Derek Garrison – Public Educator / Filmmaker (Van Damned)

Derek Garrison

Take a walk with me down Fascination Street as I get to know Derek Garrison. Derek is the principal at a public high school in Oregon. He is also a filmmaker. In this episode, we get to know Derek and what made him decide to be a public school educator, and more specifically a principal. We also find out if he is the cool principal or not! We take a small detour and discuss one of the most important topics of our generation: Bar-B-Que on a cross-country road trip. Then we get into Derek’s filmmaking. He has made several short films and other projects; and we cover a fair bit of them. We do discuss his recent short film called ‘A Hint of Menace’; which is available for free on YouTube. Then we talk about his new feature film called ‘Van Damned’. The behind the scenes of the making of this film is very fascinating to me. The reason that Derek decided to make this film, makes him one of the coolest dad’s I have ever come across. I won’t spoil the reasons here, but trust me, there aren’t a ton of fathers who would do this for this reason. Derek shares some of the journey and obstacles that were in the way, and how he maneuvered around and through them to get this feature made. ‘Van Damned’ is doing great things on the festival circuit, and at the time of this episode’s release; SHOULD be available to stream on most platforms. Check your favorite streamers & VOD platforms. I can’t wait to see what else Derek has up his sleeve for future projects.