Essencia Media: About Production

Mary McNeill, left, and
Maxine Watkinds
Mimbres, New Mexico

Maxine Watkinds
Middle school teacher, administrator, and writer, Watkinds makes poems and keeps journals on her travels. She worked in the shipyards as a teen, sorted flower bulbs as a young mother of three, and put herself through college in her 40s.

She partnered with McNeill in a restaurant operation, only to lose everything either thought they'd ever have, before deciding to co-design and build two log homes in Oregon and a small casita on Bahia Concepcion in Baja. They then moved to Mimbres, New Mexico, where they learned to ride horses at ages 63 and 73. Watkinds looks forward to new camping and fishing adventures and to becoming a great-grandmother soon.

Confronting the Troll is her first video project.

Maxine: "It was painful having to exclude many of the interviews we were granted. Some of the exclusions were for our inadequate technical experience, others for the damages done to the tapes by time. All the interviews are dearly appreciated and those not included are remembered in journals and in our memories.

If ever we are granted the time and opportunity to do similar interviews with male artists, we will heartily do so; for I suspect the insights gained, though from a different point of view, will be just as rewarding."

Mary McNeill
McNeill has published poems and short works. She taught developmental and college English and creative writing. After high school, she was a weather observer in the Air Force, an x-ray technician, a picker of cherries and beans, the operator of a cannery for a retirement home, and was willing to do anything legal for a dollar to support her son while putting herself through college with the help of the G.I. Bill.

She grew up wanting to be a cowgirl but got a late start. She would like to learn to weld and to play the French horn again.

Confronting the Troll is her first completed video project.

Mary: "What began as a reason for travel turned out to be more than I ever imagined it could be. The generosity of all the women who granted interviews was amazing. They opened their minds, their hearts, and their homes to us. We asked them to give us gems, and they did.

It wasn't until we viewed all the raw footage that we understood how their revelations could be a source of inspiration and encouragement to others as it was, and is, to us. And that, although it took 16 years to finally confront my troll, it is our responsibility and pleasure to share it."

Wanda Snyder, Creative Media Technician
Silver City, New Mexico

"Editing the project was like childbirth: long and painful, but worth it. And you forget about the pain. I'd do it all over again."

Western New Mexico University Senior, Snyder is a Work-Study student in the Media Center. She looks forward to being a graduate student and teacher.

"Confronting the Troll - Women Honor the Creative Impulse would still be in the producer's closet in raw videotape form if not for the talent, patience, and access to the necessary equipment through the work-study program in the WNMU Media Services. Our luck in finding Snyder at the right time was a most fortunate occurrence She enabled me to face down the troll." -- MMc

Beth Hodder, Transcriber
Mimbres, New Mexico

"In collaboration with Essencia Media on two projects, I provided a transcript of the raw interviews for Confronting the Troll, which the producers Mary McNeill and Maxine Watkinds used to help them edit the working script; and they, in turn, helped edit my book, The Ghost of Shafer Meadows."

Writer, publisher, teacher, Hodder has worked for the US Forest Service as a mail clerk, tree planter, rare plant surveyor, and as manager of wilderness trails and recreation programs. Patient and untiring, she volunteers to rehabilitate wilderness sites and in seed collection programs.

She is promoting her first youth adventure book, The Ghost of Shafer Meadows, drawing on her experiences in the Forest Service for background, and is working on the next book of the planned series.

Like her character, Jessie, Hodder lives in the home of the forest ranger. Find more information on her work online at www.grizzlyridgepublishing.com

"Her work on the script for Confronting the Troll was invaluable. We could not have made the film without her work. And our labor on her book was a great pleasure."-- MMc

Confronting the Troll - Women Honor the Creative Impulse was taped using a hand-held Sony HI-8 Camcorder in 1991 and 1992.