FILMMAKER AND FOUNDER of the online production company NomadsLand Films, Davin Hutchins is attempting to help catapult a new medium to the forefront. He describes it as the "micro-documentary," a less-than 10-minute film with a social-issue focus.
Launched in November 2009, NomadsLand Films normally produces these short pieces for nonprofits, social startups and environmental organizations. The company also handles viral campaigning for the videos and offers to train its clients in the budding art of the micro-documentary.
As an extracurricular activity, Hutchins (pictured filming at a marketplace in Sudan) has been screening documentaries at Busboys and Poets as part of his "NomadsLand Presents" film series monthly for the last three years.
» EXPRESS: Where did the idea for using micro-documentaries come from?
» HUTCHINS: I think it's used by a lot of people. ... I also work at PBS, at this thing called IndiesLab, where I work with ITVS and Independent Lens Films, and those are full-length documentaries, which I love, and we show that at "NomadsLand Presents." But I think the future with iPhones and iPads is really starting to move toward shorter-form content for people with attention spans who don't have a lot of time.
» EXPRESS: What do you think are the advantages of the micro format?
» HUTCHINS: They both have advantages and disadvantages. People will actually pay money for a ticket to see a full-length documentary. It's harder and harder to get into theaters because there's such competition. But the advantage of a short-form documentary is generally more people see it. Because whether you've put it on your YouTube channel or you've sent it out to bloggers, people can actually respond to it and pass it along with a tweet to their friends or on their Facebook [pages], so the whole idea of passing short documentaries around like a baseball card to friends, that's kind of where I think the future is going.
» EXPRESS: You were a judge for this year's Nonprofit Video Awards. Are there any videos that stood out for you?
» HUTCHINS: Oh, yeah. There's this one called "Darius Goes West" and it's just leagues above the rest. It's basically a short film promoting a DVD that's helping a person — I think he had cerebral palsy. ... It actually did win in its category.
» Busboys and Poets, 2021 14th St NW; Sun., 8 p.m., free.
Written by Express contributor Topher Forhecz
Photo courtesy Davin Hutchins
With a play named “Why I Don’t Hate White People,” it is an understatement to say that race has played a role in the life of British poet, playwright and actor Lemn Sissay. Sissay, whose mother came to England from Ethiopia, was placed in the care of a white foster family when he was very young and spent much of his adolescence growing up in Manchester, England. His exposure to black culture and people was limited; he first met another black person when he was 11. For a young child trying to make sense of race, these experiences could prove challenging. Still, the play takes a comedic tone and more than anything else, is a straightforward look back at what has made Sissay the man he is today.
“It's an honest, truthful comedy,” he said. “And that's who I am and that's how my audience I think relates to me. I don't play any cards. It is what is it because that's what I was feeling or seeing at any given time.”
Sissay’s first visit to Virginia Tech will be on Apr. 5, where he will read part of his play, perform some of his poetry and show one of the many BBC documentaries he has worked on. Before his arrival, he spoke with the Collegiate Times about his latest play and the state of contemporary poetry.
COLLEGIATE TIMES: I know that you've been busy touring. What is the name of the play that you've been touring for?
SISSAY: The play is called “Why I Don't Hate White People,” and part of the reason that its a success at the moment is because we have an election coming up in England and one of the elements of the election is that we have a afar right party who are gaining some serious ground so the subject of race is very present in England at the moment. But hey, the play is a personal experience and it's kind of fun and it's meant to be very funny and it is.
CT: Was it sort of planned or a matter of timing that the play is happening with what's going on with the elections?
SISSAY: For me as an artist, politics is involved in everything. We make our personal choices, but they happen in context with the world so therefore, everything we do is political. It's all good for me, as a writer and as an artist, my job is to create and I won't stop doing that.
CT: What was motivation to write the play?
SISSAY: It came from childhood really. I didn't know a black person until I was about 17 years old. I hadn't met a black person until I was about 11 or 10 years old and so that gave me a great insight into a community and I always wanted to be able to explore that insight. So the motivation was to be able to share some of what I felt were quite original insights as a child who had that particular experience.
CT: So that was something that had been stewing for a while?
