How It Came To Be

A lot of people ask me how I wound up on this adventure in Madagascar. It is often difficult to pinpoint the exact moment a part of your life’s path unfolds. However, amazingly, I clearly remember five years ago when this journey began. I was on a Native American reservation with Caleb Dogeagle visiting his extended family. We were both very excited to see the new animated movie “Madagascar” and we took his young nephew out on our date. Although the movie spends quite a bit of time getting to Madagascar, eventually our heroes (a lion, zebra, giraffe, and hippo) arrive in “THE WILD.” THE WILD is of course Madagascar. A lush land devoid of humans and full of plushy dancing, singing techno-crazed lemurs. I know a good party when I see one and I knew at that moment that I had to join the soiree. After the movie ended, I turned to Caleb and said, “I need to go there.” He soundly replied, “You know they don’t sing and dance like that.” And I thought about it…and thought about it…and thought about it…and decided, NO, I do not know if they sing and dance like that.

I have spent a large proportion of my life watching movies and most of my general education has come from their life lessons. One, as a Jew, I can excel as a part of the mafia but I can never truly be donned a “made man.” Two, when in the middle of any type of gang war situation, it is best to have a well-choreographed song and dance to solve the dilemma. Three, always have minority friends, if a psycho-killer is on the loose, they will surely be killed off first, giving anyone white more time to flee. So in regards to whether or not lemurs sing and dance, I was pretty sure that the movie wouldn’t lie. I hadn’t been steered wrong yet.

So I hopped onto the internet and searched for an NSF funded researcher in Madagascar. NSF has this little-known grant for media makers to make films about NSF funded science. The grant is for $75,000. Considering my wage at the time working for Montana PBS was less than the baby-sitting money I used to make when I was sixteen, I was ready to get my hands on the big bucks. I never did find my NSF researcher but I did log onto a primate research website where Erik Patel was looking for a research assistant in Marojejy National Park, Madgascar. Yes! This was ticket in.

I wrote Erik immediately saying that I would trade my services as an assistant if, in return, he let me film his endeavors. His reply was quite unexpected. He offered to help pay for a large portion of my trip over to his research site so that I could just focus on filming. His lemurs had never been filmed before. They are one of the top twenty-five most endangered primates in the world and he wanted to raise awareness of their plight. I find that it is extremely rare that life offers you more than you ask for from any specific situation. So, when this offer came my way, I knew that there was no other answer than “I’m in.” Of course, when the gods are cruel, they grant your wishes. My six week filming excursion in Madagascar became an almost four year post-production nightmare (but that is an insanely painful and boring technology-ridden story that has no place popping its ugly head into this blog).

So, six weeks in Madagascar plus four years in Montana, my half hour movie about Erik Patel, his silky sifaka lemurs and the research and conservation efforts in Marojejy National Park was complete. The show aired on the Research Channel and Montana PBS. It was highlighted on quite a few conservation and educational websites, and I am told that it is a smash-hit at my grandmother’s old-age home. However, I wanted more. I was looking for a broader international audience. I knew there were old age homes abroad craving new nighttime entertainment. My friend Hillary Hudson happened to casually mention that a woman she met at a film festival was looking for projects to distribute in Africa. I wrote an email to this Sophie Vartan of Natural History Unit Africa and pointed her towards the “Angels of the Forest” link on the Vimeo website (NOTICE - if you have not yet watched my movie, please follow the advice of this shameless plug). I also mentioned to Sophie that I was looking for a job and I attached my resume to the email. Not expecting much in return, since my six month job search in the States was going nowhere, I was extremely surprised when she asked not only for the international rights to distribute my film but she offered me a job shooting videos for her company over in Madagascar.

I did not have to think twice about this alignment of the stars and, as you all probably know by now, I took the job. Little did I know that that fateful day on the rez would lead to this adventure. But as one door opens, another orifice into a room often slams shut. That day on the rez led to my realization that movies often lie. Although I highly encourage everyone to watch the film, there were quite a few factual errors in “Madagascar.” Lemurs are actually a female dominant species - Sasha Baron Cohen would never hack it as king of the lemurs over here. Males often get slapped in the face if they forage for food before a female. And fosa are actually solitary animals. They do not hunt in packs and they certainly do not toss lemurs in gourmet salads. I’m not sure that they even eat any type of green foliage at all. I’m not exactly sure whether or not animals can really break out of the New York City Zoo and take the subway uptown to Penn Station. And I have yet to find a techno-dance-party in the forest…but I am certainly not giving up hope. If going from a movie house on the reservation to a forest in Madagascar can be a logical progression than I can’t even fathom what could be next in life. Maybe after this job is finished, I might just try to become a “made man” for the mob after all.