Lisa gained her beat-matching-to-visual editing skills from Toronto’s “mad scientist” drum n’ bass/techno DJ Gerald Belanger (CKLN, nice+smooth, Hypnotic) back in 2000, the year she invested in her first Mac computer with Final Cut Pro v.1. With an Apple-published tome on QuickTime, Lisa soon became a pioneering expert on uploading video to the Internet, pushing short, compressed videos to the web which she often shot and edited.
Over the past two decades, Lisa has collaborated with a diverse range of recording artists and producers, creating artist-driven music videos for the likes of Spookey Ruben, Big Rude Jake, and the electronic music record label, Play Records. She has also worked in live concert/ performance environments, both to document events on video and to create live on-location visual installations, namely for Do Make Say Think (Bloor Cinema, 2001), and TIFF (Drake Underground, 2004). In addition, she has shot hundreds of hours of video for performing artists in dance, theatre and film, and more recently has worked as a videographer documenting corporate conferences for the audio-visual events company, bb Blanc.
Although Lisa’s first passion was the theatre, she soon moved behind the camera, working as a camera trainee and assistant/focus puller on independent short films after finishing high school in the early 1990’s. For five years Lisa gained valuable experience working on set, and in production offices; whether loading magazines as an AC, or breaking down scripts as a 2nd or 3rd AD (TAD), or coordinating scripts and storyboards, Lisa was a passionate and valuable contributor to every project she was invited to be a part of.
In late 1995, Lisa chose to take an extended work holiday and travelled to Vancouver. After six months on the West Coast, Lisa’s expanded horizons led her to meet Ray Hawkins (RAH Media), the founder and publisher of a start-up focused on building a free-press magazine and website. Lisa joined the team at Taxi Vancouver Mag.zine and became the publications Senior Editor. Captivated by the opportunity to work online and energized by the vision she held for the future of new media communications, Lisa devoted herself completely to the magazine and website’s editorial, building a team of writers, editors, photographers, and videographers to produce compelling content every month that would drive and engage readers online.
Upon returning to Toronto in 1999, Lisa completed the New Media Design Programme at the Canadian Film Centre’s MediaLinx h@bitat. She established FTP Media as a Sole Proprietorship (Forward Thinking Productions) that year, and incorporated in 2003. In 2006, the same year that YouTube was established, Lisa took a break from her business pursuits to further her education. Having delayed the completion of her University degree in 1995, Lisa returned to the University of Toronto. She completed her Honours Degree in Cinema Studies and Anthropology in 2016, and began her Master’s Degree in Cinema and Media Studies at York University that same year. After many years pursuing her academic studies, Lisa is excited to return to building FTP Media and engaging in new collaborations with artists, as it brings Lisa back to doing what she loves best. Her collaboration with SystemEcho Recordings is 20 years in the making.
