Frank Melli
Frank Melli is a media activist and strategist. "Frank spent most of the last three decades working for New York-based broadcast operations, but now he is focusing his lens on sustainable agricultural stories in urban communities and rural areas. Meet The Farmer TV, (now in 115th episode), which Melli founded with farmer Michael Clark, showcases the stories of local growers and other food producers, chefs, organizations and the markets they serve. In the 90's Melli pioneered a series of interactive town hall meetings involving viewers in debates. Participants Jimmy Carter and Al Gore noted the influence these broadcasts had on influencing the Bush administration. Melli also partnered with Global University System and the NYC Board of Education to demonstrate e-learning. He is also an award winning producer for his work on environmental issues and work with homeless children. Frank has lectured in universities and taught media literacy in NYC. Work with the natives defending the Brazilian rain forest is an ongoing long term process to which Melli continues to dedicate his life. He produced and edited 62 yoga videos in India to show the medical benefits of yoga and continues to freelance as a broadcast engineer and TV News editor to WPIX/Tribune in NYC." - This quote is from JABA's "Meal Programs: Feeding a Crowd with Local Food" Award-winning[1]
Biography
Now running Melli Productions. In 1987 Melli started working in solidarity with the Kayapo tribe of the Amazon basin, was a petition of over ten thousand signatures, and was given to the presidents of the United Nations and Brazil. The petition called for the halt of the construction of the Altamira hydroelectric dam that was going to flood and destroy a large piece of the Amazon’s tropical rain forest.
In 1989, we helped organize the first Amazon Week in New York City and co-produced a cultural event to raise awareness about the importance of saving the tropical rain forests with a Brazilian Carnival Ball at New York’s well-known Roosevelt Hotel themed “Viva Amazonas!” That same year, we had two events at New York City’s downtown environmental nightclub, The Wetlands Preserve. The festivities covered from environmental speakers to eco-mimes, as well as a diversity of performances, including some Brazilian music and dance. In 1989, Melli co-produced a documentary with Teachers College on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). For 9 months in 1990, we produced “NY Beats” a radio show mixing music and eco-messages broadcasting on 91.5FM in the New York City tri-state area hosted by Dr. T. This is when Bobby Kennedy Jr. first showed interest in working with and helping Melli.
In 1991, we started a long-term partnership with EnviroVideo, co-producing the TV series “Enviro Close-Up.” Later that year, Melli lent a green hand in the promotion of a cabaret music series of Brazilian Divas at the Ball Room produced by Robson Lemos.
In 1992 Melli, Lemos, and Vishnu Wood started producing a TV series called “Jazz On Tour.” It ran for one year on Time Warner Cable in New York City, and was hosted by the gracious Clarence “C.B.” Bullard, who had been the director of the jazz department at Atlantic Records for many years. Again the mix of music with educational messages on the environment was used for the format.
In 1991 and 1992 Melli got heavily involved in the United Nations' Earth Summit process, implementing a media strategy including three teleconferences which were: live interactive national town meetings over PBS. The impact of these teleconferences was lauded by Vice President Al Gore in a letter he wrote stating:
During the two years of preparatory negotiations and during the Earth Summit itself, the Bush Administration blocked consensus on many of the issues being debated... I believe that efforts such as the Earth Summit teleconferences did have some impact on the Administration. Without such efforts, the obstruction and stubborn unwillingness to compromise by the Bush Administration would likely have been even worse. — Al Gore
These programs were produced by Frank Melli in collaboration with major environmental organizations, the United Nations and the non-governmental organizations community and the media. During this process, it was Melli that convinced the collaborating partners Turner Broadcasting, the National Wildlife Federation and others to incorporate the Big Blue strategy against the Bush Administrations boycott on the UNCED process. This strategy used Western Union via a toll-free number to send verifiable postcards to the president at the White House encouraging him to participate in the Earth Summit process. The film trailer/PSA ran nationwide as well as on our teleconference and was voiced over by James Earl Jones.
In Rio de Janeiro at the “Eco 92,” as the manifestation later became known, Melli produced a phenomenal video for the Global Forum, which was shown by surprise 6 times to the heads of state at the Earth Summit across town. Melli also provided technical assistance and trouble shooting for Global Forum’s international media center. Also at the Earth Summit itself in the Rio Center, Melli coordinated and directed a series of teleconferences that were broadcast nationally in Brazil, to Italy and locally to the Global Forum.
In 1993, we Co-Produced with EnviroVideo the award winning documentary: "Three Mile Island Revisited." Also in 1993, Professor Pat Belcon co-authored an article called: “Environmentalizing the Media.” This article about Melli’s work was submitted as an entry for a new sociology college textbook teaching what other community-based organizations can learn from Melli’s experience.
In 1994, Frank Melli made history by implementing a media strategy exemplifying one of the most democratic and progressive uses of the media in history. Part of the plan included a co-production with the National Wildlife Federation in the production of a national town meeting for the United Nations’ Cairo Population Conference. After observing informative guest speakers explain the process, the live program included a survey in which the audience participated. The results showed how the audience viewed family planning and reproductive health care. These results were presented at the UN during the preparatory committee meeting of the conference strategically adding the voices of thousands of viewers to the political process. It was also presented to the US Senate Bill Committee for Foreign Aid. We believe this input had a direct impact on public policy, and in 1994 Congress approved it’s largest allocation to date ($595 million) for family planning and reproductive health care. Also in 1994, under the coordination of Frank Melli and Jeffrey Keating organized and filed comments in response to the FCC's call for comments for Direct Broadcast Satellites regarding the creation of the “Program Set Aside Rules” for noncommercial programming of an informational and educational nature. Our comments were endorsed by organizations like the National Audubon Society and others. Through this process, Melli and Keating were recognized by the FCC as a national program supplier for direct broadcast satellites. These guys were one of only two organizations to respond to the FCC’s call for comments who filed in the interest of the people. Subsequently Melli’s comments were used by the U.S. Justice Department’s attorney Jake Lewis in Federal Court against the cable companies and in favor of the people. The other organization individual to file comments to the FCC later helped create the Free Speech Television network.
