Photo of Michelle Stewart Brown

Michelle Stewart Brown

www.myspace.com/michellembrown

TV is our society's main storyteller.

View My:

  • Michelle Stewart Brown

  • 37 / Female
  • SAN FRANCISCO, California, US
  • Last Login: 6/14/2009

70813379|37|11101|http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/87/m_05c324524b6e4464b6f6b66a04672d59.jpg

Music Player

Get Flash now!

In order to listen or view this content you will have to upgrade your version of Flash.

Interests

  • General

    On a creative level, I produce, write, shoot, and edit video, specifically cinematic poetry. I also study Media, Politics and Religion and their presence in electronic media. For example, one lecture that I give is an overview of spirituality on TV. I show an episode of "The Simpsons" and have students use Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory to identify modeled behaviors. It's interesting to note that I usually see religion on animated shows more than live action programming. .."The Simpsons," "Family Guy" and "South Park" seem to comment on issues of faith and religion more than live action shows. Stewart Hoover, a religion and media scholar, conducted a study that found, "The Simpsons consistently comes up in our interviews as a subject for family discussion and family interaction around issues of values and morality and religion." (Pinsky, 2001, p. 9)... On a personal level, I am interested in Quantum Physics and how it applies to our spiritual lives.

  • Music

    I got to see the first Green Day secret show in April!
    NINE INCH NAILS! NIN NIN NIN...
    The one and only MELVINS!!! ...
    Depeche Mode!!!
    Bay Area reggae band, NATIVE ELEMENTS , puts on a seriously good show...Pink Floyd, Tweaker, Tim Fite, AudioSlave, Beck, Rage, Seether, Foo Fighters, Bjork, WolfMother, did I mention The Melvins? Chris Isaak - who I saw at Bashful Bull on Taraval St., Death Cab, AFI, anything heavy and happy, Green Day, The Cure, Queen, White Stripes, Weezer, Moby!.. Did I mention Depeche Mode? WRONG video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bsXOcK9_Cw

  • Movies

    Classic faves: Metropolis, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Graduate, King of Comedy, Being There, anything by Hitchcock. More contempo: Borat, O Brother, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Sin City, Fahrenheit 9/11, LOTR, 40-year old virgin, David Lynch, John Waters, Coen Bros, no one does dialogue like Woody Allen, and I watch documentaries of all kinds.

  • Television

    Have I told you how much I love TV? ---not necessarily the programming/content on it, but the medium's potential. McLuhan was right, but so was Gerbner. The medium and the content merge into a powerful signal that can EDUCATE (PBS, history, science, nature, politics, docs), UNIFY through coverage of live global events like 9/11, PROMOTE SOCIAL CHANGE through its reflection of our lives, ENRICH our lives with arts, music, culture, travel, food, and dance, and to INSPIRE us with amazing stories about real people all over the world. ..Now, I know TV also does a whole lot of other things, but this is my own damn myspace page, so I get to wax poetic about all the good things about TV. And one of the very best things, as far as content goes, is The Simpsons. I remember seeing the very first episode of The Simpsons in 1989. It has evolved into a satire of the entire American system and become my favorite TV show. It shows a society corrupt at its core. It tackles a range of issues including public education, politics, health care, corporate greed, peer pressure, addiction, censorship, and religion.. . .. What Religions are represented in Springfield? Krusty the Clown is Jewish, Apu is Hindu, Lisa Simpson is Buddhist (and so are Lenny and Carl in at least one episode), Ned Flanders and the Simpsons are Christian. .. I also watch The Daily Show, South Park, The Office, Colbert Report, lots of PBS, and endless news news news because I am addicted to it.

  • Books

    Read Huxley's Brave New World recently. It's simply fantastic and I am convinced that Huxley (in 1932) was much closer to having predicted our future than Orwell was. Enjoyed "Mediated" by Thomas De Zengotita - excellent and thought-provoking. Howard Zinn's little gem "Just War" and loved it. Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." So many books...Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky, "Me Talk Pretty" by David Sedaris, anything by the wonderful and brilliant Robert McChesney, "Traveling Mercies" by Anne Lamott, "Lessons from the Light" (about Near Death Experiences) by Kenneth Ring, religious texts like Quran, Hebrew bible, New Testament, Tibetan book of the Dead, Gnostic Gospels and others. "Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings" by Marcus J. Borg.

  • Heroes

    ..CHP's California Freeway Service has rescued me twice with flat tires on Hwy 280, so they qualify as heroes, but my biggest heroes are my students at College of San Mateo. Most of them are at community college on their way to university. They are working multiple jobs to pay for school, attending classes, doing homework, commuting, participating in school activities, and also doing real world production work in all their remaining "spare" time. Several of them are married, some with children as well. They all have a lot of demands on them. Yet, they continue to impress me with their enthusiasm, creativity, and commitment. Many of them also possess beautiful ideals and are determined to see television serve viewers. Some of them will surely have successful careers in broadcasting. They will make me proud. That's why they are my real heroes.

