What I would like classmates to know about my 50-year adventure.
Cliff Notes
Let’s face it. Not everyone has the time or inclination to read an entire mini-bio, so here in brief: A Ph.D. in psychology from the U. of Arizona opened many doors to fascinating opportunities and experiences. Most have been at the leading, cutting, and sometimes bleeding edge of art-technology-science and business. Chronologically that would include doing research on Cannabis for NIH, directing research at the TV Lab at WNET/PBS, and being an Artist in Residence and documentary producer at the Lab. I worked with and met many wonderful people — Nam June Paik and all the great video artists, Bucky Fuller, Ken Burns, Eric Kroll and other photographers, computer animators, discoverers of drugs at big pharma companies, … I have been fortunate to have lived in wonderful places – New York City’s Soho and Greenwich Village, Amherst, Tucson, Paris, and Rotterdam (in a windmill. Yes, really). And the work… teaching at the college level, running a film, video and multimedia production company, and travelling all over the place for work and pleasure, from the Tuamotu Atolls to Europe to icy meetings in Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen. Were I to summarize my path so far I’d say my motivation has been curiosity, love of good people and good ideas, and the application of cutting edge technology and art to multimedia production, both commercially and non-commercially, and blending all this in to education both formally and impromptu.
My rewards have been satisfaction from work and recognition for a few noteworthy achievements, seeing students succeed, devising the narration track on movie DVDs, and at long last having a “life” – with a wonderful wife, Karen McIntyre — actress now therapist – and an amazing daughter (technically my step-daughter), Julia DeConcini, and two funny, smart, loving dogs, a garden, sunsets, an OK digital camera and a fast internet connection…. who could ask for anything more?
These Days
I live in Tucson, AZ, in the heart of the beautiful Sonoran Desert. I love the Southwest, though am deeply troubled by the political climate here. I continue to work at the intersection of science, art, technology and education. Currently I help run a federally-funded science education program for disadvantaged HS students at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. The program focuses on asking questions in biomedical and other research — that without questions and a questioning attitude there would be none. We assign students to an ongoing research project with a physician mentor for each. Many of our kids became co-authors of papers during the Summer, and many have become MDs and MD/PhD researchers some years later. Daniel (Danny) Hernandez, who was credited with saving Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s life at the scene of the shooting here on January 8th, 2011, was a student in our Summer program for disadvantaged high school students in 2006. His picture is on my office wall, along with all the other graduates of our program. http://blog.petercrown.com. Part of my work is to convert the program’s curriculum to an online environment, www.miexplor.org , and I produce structured video interviews with leaders in biomedical and clinical research for our web site.
I am both passionate and contemplative about the beautiful skies here, and I photograph them often. www.skyart.com . Often these photo shoots are times for meditation — watching the sun set, seeing the world turn, and then shooting the most interesting skies which appear about 15-minutes after the sun has dipped below the horizon.
Life Path
My interests and work have intertwining, recurring interests – art, technology, science, education and media production, seasoned with a lot of curiosity – which have all come into play over the years. My path has embraced both the counter culture and the corporate world, occasionally at the same time! I’ve been fascinated by new ideas of all kinds, biomedical and general science research, by cutting edge technology and it’s application in media production. But I really have not had a plan, just interests, and by pursuing them opportunities unfolded. I am kind of a Jungian and believe there is synchronicity in our lives.
Some things I have done
My first job after doing a post doc in Rotterdam was on an NIH-funded research project at New York Medical College exploring the psychophysiological effects of various drugs including Cannabis, methadone, and experimental narcotic antagonists. Shortly after that work I changed direction and became research director for the TV Lab at WNET/TV in NYC, and later was a video artist in residence and occasionally broadcast producer there. My experimental video work was shown in major museums and galleries for a decade. I worked with Dan Anderson at U. Mass who did some excellent research on children’s attention to Sesame Street, from which I produced videos for CTW producers so they could incorporate these findings to improve the productions.
I was an Adjunct Instructor in the Psychology Department at Columbia University for a few years, and later taught at Hampshire College in Amherst. I connected with Ken Burns there, and later hired him to produce my first commercial (industrial) film. Around then I founded a multimedia production company, Romulus Productions, Inc., in New York City, with a wide and varied client base. Some were pharmaceutical companies for whom we produced computer animations depicting the mechanism of action of new drugs. Other clients such as IBM and Xerox who were experimenting with Laser videodisc had interesting projects.
One of the most interesting gigs we had was to produce laser videodiscs of the original, 1933 King Kong using original negative from the Library of Congress, and another of Citizen Kane. These were the first movies on laserdisc which contained extra material such as story boards, location shots, test footage, and narratives by film historians. I developed the concept and produced the first audio narration track to accompany a feature film. The first was by Ron Haver, a film historian and personal friend of Faye Ray who described in great detail how King Kong was produced. The audio narration track has become a standard feature for movies on DVDs.
I spent many years living and working in Soho, NYC – I think “Everyone should live in New York City once…but leave before it makes you hard”. I left New York in the mid ‘90’s – my 14-year relationship/partnership and the company dissolved, so I returned “home” to Tucson and got married for the FIRST TIME in 1997, and things, thankfully, are quite wonderful here.
Some notes and stories
I got fired from a research job at a medical school because I would not falsify data. I could not believe it at the time! I’m so glad I stuck to my guns.
I met my wife, Karen, on the radio. I was driving around the foothills and heard this wonderful voice on the radio. Later that week I heard the voice at a party, and that was the beginning.
Someone once told me that a scorpion sting feels like getting hit by a hammer. I found this to be true.