1994 was busy year, and Melli, Araujo and some other friends, met with Ed Asner and his son, and some other big Hollywood producers, discussing the making of a film about Paiakan. Around the same time, one of our Enviro Close-Up episodes which focused on the dangers of food irradiation was shown at a regional public hearing in Main.
After seeing our video, the vote was successfully unanimous against food irradiation for that region. And in 1995 with EnviroVideo we co-produced the award winning "Nukes In Space: the Weaponization and Nuclearization of the Heavens" documentary.
In 1996, Melli and Joao Luis Araujo made a demo for a future project: “The Symphony of the Forest’” where traditional Kayapo songs were arranged by maestro Laercio de Freitas and fused with Kayapo folklore (Video).
In 1997 we worked at the United Nations’ Rio Plus 5” Commission for Sustainable Development in New York City and co-produced an event and video.
In 1999, Melli made his first trip to the Kayapo village of Aukre. This indigenous community of the Kayapo people is located in the southern basin of the Amazon Rain forest. With the help of the Barbara Pyle Foundation and a few others, we installed water pumps helping to reduce infant mortality and lower adult illnesses. The success of this pilot program led to Brazil’s National Institute of Health installing a larger clean water system for the village. The Kayapo own the largest protected tract of tropical rain forest in the world, which is about the size of New Zealand.
Also in 1999, Melli and Araujo started the Kayapo Fashion Design Project. This venture took centuries of traditional body paintings and transformed them for the first time to over 30 canvasses demonstrating graphically the beauty of the Amazon and the interconnectedness of Kayapo with the forest and its creatures.
In 2000, Melli and Joao Luis Araujo started the Paiakan Legal Defense Fund. This project was supported by a grant from the Rain forest Action Network, the Rain Forest Alliance and other anonymous donors. One of the processes of this project resulted in Brazil’s National Institutes of Health arranging health care services to the entire Kayapo Reservation, which has around 14,000 people.
In 2001, Melli and Araujo started the production of documentary: "Kayapo: Stone Age Survivors." During the production, we made an anthropological discovery that changed the course of the production. In 2001, we started the pre-production of “Brasil New York” a television series mixing Brazilian world music with environmental messages. The series has never been released and have been archived for a future release as part of a documentary.
In 2002, our 10-year co-production of “Enviro Close-Up” began to broadcast nationwide on the Free Speech Television Network and continues to air today by weekly reaching over 25 million homes.
In 2002-2003, we started 3 programs with New York City Board of Education:
- "Healing the Planet One Individual at a Time with Yoga,
- Live Video Production and Media Literacy Program and
- The Video Conferencing via broadband.
This project demonstrated:
- Distance Learning
- Management Meetings and
- Staff training
This project showed how to save the school system millions of dollars by using this technology.
In 2002, Frank Melli co-produced with Barbara Pyle “One Child One Voice.” As an official organization in affiliation with the United Nations, Melli coordinated international satellite distribution, broadcasting the program globally 8 times for the United Nation’s Johannesburg Conference on Sustainable Development. We also coordinated the marketing and distribution of these broadcasts to over 3,000 TV stations in over 110 counties. In 2003, this program was nominated for an Emmy Award and won a total of 39 awards altogether.
Also in 2003, Melli created the Kayapo Children’s Scholarship Fund, which is continuously assisting young Kayapos in their quest for education and their pursuit to help their people.
In 2004, Melli, Al Jones, and Roy Shimmyo took another trip to visit our indigenous friends in the Amazon rain forest. This time we recorded tribal rituals for the “Stone Age Survivors” documentary and some songs for a music project. Part of the journey included a trip to an area that no non-indigenous people had ever visited.
In 2004, Melli co-produced with Takeshi Utsumi two broadband events on International video conferencing for E-Learning, Tele-Medicine and Peace Gaming. Melli broke new ground by adding the professional TV look that video conferencing had been missing. Recently, Melli co-founded The New Orbita Music Group. The company was made up of 4 artist owners and several media professionals all working together for the environment.
In June 2007, one of the first projects coordinated by Melli was a concert in association with the Friends of Live Earth. The outstanding performance by The Zé Luis Quartet at Brama Café in New York City promoted Al Gore’s Global Live Earth Concert. And New Orbita’s first CD includes a quote from biology Professor Alice Benzecry about how the tropical rainforests are the lungs of the earth. And a sold-out show in Dec. of 2007 at Joe’s Pub’s Public Theater emphasized the environmental message as well.
In the words of Barbara Pyle: “If we are going to save the environment, it’s not going to come from any one big decision, but from many individual choices – choices by people like you and I. The media has a responsibility to educate and help people make these choices.”
References
Al Gore noted more about this event that Al Gore participated in at: 3d Natl Teleconference/Earth Summit 4/26/92
External links
- EnviroVideo
- Melli Productions
- Recent (May 2009) national article about Frank Melli in Millimeter Magazine
Recent video Frank Melli Produced release April 29th, 2014 in honor of Maurice Strong's 85th Birthday.
http://www.unep.org/newscentre/default.aspx?DocumentID=2787&ArticleID=10839
https://www.iucn.org/about/union/donors/