a Storyboard Life: From $20 to Two Hundred Documentary Film Adventures, the Journey of Creative Person

Part memoir, part backstage pass, "Fellows charts her unlikely career as a documentary film consultant via an unusual structural device: a 'storyboard.' which Fellows defines as a 'set of sequential drawings that tell a story in individual frames' used for 'visualizing shot sequences when making films.' Fellows divides this inviting, vivid, and deeply felt memoir into short chapters called 'story frames,' further emphasizing the parallel to the film. But while a movie storyboard is meticulously planned out, Fellows sees her life as 'a storyboard created on the fly' that 'revealed itself just one frame at a time as the future sketched itself out before me.'Fellows...has a sharp command of other techniques, as well. 'Foreshadowing is a tease,' she writes, and her chapters often include abrupt kickers that hint at surprises to come. 'I had not way of knowing this simple call would launch a whole new set of adventures that would involve a set of Sophia Loren's bedsheets and a private island owned by nudists somewhere off the coast of Bermuda' is how she describes the interaction that began her life in documentary film and public television. Fellows blends bits of creative wisdom such as 'ignore the help=wanted ads' and 'find something no one else wants to do...and do a really god job at it' with details of her travels to Italy, London, and Istanbul on work trips. Interspersed among these professional highlights are personal travails like the death of her sister from cancer and the passing of her parents.A Storyboard Life ...captures both the unpredictability and the serendipitous coherence of existence, with artistic inspiration as a through line."Publishers Weekly/BOOKLIFE, editor's starred review"Readers get an insider's look at working in the documentary end of the filmmaking business, following the author through all the nuances of film production and promotion. Fellows recounts romantic relationships, various setbacks and triumphs in raising her two children, and various odd mishaps that seem to befall her in every chapter. She conveys all of this and much more in clear, steady prose ... An involving if slightly uneven chronicle of a documentarian's personal and professional life. On balance, the fascinating vignettes win out." KIRKUS REVIEWS