Punk legend John Doe has made a handshake deal to narrate Michelle De Long’s documentary “Man’s Dominion: The Complexities and Controversies of Animal Law, Animal Welfare and the Animal Rights Law Movement.”
Doe, a Decatur native, has fronted the seminal L.A. punk band X sinces the 80’s, acted in dozens of films including “Boogie Nights,” “Georgia,” and “Torque,” and appeared on TV series “Law & Order,” “Carniv?le,” and “Roswell,” on which he was a regular.
“John is into issues that concern animals,” De Long said. “He was in town doing a show at Schubas and I approached him to donate an item for our auction. He said ?do you have a narrator?'”
“Man’s Dominion” surveys the burgeoning field of animal rights law, with a focus on the push to legally reclassify humans as the guardians rather than owners of animals. De Long zeroes in on a Wisconsin case in which the owners of six Rottweilers were charged with homicide for a fatal attack on ten-year-old Alicia Clark.
De Long has a 90-minute rough cut, with a few scenes left to shoot in Wisconsin this December before taking a cut to NATPE in January. “There’s such a wealth of material that I could potentially split it into two hour long pieces, one on companion animals and one on farming,” De Long said. “We’ll see what the market wants.”
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| Michelle De Long of Mimi Productions |
De Long is producing through her Mimi Productions. She moved from previous fiscal sponsor the International Documentary Association to new sponsor Film and Video Arts out of New York. “The IDA was being too restrictive in allowing us to use the fiscal sponsorship,” she said.
She plans a fundraising auction of donated celebrity items this February at Susanin’s Auction House, with Hannah Buchanan of NBC’s “Starting Over” as auctioneer.
De Long is also co-producing a TV pilot with her husband Dave Miller’s Mindlight Films and “Man’s Dominion” DP Tim Horstman’s new company Digitiris. They plan to shoot a trailer over Thanksgiving and shop it at NATPE.
De Long is a longtime freelance editor for NBC News. She produced the 1996 doc “Home in Honduras.”
Reach De Long at 773/267-4640 or see www.mimiproductions.com.
? by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
