Biography

It scares me to think that I've spent over thirty years engaged in some form of media production. But my love for it goes back to my childhood as a Canadian Air Force brat living in Europe in the '60s - glued to the radio. My passion led me to Ryerson in the fall of 1974, pursuing a degree in Radio and Television Arts - with majors in Radio and Writing. Somehow I ended up in Television - where I've spent most of my career (which began upon graduation in '78.)

Today, I'm the Managing Director of mkpl.tv which began as Medri Kinnon Productions Limited in 1984. For 20 years, Scene by Scene® was the post-production arm of MKPL. Clients included major Canadian broadcasters, ad agencies, producers, corporations, etc. Work included post-producing 250 one-hour shows with Lynette Jennings for The Discovery Channel (US), 60 episodes of the kids series, Once Upon A Hamster, hundreds of music videos, thousands of on-air promos (for CTV and Global), enumerable commercials, documentaries, TV shows, etc.

Ever early adopters - we lived on the bleeding edge of technology. (For you technophiles, we were the first component post house, the first with D-Beta, the first SDI Avid users, the first SDI Media 100 users, etc.) Scene by Scene was put into mothballs in August of 2004 . (mkpl.tv was on a brief hiatus from August of 2004 to the summer of 2005. That story will be told in greater detail at a later date.) In December of 2005, mkpl.tv began production on two High Definition projects. More HD projects are underway today with deliverables primarily as HD-DVDs, DVDs and web videos. (There's even one up on YouTube for a book from a friend of ours.) mkpl.tv also consults for a number of clients.

In terms of our work amongst the faith community, my partner (and wife), Imbi Medri-Kinnon and I have worked as consultants to a number of churches and Christian organizations in the US, Canada and the UK. We also co-produced and directed two Live Worship videos for Maranatha! Music - with Worship Leaders, Joseph Garlington and Chris Falson. Imbi and I semi-annually teach TV Production @ Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya. We were there in May/June of 2006. To see some of our work with Daystar students, visit this site.

I've recently completed my first book, A Networked Conspiracy, Social Networks, The Church & the Power of Collective Intelligence which was released in July '06 and am working on my first novel set in Boston, Pittsburgh and Toronto. (Click on the link for A Networked Conspiracy in the left column.)

I've been married to Imbi since 1983 and we are the proud parents of three fabulous teenagers - two boys and a girl. They are smart, amazingly good-looking (they must take after their mother) and play and sing better than this old hack guitar player ever could. (Visit the boys website, substanceoverstyle.net.)

I began blogging in February of 2005, and at this point in time have written almost 1400 posts (November '07), had thousands of comments on those posts and experienced tens of thousands of hits. I acknowledge Hugh Hewitt and his book, "Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World"as the impetus for achievable ends.

I've also been powerfully impacted by the people at Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas - especially founders, Roy and Penny Williams. (And no, you don't learn how to become a Wizard there - as I was once asked by a hotel receptionist. ) I'm a grad of Wizard Academy's Advanced Wordsmithing, Wizards of Web & Magical Worlds courses.

The picture of me is a self-portrait in Red Rock Canyon, Nevada - taken with Imbi's Lumix FX7 camera sitting on the hood of my rented red Camry. The picture was cropped and slightly rotated in Photoshop CS2. The camera I'm holding onto is mkpl.tv's Sony HVR-Z1U HDV camera - which has been used to shoot in the US, UK, Africa and Canada. I'm very impressed with it.