Available Presentations: (can be tailored to include/exclude the screening of the film, EIGHT)
The targeted audience is 5th grade all the way through graduate school.
**There is a separate presentation for the parents of students that is tailored specifically for an adult audience.
Available themes/Duration of Presentations:
All presentations are 45-60 min with an optional open forum Q & A.
1) Suicide Awareness
The focus of this presentation is to show how one person’s decision to take their own life has a rippling effect, affecting many more lives than the person who commits suicide. My father likely never gave thought to the reality that someone would have to discover his lifeless body once he committed suicide. I bet even less thought went through his mind that the someone would be his 8-year-old son, me. My goal is to bring light to a topic that is often seen as taboo and to share from a very open and an emotionally vulnerable place what my family and I went through.
2) Substance Abuse Awareness/Prevention
The focus of this presentation is to show not only how my father’s substance abuse directly correlated to his suicide but also takes participants down my dark path. A path that led me using heavy drugs for almost 25 years, nearly dying and losing everything I had before becoming drug-free in 2010. How I became successful in following my dreams to land work and hang around some of the biggest names in show business (George Clooney, Jodi Foster, Dominic West, Joshua Jackson, Maura Tierney, and many others). In addition to explaining how I got clean, I also share the story of my best friend, Stephen Knopp who got clean with me at the same time but tragically relapsed, overdosed and died several months later.
**Within either presentation, I share some principles with the audience, regarding the processing (or avoidance) of emotions. I speak very honestly about how the people in my family chose to “sweep” their feelings under a rug, and how that had a negative impact. I show examples of how a person could deal with any type of life event, and that through communication, fitness, and nutrition a person can deal with things as they happen, rather than letting things “pile” up over many months and eventually many years.
3) The Filmmaking Process (as requested by several colleges)
This part of the presentation is designed to share with the targeted audience exactly what it takes to make a movie. Through storytelling and examples, I bring the audience behind the scenes to walk them through the exciting, yet sometimes stressful art of filmmaking. Some of the topics discussed are writing the script, proposing a budget, hiring a cast and crew, cutting corners when necessary, compromising with the crew, keeping the crew happy, post-production and doing all that is required to deliver a final product. I also share some of the interesting and bizarre anecdotes that surrounded the making of my film, as well as the film festival circuit and how to get as many people to see your film once it is completed.
ToughTopics.org LECTURE STUDENT PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
ToughTopics.org LECTURE PARENT PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
ToughTopics.org LECTURE FEEDBACK PDF
(For teachers to bring back to class for a post-presentation discussion)