MAX BARING 

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CREDITS:

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Thomson Reuters Foundation – Senior Multimedia Producer.  Oct 2017 – Oct 2020

A full-time position producing and directing, shooting and editing varied length content in the climate change and human rights areas. Versions of these shown on KCETLink’s “Earth Focus”, the longest running environmental series in the US. Some of these films we’re also taken on other news sites like AJ+ BBC Mundo (Latam) and Internazionale as well as on the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s YouTube channel and website.

I produced, shot, directed and edited the following documentaries:

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• The Adventures of Wonder Woman – Inside Peru’s Operation Mercury”. (55” 2020.)  A short feature doc without VO looking at the work of the chief environmental prosecutor in Madre de Dios State during a massive clampdown on illegal gold mining.  With high level access to the President of Peru, Ministers and the governor of Madre de Dios state.  A complex indigenous story and a deep dove into the Andean Quecha cultural roots of human trafficking to the gold mines in Peru.

  • Citation (2nd place) The Overseas Press Club of America's Robert Spiers Benjamin Award for best reporting in any medium on Latin America, 2021.

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• Guarding the Forest (27” 2019), a snapshot of the politics of indigenous land rights in Bolsonaro’s Brazil – interviews with key actors and embedded with the Guardian of the Forest – an indigenous land-rights volunteer force patrolling indigenous areas.

  • Winner of the Arrigoni-Mer Khamis special mention at Festival del Cinema dei Diritti Umani di Napoli. "For the courage shown by the director and especially by the protagonists of the documentary, who daily risk their lives to defend the Amazon forest from unscrupulous predators. In memory of Paulo Paulino Guajajara."(Naples Human Rights Film Festival)

  • Winner of the Spirit of Activism Award at the 2019 Colorado Environmental Film Festival.

  • Winner - Best Explanatory Reporting - Small Newsroom - Society of Environmental Journalists "A stupendous piece of vital frontline environmental war reporting on accelerating Amazon rainforest destruction handily won the judges' top pick from a large field of excellent entries." (SEJ)

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• Eskimo Inc. (20” 2019) Inside the Arctic circle in Alaska the Inupiaq Eskimos are seeing first-hand the effects of climate change.  Their world is melting.  But they are also sitting on the biggest oil reserves in North America.  A Short documentary looking at the Alaskan Indigenous Corporation model and the oil-rich Inupaiq people of North Slope Alaska.

  • Winner – Best short doc – 2019 Arctic Film Festival.

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•  Urban Nomads (27” 2018): Climate Migration political transition and land reform in Mongolia and Down and Out in Ulaanbataar, working with Amnesty International showing the misery caused to city residents by post Glasnost corruption in the housing market. FIlmed in January / February in -40-50 degrees conditions.  

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• “The New Lairds (20” 2018) A tour around Scotland looking at land reform in a country with one of the most un-equal land distributions in the world and how new land reform laws are changing things on the ground.

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• I also produced and edited several other shorter projects and managed the multimedia input of three land-rights globally-based text journalists.

• Writing short text articles to go along with two of these films.

• Exec. Producing, managing a junior multimedia producer director.

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Freelance work 1995-2017

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Tales of Modern China – BBC Worldwide / JSBC China – Bill Locke October ‘16 – Feb 2017

• Directing an Anglo – Chinese crew producing a popular English/Chinese language Travel magazine show.

• I scripted produced and directed 2 out of the 5 shows:  “Beijing and Central” and “The South West” shows

• Stories ranging from the Beijing Auction, the origins of written Chinese and the tallest bridge in the world.

 

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Everest Rescue – Discovery International – Producer Director – Betty – Duncan Coates April-June 2016

• Part of a large team filming Helicopter Rescue pilots from Kathmandu to Everest and other remote parts of Nepal.

• My focus was on pilots back-stories / home front in Kathmandu and non-Everest rescues in remote Himalayan Nepal.

• Including the filming of the world record most people long-line rescued above 5000m.

 

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URBEX – Red Bull TV – Producer Director – K2/Keo Films – Morgan Roberts – Jan 2016

• Filming Urban Explorers Elena and Anders in Copenhagen as they break into buildings, up cranes and inside city bridges in search of a thrill in the dead of night.

• http://www.redbull.tv/video/AP-1M9157J211W11/collection/AP-1M914ZAGH1W11:episode/unrestricted

 

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Grand Designs  - Channel Four - Director - Boundless Prods - 16 months 2012-2013

• Inherited two unfinished films for the 2012 season and three films of films for the Autumn 2013.

