C'mon, do you really need a FAQ?
Can you describe what you're all about?
What's INTJ?
What's up with the whole Bartoli jazz, anyway?
What films do you like?
What kind of music do you listen do?
Do you like art, too?
I hear you used to study anthroplogy.
So what is it exactly that you do?
What kinds of films do you produce?
What are some of your current projects?
How many tattoos do you have?
So tell us about your favorite vacation hotspots.

Second, I'm a technogeek at heart. What's geekdom without a FAQ? In all my years of geekhood, I've never had the opportunity to write a FAQ. I've always wanted to.

Third, I like to keep my HTML skills up to speed. I prefer coding web pages in Notepad (yes, I'm primarily in the PC world, but I'm Maclingual, too), and need some little non-mission-critical thing to do in my spare time to prevent my brain from atrophying.

INTJ. Film. Music. Art. Scorpio sun. Leo Moon. Scorpio rising. I'm a fiercely independent film producer with a healthy interest in pre-post-modern twentieth century art. I like lemurs and three-toed sloths. I enjoy cooking (Italian, East Indian, Asian), am continually surrounded by a plethora of music, and would watch three movies a day if I didn't need to pay bills. I like waterparks, especially the long twisty slides when they don't require you to be in a frikken innertube. I have an interest in architechture and living space/furniture design (see the list here), and have a strange sense of humor that causes me to consider "Blue Velvet" one of the greatest comedies of the eighties. I am currently obsessing about my next tattoo. I make rash judgements about people by looking at their music collections. I don't like heat. Anything above sixty-eight degrees with no humidity is heat. Manhattans and Blue Ice Vodka are my drinks of choice. Or water, if I need to operate heavy machinery. I am addicted to shopping for office supplies and wish I could see the world in 2.35:1. Fnord.

"INTJ
The INTJ takes his/her energy from the inner world of thoughts (and, maybe, emotions). He/she prefers dealing with patterns and possibilities for the future, and making decisions using impersonal analysis. His/her life is organised on a logical basis. He/she is a strategist, identifying long term goals and organising life to meet them. He/she tends to be sceptical and critical, both of self and others, with a keen sense of deficiencies in quality and competence. He/she often has a strong intellect, yet is able to attend to details that are relevant to the strategy."

That quote was lifted from (and the rest of the personality types can be found at) this site.

To determine your personality type, go to this online test. It's free and fun. Let me know how you turn out.

Meanwhile, being in the budding auteur program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I decided to at least give writing credits to Dan Bartoli so I didn't have EVERY onscreen credit.

Flash to 1992. My film friends from Milwaukee and a couple writer friends from Chicagoland are at a party together. They're talking about the film by Dan Wilson, written by Dan Bartoli, and some folks didn't realize I was one in the same. Viola...the birth of Bartoli Filmworks, president, Dan Wilson.

For those who care, I'm officially an LLC as of 2005.

I tend to prefer more intelligent fare, with characters, plot devices and dialog that makes you think, causes you to stop and say "wow" or forces you, as a viewer, to infer what goes in the gaps in the story. I abhor films that reveal every single thing about the plot and characters, or don't respect my intelligence as a viewer to be able to figure something out on my own. I like complexity and multi-dimensionality in my characters, and I also like the plot to go somewhere. No, it doesn't need to follow a traditional narrative path--I can appreciate and experimental narrative with the best of them--but it has to get from the beginning to the end in some manner.

Some of my favorite films and directors (in no particular order, with the exception of the first three) are Blade Runner, Crash, Brazil, the Cremaster cycle, Lynch, the Coen brothers, the Pang brothers (Danny and Oxide), the Polish brothers, Peter Greenaway, Stanley Kubrick, Luc Besson, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Jean Eustache, David Finchcer, Michelangelo Antonioni, Terry Gilliam, Peeping Tom, The Piano Teacher, The Fifth Element, Amelie, The Mother & the Whore, Irreversible, Donnie Darko, Rubin & Ed, and Le Mepris

When I'm in Milwaukee, I tend to leave my radio tuned to either WMSE or our local NPR affiliate, WUWM. On the west coast, I try to tune in to KCRW in los Angeles, also an NPR affiliate, but with less news and a number of great music shows. All three of these stations stream their programming.

Individual artist whose work I admire include Maxfield Parrish, Joseph Cornell, Jackson Pollock, Man Ray, Hugo Ball, Jean Cocteau, Luis Bunuel, Jeff Koons, Karel Teige, Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Cristo, Aubrey Beardsley, Joseph Stella, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Hieronymous Bosch, Jasper Johns, Tamara deLempicka, Vito Acconci, and Claes Oldenburg.

