Michael Keenan(II)
- Sound Department
- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Mike spent his first years in the countryside across from Huggins'
Farm, now a tract housing development in East Concord, New Hampshire.
After camping across the country during a summer vacation, his family
decided to move to the California beach community of Capitola and lived
two blocks from New Brighton Beach. They soon moved again to the East
San Francisco Bay area town of San Ramon, where he attended the newly
completed and aptly named "California High," an experiment giving 6
grades of students the opportunity to mix in "open classrooms," "pods,"
and with other ideas of childhood development born of the 1960s
revolution in liberal California education. The school had a fantastic
photography program, as well as an accelerated learning curriculum
which helped Mike graduate early, and he spent his free "senior year"
concentrating on his radio show at a 100-watt station in Bellevue,
Washington, where his family relocated a third time. On Monday
afternoons he honed his skills as a DJ and producer of small "Radio
Mystery Theater" hours, complete with his own homemade sound effects.
Mike attended the University of Washington for his BA in Finance and
while there wrote program notes for the quarterly film series. He
worked as an apprentice film editor, then 2nd and 1st assistant, on
local projects, before making his first short "Il Paesano" (1985) about
an immigrant local who owned a ten table pizzeria. After graduating, he
hooked up with the traveling road show of Ulli Lommel and his
independent movie troupe, made up primarily of formers from the
"anti-theater" group of deceased director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Mike later moved to New York, attending the Tisch School of the Arts
for his MFA. He met several collaborators including Bernard McWilliams,
and Alan Taylor at film school and now makes a living as a location
producer/director, sound mixer & videographer based in New York City.
His company, Skyward Pictures, Inc. produces music, industrial, and
family films for corporate and private clients.
