Bruce Merwin

From 1973-1977, Merwin served aboard the USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) where his duties included assembling air-to-air rockets and maintaining shipboard weapons. He was honored to be stationed on the famous aircraft carrier and sometimes liked activities at sea, the military was not a good career fit for the former liberal arts student. When his four-year Navy hitch ended, Merwin returned to Flagler College. He also attended Florida School of the Arts in Palatka where he received a degree in technical theater. During this period he performed in more than a dozen area plays (among them "Midsummer Night's Dream," "South Pacific," "Cabaret," "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cross and Sword" - the latter, depicting early St.

Augustine history, was designated "Florida's Official State Play") before going to the West Coast in 1978. In California, using his G. I. Bill benefits, Merwin attended Columbia College Hollywood where he received a BA degree in filmmaking. He made the rounds of independent movies and student films, acting and singing in them whenever possible.

Bruce Merwin is a man in motion - producer, cinematographer, actor, singer, writer. . . and if you need it, he can strike a set and probably compose a tune while he's doing it. At an age when some men are wrestling with midlife crisis or contemplating early retirement, Merwin is filming his own motion pictures, and working with the International Cinematographers Guild. Merwin's movies are low budget, independent films set in Florida, being produced by Merwin Films, a motion picture and television production company started in 1980. An overachiever by nature, Merwin's talents and skills began overlapping at the age of 13. While keeping up with his academic studies, he sang in a Miami garage band Victims. At Palmetto High School, he was the lead singer with a rock band called Slaves of Sound. He was a contract singer with John Kennly's Broadway Musicals at the Plaza Hotel on Miami Beach. At the age of 22, he was awarded a drama scholarship to Flagler College in St. Augustine. He attended Flagler only a few months before enlisting in the U. S. Navy. Merwin was born into a military family. His father was a Strategic Air Command pilot.

He returned to Florida in 1980. During the '80s, Merwin produced three (all at the same time) cable TV shows in Palatka, married the former Anne Buynitzky (a medical doctor), and eventually moved to Orlando where he worked as a cameraman, electrician and/or producer on hundreds of TV and industrial shows. Notable among these shows were McDonald's, IBM, General Electric, Chrysler, Cadillac, Ford and Pfizer. After five years of corporate shows, network television and motion pictures opened up to Merwin.

He was an assistant editor on TV's "In the Heat of the Night" (7th season), a gaffer on the feature film "Fire Birds" (Touchstone/BuenaVista - 1990), and an assistant cameraman on TV's "The Old Man and the Sea" (Fuisz/Yorkshire - 1990). It was while working with Anthony Quinn on "The Old Man and the Sea" that Merwin's commitment to multitasking was reinforced. As the millennium unfolded, Merwin went back to California where he honed his filmmaking skills at UCLA and learned the logistics of independent film marketing at the American Film Market Association. He produced, directed and photographed "Double Exposure: The Voice of the Camera," a documentary featuring seven legendary cinematographers (www. firstlightvideo. com), and worked with the City of Beverly Hills as a cameraman on several video programs. He loved the energy of Los Angeles and the opportunities it offered, but his wife passionately missed Florida.