Raul daSilva

New York City native Raúl daSilva recalls his boyhood in the lower East Side of Manhattan and its surrounding neighborhoods as fascinating. He was educated at Adelphi University and later attended Hofstra University's PhD program in clinical psychology but changed his mind and through some networking from his acting curriculum taken in undergraduate school ended up at Paramount's Creative Property Development Group in the Brill Bldg. near Times Square. During his tenure there he received a notice of acceptance from the US Navy Flight Training Command at Pensacola, Florida that he had applied for with eight friends on a lark and accepted it to fulfill a boyhood dream, later realizing that flying is just hard work and little or no glamour. Subsequently, he returned to the film industry but chose to work in informational films so that he could have a hands-on experience in the entire spectrum of filmmaking. He was hired by the preeminent, historically important studio in Detroit, Michigan, The Jamison Handy Organization. This had been the second film studio organized for business in the United States and the last employer or the famed animator Max Fleischer. There, he began as a writer in the animation department but quickly moved to live action and began his climb up the ladder as a director-producer. During this period he worked at every aspect of the film craft, including, cinematography editing, art direction, stage management, post production and audiovisual production. He left the studio to join Cessna Aircraft where he could take advantage of his US Navy aviation background. There, he set up their first audiovisual and screen communications in the marketing of their line of aircraft. He then began a lengthy experience as an advertising and public relations agency film producer-director with firms such as the internationally important Burson-Marsteller where with Vice President Bob Carter he started the genesis of their first screen communications division. With a background in promotional writing Carter suggested that he take journalism writing courses at that time at the University of Pittsburgh. It was there that he had a mystical experience which redirected his life and set him firmly on a path of spiritual searching. His final agency work prior to becoming a freelancer was with Eastman Kodak's industrial ad and pr agency as their Executive Producer for all of their clients, including Kodak's Motion Picture products division. Raul then began his work as a freelancer and to some extent returned to work in entertainment films and as a creative consultant to organizations such as Time-Life Films, Xerox, Warner Bros. and Fortune top 20 corporations. His film work is critically acclaimed on an international level. He is the author of seven books (one on aviation and six on filmmaking) and has lectured on screenwriting and directing at several universities including RIT, NYU, Brooklyn College and Ithaca College. He taught screenwriting at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY. Along the way he met the legendary director Frank Capra who became his mentor for some years and he befriended and was a co-worker of Rod Serling. Among his other friends in the industry were the late John Cassavetes and Sterling Hayden. It was Hayden who motivated Raúl to create his magnum opus, a visualization of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with Sir Michael Redgrave. In this effort he brought back much interest in the United States for this 1798 epic poem that speaks to the sanctity of all life on Earth. He currently resides in New Haven, Connecticut and is active in writing and filmmaking.