JOHN PAGET
With a keen interest in American culture, a refined aesthetic sensibility, and a craftsman’s approach to production, John has a filmmaking style that is readily identifiable and engaging for the viewer. His first series of documentaries on Route 66 ("Route 66: An American Odyssey" and "Route 66: Return to the Road with Martin Milner") profiled America’s most beloved highway and won several international film festival awards. The documentaries were broadcast as pledge programs for many PBS affiliates, and helped spark a national movement to protect and preserve America’s historic highways and highway architecture. "Almost Elvis: Elvis Impersonators & Their Quest for the Crown," produced in 2001, was an official selection to more than twelve film festivals, and was screened as part of curated exhibitions at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, and New York City’s Jewish Cultural Center of Manhattan. The definitive documentary on the world of competitive Elvis impersonators, "Almost Elvis" received distribution through Seventh Art Releasing, as well as television broadcast on Trio (2002-2004), The Documentary Channel (2004-2007) and Ovation TV (currently). In 2003, Paget directed "Go with the Flow," a feature-length documentary about his hometown of Olympia, Washington. The stylistic film explores the city’s history from ice age to present, and how that heritage generated the unique mix of subcultures that inspired Time Magazine to call Olympia, “The Hippest City in the West.” His current project, ALCATRAZ REUNION, explores the history of America’s legendary prison and captures the unlikely reunion of ex-convicts and guards at the 70th anniversary Alcatraz alumni gathering. John’s filmmaking style and versatility puts him in-demand as a freelance director/shooter/editor. In the past few years he has created short films and webisodes for United States Postal Service and Microsoft Corp. He’s traveled extensively to shoot projects for international development organizations in Haiti, Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, China, Thailand, Belize, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Paget’s versatility as a filmmaker stems in part from the range of his work experience: from a one-season stint as a shooter for MTV Real World to a gig in China as supervising editor of a documentary series for BTV (Beijing Television). Benefit screenings of Paget’s films have raised thousands of dollars for Make-A-Wish Foundation, The Boys & Girls Clubs, The Olympia Film Society, and others. His most recent pro-bono work was a short film produced on behalf of the Queen City Farm Initiative, a visionary project to convert blighted vacant lots of Buffalo, New York into the largest urban organic farm in the country. Paget was born in Vancouver, Washington in 1970, and grew up in Olympia, the state capitol of Washington. He graduated magna cum laud from Biola University in La Mirada, California in 1992, receiving a B.A. in humanities. Paget relocated to the historic west side of Buffalo, New York in 2005. John Paget, John Paget
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