I sometimes find myself drawn more toward architechture, commercial and industrial design rather than art, per se. Advertising and packaging from Weimar Germany, Art Deco, prairie school, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Walter Gropius, Le Courbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Henry Dreyfuss being some of my faves.

It was during the second semester of college that I realized one important fact. Field work was boring. What I really wanted to do was interpret someone else's fieldwork for displays and educational programs. My grand master plan shot to hell, I decided to switch to Architecture because a.) I was good in drafting in High School, and b.) I was always drawing floorplans and designing interior spaces. Of course, when the physics requirement reared its ugly head and ruined my GPA for the rest of college, I switched to the Theater Program, another of my varied interests. Tolerances, I reasoned, were less critical when nailing flats together than when erecting a sixty story skyscraper.

Part of the Theater program required that I take classes in other arts disciplines, and a summer Introduction to Video class finally introduced me to what I'd been searching for.

After sqeezing four years of college into seven, I graduated in 1991 with a BFA in Film. In retrospect, all the signs were there:

• I dragged my dad's 8mm Bell & Howell movie camera out of the attic when I was about 8.
• I always lusted after my sister's Kodak X-15 Instamatic camera.
• In high school, as part of the A/V crew, I had access to the school's VHS camera, and was always wanting to do movies.
• At the museum, when I found out that Leon Weissgerber had a Beaulieu collecting dust in his office, I pestered him to teach me how to use it to do stop motion animated films, taking advantage of the huge chunks of clay sitting in the lab.
• In high school, one of the first 'big ticket' items I bought with my own money was a Pentax K-1000 35mm camera. I still use it today.

Connecting the dots, is it any wonder I'm doing what I'm doing today?

I own my own production company, Bartoli Filmworks, specializing in producing content for the nonprofit and education sectors. But realistically, I do a lot. Click here to see some work samples.

In addition, I work freelance for pretty much anyone that calls me. As a graduate of the UW-Milwaukee Film program, I was fortunate enough to learn about every aspect of production, and have been able to market myself as a skillful jack-of-all-trades. I've recorded sound for clients as varied as political TV spots, the All-Star game, and Japan's NHK television. I've shot a lot of corporate training videos, segments for Discover Wisconsin and Into the Outdoors, HGTV, the Food Network, and many of the other cable and broadcast networks. I've worked on feature films in Los Angeles, Chicago and Wisconsin as a production manager, location manager, and/or coordinator.

In the past few years, I've also started expanding the photography end of my business with an emphasis on architechtural and tabletop shoots. My photo portfolio site is here.

Of course, I'm passionate about film and photography, and create a good deal of work in my spare time, both my own and in collaboration with others. Here's a link to some of my current personal photo projects and this is a link to some of my recent short films.

In addition to the above, check out our sites for 'the thickness of delirium' and 'Not This Girl'. MORE COMING SOON!

The In-Between Girl is Brian McGuire's fourth feature, and the second to be produced by Bartoli Filmworks. The story concerns Jack and Helena, friends from grade school who've drifted apart and begin dating when they run into each other by chance thirty years later. They discover things about their relationship and each other when Jack confesses that he has a two year old daughter with a twenty-one year old woman. This feature length film was shot during the summer of 2003 in and around Milwaukee, WI.

not this girl is currently seeking investors. Visit the film's website for more information.

Watch for more information about these project at the link noted above.

	The Anasazi holy ghost figure on my left arm was my first tat. I wanted something permanent, and spent years wondering WHAT to get. I've worn a pendant of the symbol since 1989 when I found it on a trip to the Southwest. It's a symbol that reminds me to follow my spirit.
	The planet Saturn I got in fall of 2002 on my right arm. I was working on a film in LA, we had two days off and I needed to get out of the city. I drove to Twenty-Nine Palms to be out of cell phone range. On the way, I decided to get a new tat. After all, it's a military base. There's gotta be a tattoo shop. The first one I went into didn;t give a good vibe. Old school Harley-rider freak who was passed out drunk when I walked in. There was a tattoo parlor near the base, with a guy who'd learned to tat in prison. I copied the Saturn pic at the local library, he did some sketches, and we did the deed. Saturn has always been significant to me in my work, and represents the natural cycles in life as well as, to some extent, the need to follow my muse.
	I finally got the stylized Egyptian thing for one of my calves on my birthday in 2004. Because of my interest in Egyptology, this tat represents the concept of honoring my past, for without it I can't be who I am. It's about coming to terms with who I used to be without regrets.
I have plans for a stylized Julia Set/crop circle pattern thing, location undecided. The Julia set is about honoring the future and the divergent possibilities.

Read about my January 2006 trip to France.

MORE COMING SOON!