He got hooked on writing at age 8 when he won a school safety slogan contest with the phrase, "Don't 'zig' when you should 'zag!'" The prize was a red mechanical pencil with an new eraser and the personal inscription, "Chicago Public Schools."

He got hooked on film at age 9 when his slightly tipsy Dad handed him forever the Regular-8 camera mounted to a four-light flood unit that turned the family room into an operating theater.

With a high school education punctuated primarily by a day designated, "Craig M. Chapman Day " and a photo opp with Carol Channing and the Mayor, he moved on to SIU at Carbondale IL. There he earned a Bachelor's degree in English Education and continued with post- graduate studies in Film. He distinguished himself in there by having his experimental film, The Box, used as source material in a test question and was subsequently snubbed by his classmates and nominated to the American Film Institute. He declined the nomination in a 10 page bio addressed to the then President of the Institute, Charlton Heston.

After college he founded one of the first Super-8 film production companies, FilmArt. Probably more significantly, he founded one of the first companies with a name formed by combining two words with no space between the words.

Then a temporary script-writing job for one of the early corporate television studios turned into a full-time creative services management and writing position at the Bell System Center for Technical Education. Chapman also wrote French fry training programs for a famous French fry company and taught scriptwriting at the College of DuPage at this time.

In the wake of the phone company's deregulation and the end of the Bell System as we knew it, he signed on with a national agricultural cooperative that had 2 Lear Jets and weren't afraid to use them. There he helped design and then managed a state-of-the-art corporate video studio producing videos for coop owners around the country

Spoiled, he left for independent production and worked extensively free-lancing as a writer, producer and director for Illinois companies from Ameritech to Zurich American.

His free-lance status changed when he founded CRAIG VIDEO in 1986 and pursued corporate and commercial assignments garnering several awards and serving a 3 year term as Director of Training for the Chicago Chapter of the International Television Association.

It was during this time too that he developed 9 different training programs which he presented in several cities around the country for the North American Television Institute and the University of Wisconsin.

Between 1992  and 1996 he conceived, wrote and produced on an award-winning series of 5 forty minute parenting programs for a privately owned client company. The programs featured Ms. Michael Learned, of The Waltons fame.

In '96 CRAIG VIDEO evolved into CRAIG MEDIA to reflect a greater emphasis on the web and electronic media production.

Chapman spent the next several years consulting with primarily California companies and organizations as a communications consultant and producer.

In 2001 a large Canadian broadcasting conglomerate began coveting CRAIGMEDIA's domain name, not surprisingly, "craigmedia.com,"  and after upping the American dollar ante sufficiently, became the legal owner of the name. CRAIG MEDIA thus became CRAIG MEDIA WORKS.

Today Chapman divides his time between consulting work, web development and video production assignments in Illinois and the San Francisco Bay area. He is the founder of QualityStreet.com, a brand name local internet directory striving to go regional and also owns and operates a legal video consulting service that specializes in court room graphics and presentations.

Craig is working on a book for creatives in all fields of business, and is developing his own mystery series character who uses a unique blend of high tech and low tricks to solve puzzles and/or wreak justice.

You can bring Chapman's unique web development, writing, producing and directing skills to bear on your projects by contacting him by phone (630) 393-7575,  or EMAIL.

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• Scripts are as complete on the visual side as they are on the audio side. We describe clearly what the viewer will hear and see
• Video and audio transitions are designed and described as integrated elements of the program
• Graphics and character-generated text are numbered independently so you know at a glance how many graphics and CG's are specified. These numbers become as indispensable as time-code during subsequent production steps
• Animation, graphics and CG descriptions are placed in unique boxes so a quick glance gives you a graphic overview of the video layout
• Notes to the producer & director list props and special location, equipment or talent considerations
• Different fonts represent various production elements: interviews, voice-over, on camera, etc.
• Scripts over twenty pages long include an indexed Table of Contents to make scenes and elements easy to find and review
• Scripts over twenty pages long also include lists of props, locations and actors indexed by page number.
• When required, revisions can be noted by date, draft, contributor and the use of distinctive fonts

Producing-- The Partnership
Producing can be viewed as the chores between the initiation of the project and putting the final running time on the label of the master or as a continuing opportunity for creative decision-making and ensuring program effectiveness and originality.
The production of any media program is a collaborative effort, not only between producer, crew and talent, but first, between client and producer. We consider that relationship to be a partnership in productivity and the following responsibilities an element of that team approach:

• Provide clear and complete budget estimates and production contracts
• Provide detailed and accurate invoices that fit the client's management system
• Provide written or verbal project updates that fit the client's need-to-know and schedule
• Use communication styles that fit the client's corporate culture and needs.

Directing--Promises Kept
If scripting is the "head" of a production, directing is the heart.
Kids of all ages . . .
"In the last few years I've worked a lot with kids. It's taught me more about directing, than anything ever did. Going into it I had a strategy that was to set up situations, environments and exercises in which the kids must strive to succeed- and yet- could not fail. The client and crew were sometimes amazed we could get such good stuff so fast. I felt pretty smug about that for about 15 minutes until I realized that we're all kids and that maybe that, "strategy" is the essence of effective directing.
Control is . . . 
"To prepare for a shoot, I do a lot planning, a lot of obsessing over the "what- if's". But when it comes down to doing it, I try to orchestrate it, rather than "control" it.
Good humor . . . 
"You can and must have all your technical support in place and almost taken for granted. That alone, though, is not enough. As the director, your conduct and tone and attitude sets the stage for what gets recorded. A director can lose his thumbs, but not his sense of humor.
Special effects . . .  
"Some directors are great with graphics, they excite with 2D and 3D and layers and animation. My specialty is "animating" human beings, their faces, their bodies, their emotions. When you get all that working, then you've got "real"3-D.
The blink of an eye . . .  
"Whether I write the program or not, I do design it. Elements move and take the viewer=s eye with them. Some people have trouble with actors who blink, I have trouble with an audience who blinks."
"No matter how great a script is, it's still just a promise of the program to come.
It's the director's job to keep the promise."
Craig M. Chapman, November, 2001.

• Analyzed requirements of Curriculum and Budget Departments to write Recommendations & Guidelines for the Local Production of A Distance Learning Program in Elementary Spanish which led to the implementation of a distance learning program that saved the District the cost of over 25 full-time teacher salaries.
• Developed production templates and styles for the Hola Oakland program distance learning pilot and program.

For Safeway, Inc.-

• Designed and implemented audio visual equipment inventory techniques and new purchase criteria as part of relocation services RFP which saved Safeway $36K before the project began.
• Designed 3-tier videoconferencing plan for desktop, management and executive personnel which produced significant savings for Safeway in the course of their corporate relocation from Oakland to Pleasanton, California.