The Staff
When she’s not in the recording studio, or acting, or producing music, or directing films, Dawn McGhee plays an even bigger role. She’s mother, daughter, friend, activist and writer. Reared in Dallas, Texas, the youngest of 14 grandchildren, by age three, Dawn had appeared in several local radio and television commercials from ButterKrust Bread to Foremost Ice Cream in Dallas’ own, Century Studios. Being the daughter of southern pioneer actor, Bill McGhee, she was brought up in an entertainment family who motivated her to participate in many activities including drama (Chris Wilson/Brandon Smith – Acting for Film/TV, University of Houston, & Junior Black Academy of Arts & Letters); dance (University of Houston, Mary Lois School of Dance); voice (Dorceal Duckins); sports and writing. Dawn received a creative writing scholarship for college, and was faced with many challenges. “When I was young, I felt pressure of having to succeed in two worlds. My mother was a counselor and civil rights activist. My father was a business owner and actor who opened the doors for many Black actors in the South to perform on stage. Their accomplishments pushed me to graduating college early, earning a Master’s degree by age 22, while participating in political and community affairs, in addition to learning the arts. My varied background made me strong and is the reason I wear so many hats today.” By hats, Dawn consults indie companies, produces music and films, and sometimes performs as a rapper and poet. She has worked as an actress in independent film releases (Featured Actress, Wanna Be A Baller (2001)) ¤ (Miscellaneous Crew, H-Town Mob (2001)); and has two national releases to her credit (Actress, The Riff (2000)) ¤ (Actress, Riverbend (1987)).
While obtaining her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston, her minor was Drama. Her interests in the entertainment industry went beyond acting. She also had a strong interest in directing films, set design and prop making while taking courses at her alma mater. McGhee doesn’t mind picking up a brush and hammer to create props, or taking a director his afternoon snack as production assistant. Dawn raised the brow of many, thus coined “the local hotshot” in VIBE Magazine, and tantalized her audience when she performed under the moniker, Rysque. While those hats were many, she took time to offer journal therapy to inmates. “It hit home when some of my peers were going to prison. In the entertainment industry, this seems to be the norm. I’d write them in an effort to bring hope. I did not want my peers to become discouraged while repaying their debt to society. At first, it was encouraging words. It later developed into journal therapy. I’d encourage reading and writing to sort out feelings. This good news travelled from one facility to the next and I found myself helping other inmates with books of interest and journaling thoughts, desires, and being honest with one’s self. It’s therapy for me too. It keeps me grounded.”
Today, McGhee’s film career is on the rise. Her dedication to bringing her audience thought provoking productions and has proven she is ready to mark her territory with “chess the right moves” (her favorite phrase). Dawn directed, produced and wrote two films: Peepshow: A Freak’s Dream (2002) and Behind The Life (2007) and used her own Pyramid Sequencing Model to serve as a platform for the films. “To make a long story short, the P.S.M. is a specific hierarchy-chunk-structure in which the main characters storylines are interwoven and imbedded within the sub characters plots that have specific values in determining the entire storyline.” Dawn is co-owner of Field Up Productions. She’s currently directing and producing a docufilm, A POWER SUN and Wrack 21 short feature; the first feature in the F.I.S.T. (Fighting Injustice Serving Time) series. She’s also scripting her dramatic debut, “To Be Low”, “Tagged Red” and “10 O’Clock Noose”.
Rita W. Squire-Acoli
Executive Producer
Field Up Productions Co-Owner
Rita W. Squire-Acoli is the eldest daughter of Clark E. Squire/Sundiata Acoli. She grew up in a small segregated town in North West Texas. Although she did not know her father until she was in middle school, she possessed his strong will to become politically active. She maintained above average grades in school and after coming into the knowledge of her father, Rita doused herself into the books he would send her from the bookstore in Harlem. She recalls being militant in junior high school and high school and was “a panther cub” long before she knew she was an official panther cub. Rita was involved in protest as early as her first year in high school. She recalls, “I participated in my school’s walkout to protest forced school integration. When my father sent me books, I would organize the black students at my school. I went to a majority white school.”
