary. In the docUWM universe, Ryan exists as a producer, an instructor, and a voice of reason (a.k.a the curmudgeon, or the ogre). Really, he's a teddy bear and to know, know, know him is to love, love, love him. He's also the loudest Quaker you'll ever meet and a decent Vegan baker. When Ryan's not obsessing over his most recent project or fixing some tech problem in the docUWM office, he is obsessively tracking down new films to watch. From experimental to exploitation Ryan is a fanatic for obscure, mind-altering films; his genres of choice is early American independent cinema.

Kelsi's career in filmmaking began by creating Barbie murder mystery movies at age nine. By fifth grade, she had ditched the dolls and was directing her fellow classmates in plays she had written herself. In high school, she became less bossy and chose to live as a hermit in the building's video lab. There, she taught herself the linear editing process on a tape-to-tape deck. Film school was an obvious choice for post-secondary education. While an undergraduate, she worked as an intern for 371 Productions. Kelsi also enrolled in Brad Lichtenstein's year-long verite documentary course, where she and a colleague created a short piece that aired on Wisconsin Public Television. In May of 2007, Kelsi graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts. She worked briefly as an editor and camera operator for professional ballroom dance competitions. Kelsi currently works for the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District's cable channel, creating and editing television programs for seventeen different schools. Kelsi also works as a freelance filmmaker. Recent works include projects for Current TV, training videos for factory workers, coverage of missionary work in a local church, and a documentary about equine-assisted mental health therapy. When not indulging in her workaholic tendencies, Kelsi loves to go swing dancing.

Marc Tasman is a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Communication and coordinator of the Digital Arts and Culture Certificate Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. You may also know him for his intermedia and performance pieces, The Chocolate Messiah, Video Vigilante, Ninety-Nine Star American Flag, Ten-Year Polaroid Project, and for his research and presentations on reactions to the "ironic" bigotry of Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat. Marc has worked with docUWM on the Poetry Everywhere project as a creative consultant.

Chris Thompson was born & raised in Wisconsin, and attended UWM as a film & business student '02-'06. His first job in production was with Brad Lichtenstein's company 371 Productions as an assistant editor on the National PBS documentary Almost Home. Chris also assisted with the DocUWM class that created short documentaries for the Campus Compact student program. His own documentary, titled Kyoko Naturally, has won several awards including the Midwest Director's Award at the Milwaukee International Film Festival. Chris now works as a producer and assistant editor at a small independent film company in Milwaukee called Bluemark Productions; he enjoys camping, milkshakes, and thunderstorms.

Having never thought about documentary as a passion, Rachel Wiederhoeft quickly shifted her view after discovering her subject's story during the first DocUWM course. Since that time, she has graduated with High Honors from UW-Milwaukee and relocated to New York City. Rachel currently works for a small production company in Brooklyn, creating online documentaries and content for major national companies. Every day has a new discovery - from the world of Olympic Kayaking to raising sets of multiples. Rachel is looking towards graduate school in motion graphics, and hopes to someday be a professor of film teaching budding new filmmakers.