John Melville Bishop is a prolific independent filmmaker working in anthropology and folklore.  In addition to producing his own films, he has worked as a free-lance cameraman, editor, archivist, and writer. He has filmed in Africa, the Himalayas, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, and most of the United States.

In the 1980s he managed the accession of John Marshall’s Kalahari footage for the Human Studies Film Archives at the Smithsonian, and in 1989 shot parts of A Kalahari Family. After teaching 12 years in the Department of World Arts and Culture at UCLA, he retired to Portland, OR where he continues making films. Most recently he has videotaped 100 on-location oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement for the Library of Congress and the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.

• Filmmaker Site
• Folkstreams