SISSAY: You wait for the moment. As a writer, you have a lifetime of experience to sieve your memories through and sometimes you just have to wait until it's become fine dust before you can see what kind of clouds it's going to create and that can take a lifetime and so it's not as much, you know, it's more just finding the skills as you grow to articulate some of the stuff, you know. But also, it's incredibly important to employ imagination and to employ – to search for the original line. Everything's been talked about before man, it's like “So what? Go figure.” But, it isn't what you do, it really is how you do it. Period.
CT: Do you think imagination is something people are born with or they need to hone?
SISSAY: We are all born with active imaginations. It's why people go out and party at spring break. It's why and how people dance at clubs. It's why there's flashing lights when you go out to party. It's why clothes are in the design that they are. We are imaginative human begins in search consistently to be stimulated in our imaginations. It's why some people turn to drugs, yadda yadda yadda. It's why things are designed the way they are. It's why logos are the way logos are. We are born imaginative, creative human begins and we spend a lot of time learning how not to be that. We allow often other people to fill in the gaps with adverts and whatever.
CT: For the most part, people don't flex their imaginations enough?
SISSAY: We're born creative and our imagination is manipulated, I think to get us to buy things. There's nothing wrong with buying things.
CT: Not at all. I love all my stuff.
SISSAY: But, we don't need to forfeit our primary purpose which is in some ways, possibly, to interpret the world.
CT: Do people lose sight of that purpose do you think?
SISSAY: I think what I'm saying is that people seek it. There's always a whole lot of people at the shopping mall to tell you they've found it.
CT: Then they're looking in the wrong places?
SISSAY: Some people do it through religion, some people do it through drink, some people do it through shopping. What I'm saying is we are creative, imaginative human beings. When push comes to shove; when people die or birthdays or Valentine's, we turn to poetry, we turn to arts to translate our stories. It's all part of the same creative impulse that runs through everybody. It may sound weird, does that sound weird? It may sound weird, but that's the way it is.
CT: Not really, it makes sense. But, one of the things that I really wanted to ask you when it comes to poetry is about poetry culture. What is your perception of poetry culture in the United states versus that of the U.K.?
SISSAY: I really don't know to be honest. Everywhere I've been in the world, it seems like there's a similar vibe going on. If you want to be binary about it, there's two sets. There're the page poets who are the bookish blah-blah-blah poets. By the way, I don't believe in any of these definitions. And then you get the others who are the performing poets, who perform on the stage. And the page poets look over at the performers and go “Ah, you wankers.” And the performance poets look up to the bookish poets and go “Ah, you fuckers.” It's a game and I have nothing to do it. Really, I'm a working poet and writer and have been for as long as I can remember in my adult life. I'll tell you, there is a thing that unifies poets and its got something to do with imagination and truth. All poets, whatever style they are, however they dress. Some of the most stylish poets are the most full of shit and some of the most unstylish poets are also the most full of shit. You understand what I'm saying? What I'm saying is that there is something between the poet that unites them with all poets everywhere all over the world. It's a beautiful and powerful thing. CT: Is it a kind of searching? Is that what unites them?
SISSAY: I think we're like a family of poets. And yeah, we're searchers, we are seekers and we are finders, and you don't get one without the other, man. And there's a whole lot of people out there who are quite happy not to seek and they won't find and that's all good. There is an element of danger in seeking and in the question; there is an element of beauty in the finding. I think that we are like warriors of the spirit. We are. It's hardcore, hard serious work that's happening out there whether it's Maya Angelou or Henry Rollins. Both of them; right against there. They're workers like the tin miners. It's very easy for people to think that poet's are some sort of effect. Sort of flaky kind of dropouts. It's not that way, that's not the way it is.
CT: Even the reception of poets. Poetry in the United States has become very isolated to certain circles.
SISSAY: It happens all over the world, unfortunately. The reason that poetry has to be minimalized by a culture is because it speaks the truth and it's quite a dangerous thing to allow into the party. People don't want the guy or the woman to come into the party and say, “You know, this is a little bit messed up, folks.” Families often really would prefer we don' tell the truth around the dinner table because there's food to eat.
CT: Just want some pleasant conversation?
SISSAY: Let's just keep that like that, yeah. The poet never did that. The poet would sit at the dinner table and say “Okay, let's party folks. We need to work this stuff out.” and that's not necessarily, you know, a good thing for people.
CT: So what does poetry need to do survive or is it fine?
