In 1984, Media Generation started in Massachussetts as a film production company providing freelance camera and editing services in 16mm film and video. It is also the primary distributor of film by John Melville Bishop.
We are currently headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

Unless otherwise noted, Media-Generation DVDs are NTSC all-region, replicated from glass masters by Discmakers and boxed in standard commerical DVD packaging. Whenever possible, we included additional footage, extra videos, and related texts on the DVD.

In 1969 John Bishop abandoned the idea of writing fiction and taught himself documentary photography and film. In 1971-72 he spent 1 ½ years in Nepal while his wife investigated the socio-ecology of langur monkeys in a Himalayan forest while living in a Buddhist temple village. Thirty years later his association with the village continues. It was the subject of his first book (An Ever Changing Place, Simon & Schuster 1976), and of the ethnographic film, Himalayan Herders (1997), which covers 25 years in the life of the village. He has made (produced, shot, and edited) more than twenty ethnographic films, often in collaboration with folklorists and anthropologists. Rhesus Play (1977) was an investigation of why monkeys play. The Land Where the Blues Began (1979) explores the musical and sociological origins of the blues and was made with folklorists Alan Lomax and Worth Long. New England Fiddles (1984) and New England Dances (1990)
present French, Scottish and Irish music and dance traditions in the northeast United States. The Last Window (1989) follows the nationally renowned Connick Studio of Boston making their final stained glass window. Khmer Court Dance (1992), Cambodian Court Dance: The Next Generation (2001), are the fruit of a long-term collaboration with Cambodian ethnomusicologist Sam Ang Sam and choreographer Chan Moly Sam. Seasons of Migration presents the choreography of Sophiline Shapiro and a new iteration of Cambodia dance.Hosay Trinidad (1998) looks at the complex communities that come together for a Shiite Muslim observance in the Caribbean. As an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, John Bishop worked with both professional and student dancers and choreographers in translating dance to the screen.