“I think there were few other choices given the way my brain works that I could have actually done well, says Craig Duff when asked how he got into documentary filmmaking.
After spending nine months in Cairo helping shape up local filmmakers, his name has become rather familiar around town.
Duff is a funnyman you can’t help but love. He’s one of those people that express a story using his whole body. A storyteller by nature, this former CNN executive producer tried to create a film in fourth grade, using a shoebox as a projector. That may have failed, but his passion only grew until he got himself a real camera and eventually made TV stories all over the world.
In graduate school at the University of Texas (UT), Duff was influenced by his professors who included many Hollywood people from the 50s and various pioneers from the TV industry. In 1988 right before graduation, CNN was recruiting from the UT campus and Duff landed a job on the station earning $12,000 a year – barely enough by American standards.
He stuck with it, and eight years later his was an executive producer. “I think I peaked a little too soon … I sort of got to the executive rank and thought wait a minute I’m wearing my dad’s suit, this is weird. What am I doing in this room with all these adults?
In 1999 Duff decided to take a year off to travel the world. After returning he started doing freelance documentaries for various news organizations like The New York Times, Discovery Channel, PBS as well as CNN.
He is still working with the Times around the region now, creating TV stories for their web site.
Two years ago, Duff applied for the Knights Journalism Fellowship, not knowing where it would take him. The fellowship program, which is administered by the International Center for Journalists, sends professionals in the field around the world to countries where they can effectively improve the media.
He applied to the fellowship program because he felt he was at a point in his life when he wanted to do something good, and redirect his life a little bit. “I found myself alone, he explains, “and so I thought I’m going to go figure out what I’m going to do for the next 40 years of my life. I’m going to go do some good. I’m going to find somewhere where I can travel, meet new people and live in a different culture.
Meanwhile Lawrence Pintak, Director of the Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo, applied to the same organization to have a fellow come to the university to work on newscast from the center. Together they decided that instead they will focus on Duff’s main two areas of expertise: documentaries and convergence media.
Duff says the world of multimedia journalism and the idea of mixing is an area he got into while working for CNN, “We did fairly robust web sites with extended text and extended interviews and gizmos, he says.
Sadly, when he first arrived in the fall of 2006, no one registered on his convergence class because the students were unfamiliar with the term or with Duff. This made his first few months in Cairo challenging.
By spring semester, however, things turned around. His documentary course offered in the MA program drew a large degree of interest and was the talk both on and off campus. He also gave a similar course for working professionals that was equally successful.
During his time here he has also been working with local TV stations training reporters “helping them improve their journalism and think about new ways to tell stories, he says.