SISSAY: It's not going away. Let me be very clear, there is poetry throughout the Bible. Okay, one of the books or the Torah, one of the books that our faiths are based on is pure poetry. Whether you believe or you don’t believe, there is no doubt that this book is an incredible story that is told to many people and is told so well. One of the things that it uses is poetry to tell its story. So for me, poetry is not on the peripheral of our society. It's right in the central of the heart of it. It's in Bruce Springsteen’s work, it's in “American Boy” that track by that English girl, it's in Nick cave's work, it's in Allen Ginsburg, it's in Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Maya Angelou; these are great people that read to Presidents. Well, not Ginsburg. So to me, poetry is not on the peripheral, it's in the heart of who we are. It's not going away, man. When you’re watching football on a Saturday afternoon and they're chanting songs, it's poems that they're looking for. It's rhyme structures, it's word play, it's rhythm. These are not the great poems of the 21st century, but they are a need to communicate through language in the manipulation of language, which is what poetry is after all. For me, it's no question; it's already around us all the time. You can go around with a blinker on the high street, invisible to the fact that you use it. On Valentine's Day, people will write it. When you’re at church, and you’re singing hymns, you will sing it and the rest of your life you may go around saying “Well, poetry is for weirdoes or poetry is not part of my life.” What is strange for me is not the poet and it’s not the poets and not the people that go to poetry readings, it’s people that don't recognize that they're so close to it.
CT: I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean.
SISSAY: In our culture, we don't see poetry as the center of our experiences and yet to me, it is.
CT: We don't recognize that we're engaging in that?
SISSAY: When it's in the Bible or whether it’s in whichever religious text you read – it's at the heart of it. Whether it’s Buddhism or etcetera, etcetera. And so for me, I'm like “Wait, how is it got to this? How is it got to that people are like ‘Oh, poetry. That's kind of weird isn’t it?’” No, it's not actually. It's kind of around you all the time. I don't know if that happens in America, but it definitely happens in England.
CT: It happens all the time in America. Why do you think people create that distance?
SISSAY: Of fear. Poets are the real thing. We've got a lot of ways of making fear acceptable and one of the ways that we do that is by rationalizing what we're frightened of out of existence.
CT: We dance around it.
SISSAY: Yeah and like (pause) Oh, I sound like a weird freaking preacher of the poetry pulpit. Poetry pulpit preacher. You know what? Ah, forget it.
EVERY FAN HAS that moment at a concert where, gazing up at the guitar-wielding icon in admiration, the little ticket-holder wishes he or she could be the one onstage, covered in sweat under a flurry of house lights, indulging in a roaring solo or conducting a grand finale sing-along.
Luckily, for fans of the indie-rock band the Fiery Furnaces, that coveted scenario may be closer to a reality than they realize, thanks to one of the band members' own experiences as a fan.
"How fun is it being a fan of a band?" asked Furnaces' multi-instrumentalist Matthew Friedberger, who, with his sister, Eleanor, makes up the group's core. "I've been a fan of a band. But, also, it's pretty passive and boring."
To remedy that complacency and get their constituents more involved in Fiery Furnacedom, the group announced recently that its upcoming album will be, and will be called, a "Silent Record."
Despite the title, this isn't an album of 45 minutes of recorded nothingness. Rather, the songs made for the recording will never, uh, be recorded. Because music with audio is now "obsolete," according to a July 29 post on the Furnaces' Web site, the band's new passel of songs are to be released as sheet music. You want do-it-yourself rock 'n' roll? You got it.
Replacing the role of a physical record will be a songbook sporting different types of sheet music from guitar tabulator to standard musical notation to make the music playable by you, the consumer. Along with the sheet music will come other educational tools such as examples of how each song has been imagined by the band as a kind of guideline for the less imaginative.
The idea is that once fans get a hold of this unrecorded record, they can learn the songs, interpret them and then come to a Fiery Furnaces show to play them.
Inspiration for the grand experiment, Friedberger claims, came not only from the desire to boost the fans' role in the Furnaces' music but to also shake them out of the musical apathy he believes has been generated by the digital era.
"Because people have so much more access to music, presumably they're bored by just listening to it. They get everything for free," he said.
"I know when I was a kid, because I paid for it or I had to save up money to buy a record, I had to work harder at listening to it, almost. … But I think that maybe now that people have these huge music libraries for no effort, it becomes often less satisfying. So, I think people are bored with their music, with the experience of just being a spectator or a listener, and they want an outlet to participate in their band in a way that's interesting."