• Following stories ranging from an ex-marine triple amputee, a sustainable building and subsistence commune, the world largest cob house and two loft-living London gay men building the 21 Century farmhouse. 

• Directing a crew and jib for presenter days with Kevin McCloud.

 

Gold Rush (Season 2) - Discovery USA - Producer Director - Raw TV - 8 months 2011

• Two 6-week filming trips to South East Alaska filming two gold mines and Producing 2 edits including the second episode where the new three-gold-claim format was established for the second season. 

• This huge project (“the biggest Discovery Communications series there is” - Christo Doyle: Commissioning Exec) had the largest viewership of any Friday night show (cable or network) across the United States.

 

Syrian Schools - BBC 4 - Director Cameraman - Lion TV - Bill Locke 2009 – 9 months

• An unprecedented series looking at life in 2009 in Syria through 5 x 60 mins films about life in 4 schools in Damascus.

• As the lead PD I recced and chose the schools, established the collaboration with the head teachers and the Syrian Ministry of Education and defined the series storylines.

• I shot and directed the first film of the series about life in Ramadan and an Iraqi Christian refugee, and the second film Rap Refugees about a teenage Palestinian girl who must confront conservative social forces when she tries to rap her people’s story.

• Winner: The Japan Prize 2010 - Youth Category.

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Press for Syrian Schools:

• “Syrian School is great, incidentally, shot through with little flashes of illumination about how political attitudes are formed and hardened, but also reminding you that, beneath the real differences between British and Syrian society, there lies a great, submerged iceberg of human sameness”. - Tom Sutcliffe Independent “Last Night’s TV”

• “Excellent Contemporary History” - Phil Harrison: Time Out, Pick of the Day

• “This excellent documentary series on schools around the world gives a real insight into the way people live, away from the distorting-lens of agenda-driven news….”  Will Hodgkinson: Guardian, Pick of the Day.

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Barbados at the Races - BBC Storyville - Director Camera - Amber Prods  – 6 Months 2010

• This 4 x 30 minute Storyville series was loosely set at the Barbados Turf Club and looked behind Caribbean stereotypes to the extraordinary characters that make this anachronistic race course a microcosm of Barbados. 

• I shot and directed the whole series and looked at the themes of colonial history, race, slavery, life, death, chance, God, Bajan pride in Modern independent Barbados …. and horse racing. 

• The films are without voice-over narration.

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Guarding the Queen  - ITV1 Series Producer & Camera Director - Lion TV - Exec: Nick Catliff  - 2008-9

• Shooting and Directing eps. 1 and 3 of this 3 x 1 hour, primetime series

• Managing the relationship with Buckingham Palace Press office and Britain’s senior infantry regiment.

• Following the Grenadier Guards in their ceremonial capacity guarding the Queen and in their fighting capacity as they build up and deploy out to Helmand Province; Afghanistan.

• Including filming in Afghanistan.

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Press for Guarding the Queen:

• Pick of the Week: Times, Telegraph, Independent, Guardian.  Press Interviews: TV Times and Telegraph.

• Hardly anyone put a foot wrong in this superb documentary series - Gerrard O’Donnovan. Telegraph

• Last nights commentary was as straight as the red stripes running up a Grenadier Guard’s tweeds - Andrew Billen, Times

 

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Indian Schools - BBC 4  - Director Cameraman - Lion TV – BBC 4  - Exec: Bill Locke   8 months 2007     

• Shooting the first two films as the lead producer of this 10 part observational series, looking at middle class life in boom-town India through the life to two schools in the city of Pune in India

• Recceing, and establishing relationships with two middle class private schools in. Visiting and choosing the school, defining the stories and contracting the school management bodies to the series..

Press for Indian Schools

• The camerawork is excellent (intimate without being intrusive), the script is a model of clarity and precision. - Victor Lewis Smith, Evening Standard

 

African Schools - BBC 4 & BBC 2 - Director Camera - Lion TV BBC - Execs: Bill Locke & Richard Bradley – 6 months 2006

• Shot and Directed “The Candidate” and “Fred Gets to Zed” – Two parts of this Award Winning 10x30’ series for the BBC African Season. 

• Filming in Uganda with 3 other PDs making an observational documentary series about a primary and secondary school in a small Ugandan Town and directing the edit.

