Category: 2025

Alan Greenstein

Alan Greenstein is the executive producer and founder of
the organization Support Our #creatives®. Its mission is to
level the playing field for under-represented creators and
artists so that they have the same opportunities as everyone
else to get their works created, distributed, and seen.
Alan is the host of the Support Our #creatives podcast,
where he grows his interview skills and enjoys speaking one-
on-one with creatives. He is also a blogger.
Alan was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He always wanted
to be in the entertainment industry, and he finally got his
foot in the door many years later thanks to social media.
The projects Alan has been a part of include web series,
films, stage plays, podcasts, and music. Alan is
predominantly a producer and executive producer. He has
worked on-set during principal photography as production
assistant, script supervisor, and other disciplines. He has
appeared on screen in background, improvised speaking
roles, and scripted speaking roles.
Alan has long term relationships as co-producer/executive
producer with Tiara Williams of The Reel Network and
Danielle Earle of PL Entertainment. Alan is on the board of
directors of the non-profit Bella Levy Foundation. Its
objective is to fight human trafficking and provide a safe
space for its warriors. Alan is on the board of London Glossy,

Alan’s Bio, August 2024 (Main Paragraph, Links, Tags) (Multiple Pages)

2

a UK publication that focuses on news, sports, lifestyle,
business, and society, published by Deborah Thomas.
LINKS:
Website: https://blog.supportourcreatives.com
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4SksYfd1baR445TjzYweAr
TAGS: producer, podcaster, blogger, SupportOurHashtagCreatives

Marlin McDarragh

I came from a modest-of-means family in Eugene, Oregon – one that couldn’t really afford much in the way of travel, and certainly not to countries abroad. Sure, we had the family road trips now and then to the Pacific coast, to visit relatives in central Oregon, and up to Seattle. I loved it all. But I think our most exotic trip when I as young was a family car journey to Banff. My mom has never been on an airplane, and the only travel my dad experienced was as a radio officer on a ship during WW II’s Pacific Theater. A harsh kind of travel experience, let’s say. It didn’t really seem that travel was in the family genes. However, I had a keen interest in collecting foreign coins, stamps and poring through National Geographic magazines and the World Book encyclopedia my folks invested in.

When I was 12, my dad won an 8mm camera – a booby prize at some local contest. I became fixated with that little camera, and started making short films. These were action-packed, shot-in-the-neighborhood tiny adventure stories, starring friends, like Gary Zenzen. I’d been playing piano since age 8 and I believe that background aided me in filmmaking, giving me a sense for the rhythms of editing films. Then I won an “Oregon Young Filmmaker” award and a couple of other prizes in high school, and a screening on the Oregon PBS channel, of a short I made, A Child’s Vision. There was no looking back from there.

My first foray outside of North America was when I was 16, as I played trombone, and my high school concert band managed to spend about eight weeks touring various cities in Europe. Fantastic. That was the lodestar first travel experience, the one that cast the die for the rest of my life. I always tell audiences at my travel-film lectures that they should get their kids and grandkids to travel now, when they’re young. If you travel when young, your curiosity about the world will stay with you for the rest of your life. My daughter Maya (22) has three passports (US, Japan, and Brazil), and has already been to about 30 countries, and I know that her thirst for knowledge and world experience will be with her forever.

Making travel-adventure films, documentaries, and feature films over the past many decades has given me a laser-like focus on “the project” at hand, on the specific productions I’ve been commissioned to make, or films that I’ve funded through private equity.

My wife Lin Zuo is also a producer and contributing writer on our films, and we both wish we had more time during productions to linger in the locations, and talk in more depth with the local people.

Other specific challenges I’ve had during productions. The physical challenges of getting myself, the crew and the equipment through the run of production in the swamps and forests of tribal lands in New Guinea.Sitting through dinners with cold-blooded assassins in the Tribal Zone of Pakistan, trying to bend your mind around the juxtaposition of the hospitality offered and the fact they’ve brutally killed dozens of people. Being knife-attacked in an open market by an old woman in China – never knew exactly why. And obviously, filmmaking draws a lot of attention! There have been significant challenges to film topics that might embarrass the dictates of certain strong-arm governments. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped or questioned or harassed by local authorities in communist, Muslim or dictator-driven countries.