She recalls reading books like “Malcolm X Speaks” that her father sent from the Liberation Book Store on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, NY. She also read several books that her father as authored including but not limited to Brink’s Trail Testimony, Some Solutions: Or Thing To Do, and Sunviews, just to name a few. She credits her love of helping the oppressed, her love for the struggle of liberation and her passion for justice for African people throughout the Diaspora to the education she received as a result of studying the many books sent from the bookstore by her father. Rita has boxes of letters that her father has written over the years while he has been incarcerated. She has travelled to several countries on the African continent to help the less fortunate. Rita’s passion to help others was deep in her soul. She is a Registered Nurse. Rita received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Texas Women’s University.
She is deeply saddened by the long prison term and injustice the Sundiata Acoli has suffered while incarcerated. As my father would say, “the struggle continues.” Rita often confers with her father, who is currently serving a life sentence as a political prisoner of war, about reference materials to use in her production work. She and her “god-sister”, Dawn McGhee formed a production company, Field Up Productions, to produce a documentary in honor of her father, and other former members of the New York Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Rita is very grateful and honored to be able to work with the staff of Field Up Productions. Everyone involved in the film’s process has come together for such a worthy cause.
Jamal Joseph
Creative Director,
Executive Consultant, Co-Producer
Jamal Joseph – Academy Award Nominee | Chairman | Author | Director | Producer | Poet | Activist | Professor | Former Black Panther member & political prisoner of war who credits his time spent in the Party and nine year prison sentence the inspirational fires that forged his creative sword. Jamal was 15 years old when he joined the Panthers in 1968. Six months later he was arrested as the youngest member of the New York Panther 21. Jamal later went to prison. While incarcerated, he earned two college degrees, wrote five plays and two volumes of poetry. After he was released from the prison system, two of his plays were award-winning Black theater productions. Jamal studied film at Third World Newsreel and is an alumnus of the Sundance Director’s Lab. He co-authored “Look For Me In The Whirlwind”; the collective biography of the New York Panther 21. His poetry has been published in the anthology “Hauling Up The Morning” and numerous journals and magazines.
Jamal’s screenwriting credits include Ali: An American Hero (FOX), “Bad Blood” episode [New York Undercover series], The Many Trials of Tammy B (Nickelodeon) and Knights of The South Bronx (A&E). He wrote and directed Drive By: A Love Story and Da Zone (Black Starz). Currently, Jamal Joseph is currently writing Tupac Shakur: In the Beginning (MTV Films) and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (Warner Brothers).
Jamal is the Director of Hughes Dreams Harlem, a poetic documentary about Langston Hughes. He is currently filming Shake Loose Memories: The Life and Work of Sonia Sanchez.
Jamal Joseph is the Chairman for Columbia University School of the Arts film division, as well as, a professor in the graduate program. He serves as Artistic Director of New Heritage Theater in Harlem. He is the proud co-founder Impact, which is New Heritage’s youth theater ensemble that has a membership of 50 young artist/community activists. The youth of Impact are performers in the 2008 Oscars show and showcased on ABC’s Nightline TV segment.
When Jamal is not in the Artistic world, he spends precious time with his wife Joyce. She too is a writer, director and actress. And he enjoys quality time with his three children; Jamal, Jad, and daughter Jindai.
His awards include the James Baldwin Playwriting Award, the Cine Golden Eagle Award, a New York Foundation of the Arts playwriting fellowship, the AUDECO Award and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award.
Jamal Joseph is the 2008 Academy Award nominee for Music (Song) “Raise It Up” in the film, August Rush.