• One World Media Awards 2006, MDGs Award

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Globe Trekker  / Pilot Guides /Treks in a Wild World /Bazaar /City Guides - PBS – Director - Pilot Productions 

• Over 3 extended shoots I made 8 films for Pilot Productions. Directing the crew including underwater and helicopter shoots in the Arab Gulf States, Morocco, El Salvador and Honduras,

• Producing several 1 hour and 30 minute formats from each shoot combining elements of travel, history, food, anthropology and adventure travel.

 

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Runningman - Discovery Travel & Adventure - Co-producer & Camera/Director  - Basic Films -  1999

• A groundbreaking four part web-TV eco-adventure travel series in 2001 taking Internet connectivity to platform the voices of forest tribes in the Surinamese Rainforest.

• 3 months living in the rainforest, shooting and editing a five-minute film every day for the web as well as shooting for a four-part series for television.

• Covering stories from Gold-mining and logging, to bio-technology and ethno-botanical research.  From tribal land-rights and politics to eco-tourism. 

 

Earth Report - BBC World – Camera Director Journalist – TVE 1996-9

• Shooting segments for the “Hands On” strand of Earth Report – Short 5-7 minute films featuring the work of development projects in developing countries – 3 trips to Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Shooting and editing a half-hour documentary about the specific environmental and lobbying issues faced by Small Island States

 

 

Other TV work includes:

10,000 BC – The Garden productions – C5 – Character Set-ups for a new Reality Show …Back to the stone-age.

Underground Britain – Lion TV – C5 A tour around Britain’s underground spaces with Presenter Rob Bell

The Baby with a New Face – Channel 5 Extraordinary People - Transparent TV – Jazz Gowans – 2011 - The story of a Vietnamese boy with extremely rare facial disfigurements, and his and his mothers’ quest for a reconstructive surgery.

Hidden House Histories – A daytime reality format for The History Channel

Victorian Upstairs Downstairs –Lion TV  BBC2 - A tour around houses visited by Queen Victoria with Tim Wonnacott and Rosemary Shrager

Pay of Your Mortgage in 2 Years – BBC 2 Producer Director – 2004 – A BBC 2 primetime reality format.

The Long Weekend  - Channel 4 - Producer Director - 1997 - A collection of gritty stories about drugs throughout Britain

 

 

 

CORPORATE FILMS:

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Browns Hotel 2016

• Shooting and editing several visually sumptouous films to help Rocco Forte group sell their Suites packages. Also Browns Hotel, Conferencing and Brand films

 

UpRising – Fundraising Film – Self-Produced 2015

• A film to raise money for UpRising a charity set up by Rushanara Ali MP to train driven young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to attain leadership roles in government, business, charity, legal and media institutions 

 

Noble Macmillan 2015

• A visually stunning branded content film focusing at the hand-craft skills of leather workers as they make albums, picture frames and wallets for the Noble Macmillan Brand

 

Liberation Nuts – Corporate – Latimer Creative Media 2015

• A “Fairtrade” day-in-the-life of Northern Bolivian Amazonian Brazil Nut Gatherers

 

See Britain Through My Eyes – Foreign and Commonwealth Office – Lion TV – Web Content

• Directing and shooting a series of 20 x 3 minute films for a FCO public diplomacy campaign in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  Each film profiles a prominent figure in British life from Pakistani Cricketer Mushtaq Ahmed to American writer Bonnie Greer, from Charity guru Camila Batmanghelidjh to ballet star, Carlos Acosta.  These films were used by British diplomatic missions around the world to open up conversations about aspects of British life in the run up to the 2012 Olympic games

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD73AEA463432504D

 

Institute for State Effectiveness – Advocacy & Communications films - Camera Director Editor

• Two trips to Afghanistan to make short advocacy films for a leading American institute involved in governance and development issues.

• Filming special reports on the ground and with the Afghan Ministry of Reconstruction and Development – specifically following the National Solidarity Program. 

• These films were viewed at high levels of US policy making and making them involved working with Ashraf Ghani, now President of Afghanistan.

 

Yorkshire Game – Black Face Meat Company – Web Content

• Showing the processing and packaging of game meats for Yorkshire Game and 5 “How to” films showing how to cooking different game birds and meats with the company owners.

 

City Bridge Trust – Media Trust – Web Content

• 6 films for the City Bridge Trust, one presented by Jon Snow, platforming the work charities that are part funded by City Bridge Trust Grants.

• http://www.citybridgetrust.org.uk/CBT/KnowledgeSharing/Multimedia/KentishTownCityFarm.htm

 

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – Clearer Safe Greener

• Films promoting John Prescott’s Environmental Agenda in local communities around Britain.