Schools

  • College Of San Mateo

    • San Mateo, CA
    • Graduated: N/A
    • Major: I teach broadcasting here
    • Minor: Fabulous school.
    • Clubs: GO CSM Bulldogs!
    2006 to Present

  • San Francisco State University

    • San Francisco, CA
    • Graduated: 2004
    • Student status: Alumni
    • Degree: Master's Degree
    • Major: Broadcast Pedagogy
    • Minor: Broadcast production
    2002 to 2004

  • Central Michigan University

    • Mt Pleasant, MI
    • Graduated: 1993
    • Student status: Alumni
    • Major: Broadcasting & Cinema
    • Minor: Theatre and Interpretation
    • Clubs: Forensics, Theatre Productions, 91 Rock FM, Moore Hall TV.
    1989 to 1993

  • Beaverton High School

    • Beaverton, MI
    • Graduated: 1989
    • Student status: Alumni
    • Degree: High School Diploma
    • Major: Getting out of Beaverton
    • Minor: Getting out of Michigan
    1985 to 1989

Companies

Vampires

Video Slider

Activity Stream

Video Player

Blurbs

About me:

.. . . . ........... So much going on! I'm all a twitter! twitter.com/profbrown if you want to follow along. I am the voice of the new automated phone agent for Victoria's Secret! It took months to record thousands of phone prompts. And I'll be starting the process again soon now that I have been chosen by The Hartford Insurance for their automated phone system too. I was honored to be one of the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (the Emmy people) faculty fellows in 2008. I had a great time in Hollywood learning from media industry pros. I am now the proud puppy mama of Zeus, a beautiful baby Boston Terrier who has stolen my heart...and soiled my favorite rug! .. The Red Wings won it all this year! Yea Hockeytown! I miss Stevie Yzerman, but I still love my boys in red... .. ABOUT ABATTOIR: Why all the blood, you ask? Simply put, an abattoir is a slaughterhouse. This is an allegorical cinépoem that reveals a harsh world in which we feel no shock from the constant slaughter of souls, lives and dreams. We watch in total apathy as a butcher wields his cleaver, by now, we’re all used to the blood. Take a look. Abattoir is written & performed by LaDonna Witmer. I shot and edited, duh. "ABATTOIR" --> ..
CHECK OUT MY PROFESSOR SITE: http://www.smccd.net/accounts/brownm/.. RANDOM MISC: I finished my fourth semester as an Associate Professor - and yes, it's still awesome! + The cinépoetry project with poet LaDonna Witmer (ladonnawitmer.com) is going great. .. FLASHBACK: I was born in Flint, MI, moved to Beaverton, but never felt at home in such a small town - I needed to stretch. So, I got a degree in Broadcasting from Central Mich Univ, then worked in TV and video for the next 12 years, moved to Phoenix, AZ for a while, then moved to San Francisco, California in 1998. Ahhh...this is home. .. THESE DAYS: After spending all that time creating videos for whatever paying client walked through the door, I am finally working on my own creative projects. I put some of the cinépoems on my video page. I am especially pleased with the way "DIE PRETTY" turned out. It's all cuts-only, no effects and a nice level of desaturated color (per Zettl's desaturation theory). Cinépoetry is simply poetry wrapped in a cinematic package, or you could think of it as a cinematic poetry reading. We think it makes poetry more interesting and accessible to a media-saturated society. I collaborate with LaDonna Witmer, a local poet here in San Francisco. I edit all videos in Final Cut Pro. Some of the cinepoems have been screened in film festivals and we've won some trophy hardware. "Best Female Filmmaker" award at the Poppy Jasper Shorts Festival in Morgan Hill, CA, "Grand Festival Award in Arts" at the Berkeley Video & Film Fest 2 years in a row, "Slow Roast" was screened at the San Francisco International Women's Film Festival in 2006. .. I attended graduate school to earn my M.A. and pursue teaching. I have had the privilege of teaching TV and video production courses at San Francisco State University, Art Institute of California in SF, and Academy of Art University SF. I am now an Associate Professor and head of the Broadcast and Electronic Media program at the College of San Mateo, CA. We have a fantastic broadcasting program where students take classes in a full time FM radio and Public TV station... PROTECT THE INTERNET! Support Net Neutrality and prevent our free and open public sphere from being partitioned off into tiers of service, like cable. http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ..

Who I'd like to meet:

Matt Groening, Norman Lear, TRENT REZNOR, Edward R. Murrow, Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Joss Whedon, Nelson Mandela, Walter Cronkite, Desmond Tutu, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Cindy Sheehan, Nora Ephron, Robert McChesney, John Taylor Gatto, Cami Granato, Anne Lamott, Penny Marshall, David Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Bjork, Janis Joplin, Alison Goldfrapp. I'd also like some face time with the FCC to discuss my thoughts on media ownership and net neutrality...
I would love coffee and conversation with Mr. TRENT REZNOR.