In 2015, I started freelancing after the owners of Order & Other moved to other projects. I continued to work with both of them in a freelance capacity, but also was able to serve a number of other producers in the Detroit area, like Ben Friedman, Matt Dibble and Suzy Beck. I worked on films for brands large and small; from Google, Shinola, Walmart, Detroit Denim, Allied Metals, Valeo, Osman Law, Aubree’s Pizza, Michigan Department of Education, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, The United Way of Southeastern Michigan, and No Kid Hungry.

In 2016, I edited a film for Fox’s Community and Wildlife Conservation Trust in Mufindi Tanzania. I was quite moved by the interviews, and when I had the opportunity to go and film an update to their fundraising video in 2017, I volunteered in a moment! I ended up meeting my wife, who was working at the organization, and she asked me to move to East Africa so that we could pursue a life together. A pretty wild year! But it was the most meaningful decision of my life, and would lead me to live 8 wonderful action packed years in Malawi, a country just south of Tanzania.

In Malawi, Amari and I became deeply invested in regenerative farming. We started managing 5 acres of land using permaculture principles to bring fertility back to the soil. We planted 900 trees, which included 190 fruit frees. We built composting toilets, put in erosion control methods, mulched everywhere that needed protection from the sun. We built a few houses, and have a vision of creating a community based around regenerative farming and art.

During this time in Malawi, the country had an intense lockdown, and non-profit organizations were reaching out to me to fill a need for interviews and photography to document their work. Up to this point, my career was 100% video focused. This pushed me into the role of journalist. I’d always said my favorite part of filmmaking was interviewing folks, and so this was a really wonderful experience. I’m going to share a photo below; if you want to see more, please click to my work in Africa tab at the top of the page. Clients like Concern Worldwide, SolarAid, BookAid and Malawi Mangoes.

In this video, you can see how much we have been able to improve the fertility of the land in the land in the last 5 years.

What isn’t spoken in the video, is that we’d recently decided that wanted to spend more time in our home country, closer to family, and with more access to healthcare, after my 5th bout with Malaria.