The only things that the "Silent Record" shows can promise are that the Furnaces' involvement will be minimal and that certain fans who have gone through a screening process will be allowed to hog the Friedbergers' limelight. Whether this is for better or for worse, the unpredictability that every night will guarantee is an added perk that Friedberger is looking forward to.
"It will be different, and that's the fun of it," he said. "Some things will only be successful as something ridiculous, and some of them, probably, the music will be interesting and not have anything to do with what I write, necessarily. Just people will be doing something interesting, [even if] it's only involved with the stuff on the 'Silent Record' negatively, but what they play will be good. It'll be all different."
This mantra of "it'll be all different" is one that seems to perfectly encapsulate the group's nature. The quirky garage-blues rockers, who have dabbled in every sound from psychedelic to Egyptian-themed, have kept fans guessing with each release by employing unconventional tricks such as cuts with backward- (and, occasionally, forward-)switching lyrics (2006's "Bitter Tea") to full-length narratives from their actual grandmother (2005's "Rehearsing My Choir").
And there is no shortage of oddities in the group's ever expanding list of projects. Currently, the Furnaces are also in the process of reworking their recently released LP, "I'm Going Away," into two versions that will be handled independently by each sibling. Though it may be expected, this is not a case of sibling rivalry.
"I would be very proud," said Friedberger, when asked how he would feel if Eleanor's version of the record blew his out of the water. "It's just like a parent would say, 'It's not about better; it's about different.'"
Granted, you would have never guessed from his roles as front man for the experimental heavy-rock bands Tool and A Perfect Circle, but in mid-'90s Los Angeles Keenan used to rub elbows with the likes of Bob Odenkirk, David Cross and Janeane Garofalo at a local club that would host a small weekly variety show. Every other week, Maynard and his band would would close the night. The other band that they shared the closing spot with? Tenacious D.
"That's where Puscifer started, at [the variety show] Tantrum," Keenan said. "Then, of course, we did a little small bit in 'Mr. Show': Puscifer did a tribute show to [David Cross' petty criminal character] Ronnie Dobbs."
But as Tool and A Perfect Circle took off, the ever-changing Puscifer project went into limbo until 2007. That year, Keenan released Puscifer's debut, "'V' Is for Vagina," which was followed the next year by a couple of remix recordings of that CD, then a 2009 EP of new and live songs.
But it wasn't until February of last year that Keenan put the revolving cast of Puscifer back on stage for a series of shows in Las Vegas and some southwestern states. Now he's bringing Puscifer to the East Coast, and it's a large-scale affair requiring a semi-trailer truck due to the amount of materials needed to put on the four different shows that Puscifer may perform on any given night. But don't expect a straight-ahead rock show.
"This has more in common with Adult Swim than MTV," Keenan said, referencing the willfully wacky, late-night comedy-and-animation block on the Cartoon Network.
Keenan said Puscifer isn't so much a rock concert as it is a variety show consisting of an overriding theme, comedy sketches, live music and other acts. It is for this same reason that Keenan has been describing his group as a "troupe" and their shows have been taking place in theaters instead of traditional rock venues.
"That's kind of the side of the show we need to present," he said. "We could make it a band, I suppose, and just go into a club and play. But I've done that so there's no point in doing that. I had to wait until it got a little bit big enough to take it into a better setting so that we could actually present it as a troupe with a soundtrack. A performance, not a concert."
In fact, don't even ask Keenan what goes on in a Puscifer show; if you do, he's likely to ask you if you're the "kind of kid at Christmas Eve dinner that was just negotiating with your parents to open up presents the night before Christmas?"
There are shaky camera-phone videos on YouTube of the group playing in front of flashing neon walls and randomly hung TV sets. There are also live reviews for a country-themed Puscifer performance that apparently had all the subtleties of "Squidbillies": fake mustaches, huge wigs, lewd jokes and a country-and-western backdrop.
However, Keenan thinks any prior research into what Puscifer is, or preconceived notions about what it should be, would only hamper the unique experience he has spent so much time orchestrating.
"The best way to approach this band — I'm sorry, troupe — is just to show up with no expectations," he said. "You just got to come as you are and enjoy. That's kind of why we're doing this in theaters rather than in rock clubs because right away we're going to get people coming out who haven't really been in that theater before. It's already a new experience for them — they don't even know where the bathrooms are. You're kind of back on your heels as it is and it's exciting."
