Tom Neff

Oscar-Nominated and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Tom Neff has over twenty-five years experience in the film industry with over 25 national and international awards, including an Oscar nomination, an Emmy win, and an Emmy nomination, with awards from such distant countries as China, Switzerland, and New Zealand. An MFA graduate of the highly regarded USC School of Cinema/Television, Tom’s films have ranged widely in subject and format, and he has worked in every film format from HD to 35mm to IMAX. He is a member of both the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Television Academy. Neff founded the Documentary Channel™ (DOC; www.documentarychannel.com), the nation’s first 24/7 channel dedicated exclusively to showing independent documentaries,l which today airs on DISH and DirecTV to over 25 million viewers nationally. Neff created the DOC brand, the original programming schedule, and the Channel’s seven signature ongoing series DocTalk, Treasures of the Academy, From the Vault, Doc-U, Oscar’s Picks, Soundcheck, and the recent African American showcase, Black Documentary Cinema. Neff Executive Produced all original documentary films and product created by the Channel, including the feature lengths, notably the Emmy-winning Shake Hands with the Devil; TVA: Built for the People, Johnny Berlin 2; the 4-hour jazz series Icons Among Us for DonQ; the shorter EmPOWered for the EPA, and Speed Dreams for Exxon. Neff worked with the Academy of Motion Pictures in restoration, helping to restore three signature John Huston WWII documentaries which debuted at a special Academy screening event, as well as the seminal 1968 documentary on race relations, A Time For Burning and others. Neff teaches film production, media, documentary history, management, marketing and communication as Assistant Professor at MTSU (Middle TN State University). He has led for the past three years students to Florence, Italy, Paris, France, and Athens, Greece to produce short documentaries. Three teams of four students each shoot and finish a ten-minute documentary; the documentaries have won national prizes and will air on PBS. Neff’s films have been featured in special screenings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the Whitney, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Academy of Motion Pictures, the Director’s Guild, the NYC Paley Center, Lincoln Center, The Whitney Museum, PBS’s “American Masters,” USC, UCLA, and many other venues. He has been a guest speaker or given master classes at festivals and schools such as Sundance, Hot Docs, Lincoln Jazz Center, Real Screeen, Hollywood Black Film Festival, International Documentary Association, USC, NYU, Hot Springs Documentary Festival, Westdoc, National Educational Media Network, and many others. A pioneer in High Definition production, Tom produced and directed the nation’s first HDTV art documentary production with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Japanese broadcaster NHK, Frederic Remington: The Truth of Other Days. Many of Neff’s films revolve around artists, from a visually stunning approach to Dada artist and ceramicist Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada, to a 35mm documentary on the artistry of musical legend Herb Alpert. Neff produced, directed and wrote the seminal 6 hours TBS series on country music, America’s Music: The Roots of Country, the most extensive history on country music ever produced. Tom is an expert in late 19th and early 20th century American art and history, with films such as the IMAX production Our Country, which traced 20th Century American history through country music songs of each decade. His recent feature-length documentary, Chances: The Women of Magdalene, on struggling and recovered prostitutes, won the Audience Award at the Nashville Film Festival, the Tennessee Spirit Award for the best film of the year by a Tennessean, the Governor’s Award, and a Prism Award Nomination. For more information, go to www.tomneff.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Neff.

On February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Tom Neff to Events & Conferences

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER JON MEACHAM REVEALS A NEW “41”

Skillfully leading the interview to span over six decades of the personal and political career of “41,” G.H.W. Bush — the father of “W” (43) and Jeb — Dean Ken Paulson drew many fascinating details of the career of President Bush and the relationship between author and subject. The engaging conversation was organized by Pat Embry, director of the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, with the support and help of College of Media and Entertainment.

Bush’s astonishing career – war hero, ambassador, CIA head, Vice President, President, to just scrape the surface – was tempered by his humility and willingness simply to serve. The audience loved the details Mr. Meacham recounted. Listening to 41’s actual voice on the diary tapes 41 faithfully dictated over decades. The total access to all diaries (including Mrs. Bush, GHW Bush’s wife), notes, etc. to which Mr. Meacham was allowed. The complete cooperation of interviewees ranging from comics to prime ministers. The permission to write and publish the book without approvals of any kind. The nine years it took to write the book.

Event organizer, Pat Embry with Jon Meacham

These wonderful details were interlaced with imitations by Mr. Meacham of Dana Carvey, 41, and others, humorous descriptions such as slyly calling Sewanee (University of the South) as “a cross between Downton Abbey and Deliverance.” It is a tribute to Dean Paulson to get us through 75 years of a man’s life in 60 minutes, and as Mr. Meacham himself experienced during the writing, the audience had a much deeper and fuller appreciation of a man who seems in stark contrast to the current troupe of Presidential contenders wrestling on the stage of New Hampshire.