Tom McPhee, Executive Director & Founder
World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org
A brief message from the Executive Director:
A few years ago, I went to New Orleans and documented much of the animal rescue efforts following Hurricane Katrina. What I discovered was an entire world I had no idea existed and one most people never pay attention to: the world of animal rescue. I found people risking everything, sometimes their lives, to rescue these animals, other peoples pets. The result? The multi award-winning AN AMERICAN OPERA The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever! www.anamericanopera.com
This journey set me on a path to discover/uncover the many ways humans and non-human animals interact. Through the World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org, we scour the World for stories to film and present about this relationship.
By producing compelling documentaries to be shared with the world and providing raw aggregate-able footage to educational institutions for further research, the World Animal Awareness Society will accomplish its vision of greater human awareness.
This is not an animal rights initiative, but a human animal awareness one. We are not looking to take sides, but to understand what the sides are. The World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org is a free agent, looking for facts and stories about how humans interact with animals in contemporary society throughout the world, we believe we will see the human evolutionary arc in real time. I am frequently asked, whose side are we on? I always respond - the side of knowledge.
Please join me in creating a powerful new voice in human-animal evolution.
Founder,
email: Tom McPhee
skype: tom_mcphee_wa2sorg
A few years ago, I went to New Orleans and documented much of the animal rescue efforts following Hurricane Katrina. What I discovered was an entire world I had no idea existed and one most people never pay attention to: the world of animal rescue. I found people risking everything, sometimes their lives, to rescue these animals, other peoples pets. The result? The multi award-winning AN AMERICAN OPERA The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever! www.anamericanopera.com
This journey set me on a path to discover/uncover the many ways humans and non-human animals interact. Through the World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org, we scour the World for stories to film and present about this relationship.
By producing compelling documentaries to be shared with the world and providing raw aggregate-able footage to educational institutions for further research, the World Animal Awareness Society will accomplish its vision of greater human awareness.
This is not an animal rights initiative, but a human animal awareness one. We are not looking to take sides, but to understand what the sides are. The World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org is a free agent, looking for facts and stories about how humans interact with animals in contemporary society throughout the world, we believe we will see the human evolutionary arc in real time. I am frequently asked, whose side are we on? I always respond - the side of knowledge.
Please join me in creating a powerful new voice in human-animal evolution.
Founder,
email: Tom McPhee
skype: tom_mcphee_wa2sorg
BIO:
Tom McPhee, Executive Director and Founder of the World Animal Awareness Society (launched 2010), is an award winning producer & director of film, TV, and multi-language interactive media. He owns 2 media companies, Cave Studio and Man Smiling Moving Pictures. Tom served as producer and host-character for two animal centric TV shows broadcast across Canada on The Pet Network (Tom McPhee's Rescue Journal & Rock & Roll Dogs) in 2009. Tom served as producer, director and creative force behind the multi award-winning documentary, An American Opera: The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever! (2008) chronicling the animal rescue efforts post Hurricane Katrina, with footage shot in New Orleans becoming part of 2 Animal Planet Specials in 2005, a PBS Nature special in 2005, and the 2009 award-winning PBS Independent Lens documentary from Film Movement: Mine, directed by Geralyn Pezanoski. Tom is skilled at marrying original music to image, its a signature of his work.
Tom spent the better part of 2010 on expedition filming human-animal interactions post disaster in: Haiti, the ALL EYES ON THE GULF Expedition, and for 2011 in Japan covering the post quake-tsunami-radiation disaster for the WA2S. Prior to his focus on human-animal collisions, Tom created and produced flixtour, the premier, nationally sponsored, college targeted, indie film tour - in the mid thru late 90's, an early leader in the DIY indie film ranks, lauded by indiewire, MovieMaker, Filmmaker and MovieLine magazines as the next 'thing'. flixtour achieved some memorable successes, including launching indie icon Kevin Smith's ongoing & highly successful college speaking series – multiple shows are now out on DVD, and more serendipitously, helping launch the comedy directing career of then almost broke Paul Feig (director of Brides Maids, as well as episodes of Arrested Development, The Office and HBO's Bored To Death) who signed his deal with Dreamworks at my kitchen table - Judd Apatow on speaker phone, for the short-lived cult favorite TV show; Freaks & Geeks. Paul wrote F&G while presenting his indie film on flixtour in 1998. Tom occasionally serves as a Judge of documentary films at film festivals, the latest being the 42nd Humboldt Film Festival. Tom is a member of the IDA – International Documentary Association, IFP – Chicago, and former board member of the DFC - Detroit Filmmakers Coalition and former Director of the 1998 Detroit & Windsor Festival of Film. please get in touch with Tom here: tommcphee@WA2S.org Cheers!
Tom McPhee, Executive Director and Founder of the World Animal Awareness Society (launched 2010), is an award winning producer & director of film, TV, and multi-language interactive media. He owns 2 media companies, Cave Studio and Man Smiling Moving Pictures. Tom served as producer and host-character for two animal centric TV shows broadcast across Canada on The Pet Network (Tom McPhee's Rescue Journal & Rock & Roll Dogs) in 2009. Tom served as producer, director and creative force behind the multi award-winning documentary, An American Opera: The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever! (2008) chronicling the animal rescue efforts post Hurricane Katrina, with footage shot in New Orleans becoming part of 2 Animal Planet Specials in 2005, a PBS Nature special in 2005, and the 2009 award-winning PBS Independent Lens documentary from Film Movement: Mine, directed by Geralyn Pezanoski. Tom is skilled at marrying original music to image, its a signature of his work.
Tom spent the better part of 2010 on expedition filming human-animal interactions post disaster in: Haiti, the ALL EYES ON THE GULF Expedition, and for 2011 in Japan covering the post quake-tsunami-radiation disaster for the WA2S. Prior to his focus on human-animal collisions, Tom created and produced flixtour, the premier, nationally sponsored, college targeted, indie film tour - in the mid thru late 90's, an early leader in the DIY indie film ranks, lauded by indiewire, MovieMaker, Filmmaker and MovieLine magazines as the next 'thing'. flixtour achieved some memorable successes, including launching indie icon Kevin Smith's ongoing & highly successful college speaking series – multiple shows are now out on DVD, and more serendipitously, helping launch the comedy directing career of then almost broke Paul Feig (director of Brides Maids, as well as episodes of Arrested Development, The Office and HBO's Bored To Death) who signed his deal with Dreamworks at my kitchen table - Judd Apatow on speaker phone, for the short-lived cult favorite TV show; Freaks & Geeks. Paul wrote F&G while presenting his indie film on flixtour in 1998. Tom occasionally serves as a Judge of documentary films at film festivals, the latest being the 42nd Humboldt Film Festival. Tom is a member of the IDA – International Documentary Association, IFP – Chicago, and former board member of the DFC - Detroit Filmmakers Coalition and former Director of the 1998 Detroit & Windsor Festival of Film. please get in touch with Tom here: tommcphee@WA2S.org Cheers!