DURING THE PAST 84 years, the Harlem Globetrotters have become famous around the world for their coupling of competitive basketball and hoop-themed hilarity.
The comedic angle of the Trotters, which during game time involves antics like players sliding across the floor while continuing their dribble, or the whole team stopping mid-game for an impromptu football play, originated from the team's heyday when they were known for beating their opponents so badly that they would end up performing tricks just to keep the crowds amused.
But for a travel intensive team that is about to kick off a North American tour consisting of 270 games in 240 cities — including both a Dec. 29 stop at the Patriot Center and a Dec. 30 visit to the Verizon Center — just after completing a tour of 150 games overseas in countries like Iraq and China, cracking a joke or two may also just be what it takes to survive the road.
"I've only found one gray hair on my head," said Anthony "Buckets" Blakes, who sports the #15 jersey on the team, "and I think that's from all the traveling. That's from going through customs. It's hard to laugh going through customs."
With eight years under his belt as a Globetrotter and one page left in his passport, Blakes has figured out the tricks of the trade when it comes to traveling with a team that is so busy its 30 players normally divide up into two or three separate teams that tour independently of one another.
"You learn a little routine and it's all based on the person," Blakes said. "Everyone is different physically and mentally. You can tell the veterans from the rookies because the veterans have developed a routine to adapt to just about any environment, while the rookies, we're giving them some helpful hints and they're still grinding along trying to figure out how they're going to continue to play another 200 games after they've only played 70." As for Blakes' personal routine, he cites exercise, eating right, sneaking in a nap when possible and a big breakfast as the keys to what keeps him going. After so long on the team, you might think that being a Globetrotter has become almost second nature to the 33-year-old Phoneix, Az. native, but Blakes sticks to his regiment in order to stay sharp because he feels that people expect a flawless performance every time he dons his red, white and blue uniform.
"That's probably one of the toughest parts of being a Globetrotter is trying to be perfect every single night day in and day out," he said.
Aside from the heavy travel and trying not to flub any tricks in front of an arena full of people, the pros of Globetrotting greatly outweigh the cons for Blakes. The community outreach aspect of the job, which finds Blakes and his teammates doing anything from speaking to kids at schools and rec centers to assisting charities, as well the chance to learn about the cultures of the different places he visits are two of his favorite parts of being a Globetrotter, said Blakes.
And by traveling throughout the 50 or so countries that he has visited in his time a Globetrotter, Blakes has figured out the reason behind why the Globetrotters always feel like the home team no matter what country they're in.
"We make people happy," he said, "no matter where you are, who you are or what you believe in."
AT FIRST LISTEN, it's hard to imagine how country music has anything to do with songstress Brooke Waggoner. There's no real sense of the West in her style; her music generally showcases softly sung melodies complimented by piano, strings and minimal drums. But the classically trained pianist's music wouldn't sound as it does today without the heart of country music: Nashville, Tenn.
Waggoner's road to the center of country began three years ago when she graduated from Louisiana State University and started looking for a music-conscious city to begin her career in.
"I never thought I'd live in Nashville to be honest, it was sort of a whim move," she said over the phone from Nashville. "It was the closest, most affordable music city I could get to."
Her most recent release, "Go Easy Little Doves," chronicles part of that time in her life as she began to find a place for herself in a city whose most cherished "classical" composers have names like Cash and Nelson instead of Tchaikovsky and Wagner. Although she may have felt like an underdog at first, her stylistic bent only helped Waggoner find a niche in the local music community.
"People here aren't doing classical," she said. "I'm in a really weird city doing that. But, I like it. I think it causes a rub, which is really important. I think if I was in an all classical setting, my music would probably go more pop in a reaction to that."
Part of how Nashville has shaped her music stems from the very nature of its residents, something Waggoner learned about as she began to cultivate a local fan base.
"It's a musician's town," she said. "Musicians go see other musicians and I love that. It's a critical town. But at the end of the day they appreciate artistry so much and they appreciate the song and the writing so to be honest Nashville's my favorite place to play still because of the critical eye. I think its good to pay attention to what you listen to and don't be a robot."