Wonda Jones
Executive Creative Consultant, Project Coordinator
Wonda Jones was born in Harlem, New York to the parents of great revolutionaries. Both of her parents were members of the prestigious Black Panther Party for Self Defense. As a child, Wonda was targeted by members of so-called intelligence and was forced to live life clandestine in the state of Georgia with family members. After many years, she was able to return home and live a normal life. After graduating high school, Wonda chose to attend college to study nursing. She worked in the medical field to support her family. By the new millennium, Wonda had to use her skills in nursing to aid her grandmother. Little did Wonda know that she was about to embark on the tasks of being a political activist and motivator like her parents. Prior to her mother’s death, she was encouraged by her and other family members to pursue political and cultural interests.Wonda, while continuing to work in the medical field, furthered her political agenda by becoming the Director of the Safiya Bukhari – Albert Nuh Washington Foundation, whose primary goals are to provide unbiased assistance to the numerous families and groups who work on behalf of political prisoners and prisoners of war. Wonda’s works in the foundation has provided numerous services to the survivors and families of political prisoners, prisoners of war and activists who died in service to the oppressed.
No job is too great for Wonda to overcome. She also is editing a book dedicated to the profound legacy of her mother, Safiya Bukhari. It will involve family history, political agendas, pictures and personal words and sacrifices.
Wonda is a public speaker for the foundation and stresses to young people the importance of Afrikan history, self-preservation, and other rites of passage. Her life example teaches all people to be steadfast and pursue goals, no matter what obstacles seem to come along.
Ms. Jones serves as Executive Consultant to Field Up Productions. Her duties include coordinating the political prisoners and their families, former members of the Black Panther Party, acting as liaison between financial consultants and coordinating the production schedule for all non-dramatic cast.
Sir Melvin Van Peebles
Executive Creative Consultant, Project Coordinator
Melvin Van Peebles’ life project has been to defy and redefine the image of blacks in America. Although he is widely categorized as a filmmaker, Van Peebles is also an actor, playwright, novelist and stock options trader. Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1932, Van Peebles lived in Mexico as a painter with his then-wife Maria Marx, moved to San Francisco where he worked as a cable car operator, and then moved to Holland to study at the University of Amsterdam. After a move to Paris, he wrote several novels, one of which was adapted into the movie, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967). It was this film about a black soldier’s tryst with a white Parisian woman that led to a contract with Columbia Pictures and the 1970 film Watermelon Man. The film was a comedy about a white man who wakes up one day to find he is now black. There was turmoil between Van Peebles and Columbia over casting and the ending to the film, but in the end Van Peebles prevailed and the film was a modest success. Van Peebles used the proceeds from Watermelon Man to help finance his most well-known film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song which he wrote, directed and scored. The film is violent, low-budget and received an X-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. However, it is considered a turning point in both the portrayal of blacks in American film and marketing to a black audience. Moving away from filmmaking for the next two decades, Van Peebles began writing plays and produced two Broadway Musicals, Ain’t Supposed to Die a natural Death and Don’t Play Us Cheap which was nominated for two Tony Awards. During the 1980s Van Peebles became a stock trader and also continued to guest star in films and television. In 2005 a feature documentary about the life of Van Peebles was released, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and enjoy it). Today, he’s released his most recent film with critical acclaims, Confessions of an Ex-Doofus Mutha.
Jerome Sheffield
Director of Photography
Jerome Sheffield has been involved in the media broadcast business since 1987. He got his start serving as a news anchor in college for KPVU, the campus radio station. After graduation from Prairie View A&M University where he majored in Mass Communications, he went to work for the Dallas Public School System as a videographer/producer for the district’s media department. He has also produced a number of television programs including “Nate Newton Sports Arena” featuring Dallas Cowboys All-Pro Guard Nate Newton for the WB Network, “The Tom Bailey Sports Journal,” “Reel Critics,” “The Millionaire Sportsman” and “Street’s World” with nationally known radio personality Greg Street. Sheffield co-founded New Era Pictures, an independent film production company that began producing feature films in 2000, projects include “Playing for the Kitty” and “Thugz”, both of which received international distribution deals from Los Angeles based York Entertainment. He also produced and co-wrote the action-drama “Repentance” Thugz II. Jerome joined the team of Field Up Productions to add Director of Photography to his reportoire.
