I'm a filmmaker who grew up in SoCal. My parents divorced when I was very young, so I am an only child. From early on, I've always loved telling stories to my friends, so I knew that telling stories was something I wanted to do, somehow...

I graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English and tried to make a go of it as a writer. But it was when I discovered theater that I thought I'd found my true calling. Here was way that I could tell stories that would make people laugh, and cry, and hopefully, understand something deep about themselves. This seemed like a much more exciting medium than just words on a page. I wrote some plays, and that led to some acting, which I liked so much that I figured I'd give it a shot as a career... So I moved to LA, and after a lot of auditions, a few callbacks and even less actual work, I began to realize that it was a tough way to make a living. Not to mention the rejection. I found myself at a crossroads, with no real direction, and it seemed like my dream to tell stories was evaporating before my eyes....

So I did what any starving, out of work, and disillusioned writer/actor would do... I maxed out a credit card and started travelling. I toured all over Europe, staying in hostels, or camping. I'd occasionally work an odd job here or there to get by, but I never needed much, just enough to get to the next destination. I saw things and experienced life in a way that I'd never before imagined, and the world began to look new and filled with endless possibilities. I didn't know it at the time, but my life was about to change dramatically...

While in Morocco, I befriended a British film crew that was shooting a documentary about North African desert wildlife. Every night for 2 weeks, after their shooting was done, they'd come to this bar I frequented, and I'd drink and party with them until very late. The film's director, Ed Trent, was an award winning filmmaker in the Nature Documentary genre. He'd been at it for 60 years, and he'd tell amazing stories about the places he'd been and the things he'd encountered in his career. He was extremely serious about his work, and explained the painstaking process involved in filming wildlife in its natural habitat without being intrusive. He was certainly fascinating, and he had this amazing charm that had the effect of inspiring utter devotion from his crew. He and I got on well, and he invited me to come along on his last day of shooting. He explained that this was to be a very special day, a day when he hoped to shoot a rare breed of pygmy camel that was all but extinct. Apparently, these beasts had never been filmed in the wild and the director was determined to be the first and perhaps the last to do so...

The following day, we traveled for hours, far into the trackless North African desert, across a sweltering no mans land... but no pygmy camels were to be found anywhere. Our guide, a proud bedouin who'd spent a lifetime ferrying photographers and biologists across this desolate but fragile landscape, was surprised at his lack of success in tracking any of the beasts, and he became convinced, sadly, that the beasts must have finally completely died out. Trent was, of course, severely disappointed, and by sundown we were too far afield to make it back to town before dark. As traveling the desert at night could be dangerous, we made camp. Trent spent much of that night drinking, as usual, and he confided to me that this was probably to be his last film. He went on to explain that at age 80, he'd accomplished everything he'd set out to in life, and that he wasn't getting any younger, so why not retire and leave something for the young filmmakers of the world to shoot. He planned to spend the following day, ostensibly his last day of his career, shooting whatever wildlife he might encounter on the ride back to town. I told him how sorry I was that he might have missed his last opportunity to shoot something that might now be gone forever. He merely smiled, drained his cup of whiskey, and said, "Life is too short."

I rode with Trent the next day as our caravan of Land Rovers made it's way back to civilization. By mid morning, the temperature had soared to 118 degrees, and our guide had gone to scout ahead of us. The bedouin's voice crackled over the radio and we turned east toward a rocky outcrop until we caught sight of him waving us to a stop. He was pointing toward a dark oval shape on the white sand next to the outcrop. It was a tortoise that had somehow wound up on its back. Both Trent and his guide were mystified as to how the tortoise might have wound up that way, and a theory was postulated that it had perhaps somehow tumbled from the outcrop of rock above. Trent and his crew set up and shot the unfortunate creature for several minutes as it squirmed desperately to try and right itself. In the heat of the desert, with his protection underneath him, it wouldn't be long before the tortoise would literally cook in its own shell. One of the crew spotted a pack of hyenas scurrying across the distance through his binoculars and Trent called for the crew to pack up and pursue the fast moving pack. Before I got in the Rover next to Trent I stood gazing at the poor tortoise for several moments. He was obviously already weak and must have been there for some time before we arrived. Trent came to my side and put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You'd like to flip him over and help the poor bugger, wouldn't you? Sorry, but in 60 years I haven't interfered with a subject and I'm not about to start with him. Documentary rule number one. You shoot what happens, you don't get involved. C'mon, this is how it ends sometimes"

I've regretted not righting that tortoise ever since. Trent's rationale, to shoot whatever happens and not get involved now seems like a cruel conceit, and I'm certain that a story about a stranded tortoise whose life is saved by a filmmaker is just as likely as one in which a filmmaker's existence is denied at the expense of his subject. I mean, if you come upon a drowning man, you wouldn't let him drown, would you?

When I returned to LA a few months later, I bought some camera equipment and searched for a unique subject for my first documentary...

Shortly thereafter I met a guy named Don Wimmer.