Still, no matter how the city itself has played a role in her musical development, don't expect to hear Waggoner whistling "Dixie" on any upcoming release. She doesn't allow country, or most other types of contemporary music, to get into her head.
"I don't listen to a lot of music to be honest," she said. "I think maybe because I do it now for a living, I'm trying to find a release and my ears just get tired quick. I just try to be careful because you know, like food, you are what you listen to so I just want to really hang on to, as cheesy as this sounds, my whole inner voice thing and I want to make sure that it never sounds like a replica of someone else's work, so I really just try to filter a lot if I can."
What Waggoner doesn't block out, however, are lessons — and Nashville has taught her an important one when it comes to music.
"It just goes to show there's sort of a common thread in what people can connect to," she said. "It doesn't matter what your background is or what you're trying to do. Music is music and it causes certain emotions no matter what. It's pretty cool."
WHEN DEREK VINCENT SMITH performs under the name Pretty Lights, he brings audiences his own blend of hip-hop and soul inspired electronic music.
Just, don't call him a DJ.
"I've never considered myself a DJ," he said over the phone during laundry duty somewhere in Louisville, Ky., late this past October. "I've never had turn tables and a mixer and spun records or done a show like that."
For Smith, the compulsion to explain to others the difference between a DJ and a producer, as he considers himself, goes past the simple fact the he prefers equipment like MIDI controllers to the more standard DJ set up when playing shows. Instead, it's something that has spawned from the time he has spent on the road interacting with groups of fans he believes have applied the most common DJ stereotype to him: that he plays other artist's material.
"There's a difference between maybe the guy who opened up, who can play anyone's music in the world," Smith said, "and the fact that I've got to make everything."
Still, Smith realizes that to some, he may sound like he's over analyzing it. "It's a weird thing ... Whenever I do explain it," he added. "I feel like a dumbass."
Whether he's being too technical or not, it makes sense as to why Smith would want recognition for the music he has been playing six days a week on his most recent tour — his production, in every sense of the word, has gotten Pretty Lights where it is today.
The sole mechanic behind Pretty Lights' sound, Smith's project is the culmination of a love affair between electronic music and hip-hop, a genre that he became enthralled with from an early age.
"My homie gave me Wu Tang's 'Enter the 36 Chambers' on a cassette tape," he said. "I'd listen to it while I did my paper route."
In high school, Smith began experimenting with electronic musical instruments, but never really considered crafting beats as anything more than a hobby.
"Production was something I did on the side, all through high school and the college that I went to," he said. "My main thing in that time was my live band."
It was only after his band fell apart in 2005, that he felt confident enough to go out on his own.
"During those years," he said, "that's where I feel like I really honed my productions skills and when that band started to fall apart, then I felt like I was just getting to the point where I could produce music that was good enough to release; that I was proud of."
By putting up all of his records online for free in between touring, which includes the double disc "Filling Up the City Skies" and the recently released "Passing Behind Your Eyes," Pretty Lights began to cultivate a steady fan base in Smith's native Colorado and the rest of the West Coast.
Now in 2009, it has been less than a year since Smith and live setting drummer, Cory Eberhard, first played on the east coast and the duo has been enjoying a slew of sold out shows all over the country at venues like the Metro in Chicago and the Bowery Ballroom in New York.
With each tour, Smith tries to improve the quality of his live performance, which has recently meant allotting funds toward a more sophisticated light show. Then again, this might have been the product of another misconception that Smith learned about while on the road, one that can take shape when you tour as a group called "Pretty Lights."
"A lot of people assume that the name Pretty Lights was like, 'Oh, let's make a band and have a really crazy light show and we'll call it "Pretty Lights."' But that's not at all what it is. The name came way before I even considered spending ridiculous amounts of money on touring with LED walls."
Smith also has future plans for the production of Pretty Lights' live sound. For his next tour, he hopes to incorporate more live elements and showcase some of the instruments he plays on the albums, such as bass guitar and synthesizers. This will not only add more diversity to the show, but might also help further his point on that particular issue of his.
"It'll make it a lot more fun for me as far as just being able to experiment with a different improvisation on stage," he said. "And also, it will make it more clear to my audience that I am not a DJ."
FILMMAKER AND FOUNDER of the online production company NomadsLand Films, Davin Hutchins is attempting to help catapult a new medium to the forefront. He describes it as the "micro-documentary," a less-than 10-minute film with a social-issue focus.
