Greg Mellott

Professor Greg Mellott comes from a career of writing and producing in Hollywood and Asia, and has a long friendship with OCCC’s artist-in-residence, Gray Frederickson. Professor Mellott has worked with Jackie Chan and David Chan, producer of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, and traveled all over the world making films – Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Istanbul, Sweden and Spain.Professor Mellott has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Master’s Degree from the University of Southern California, now called the School of Cinematic Arts. He is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa.Professor Mellott won an Emmy in 2008 for a documentary he wrote and directed. “Dream No Little Dream” on the life of Robert S. Kerr. Gray Frederickson produced the film and also won an Emmy. The crew was composed of graduates or current students of the FVP program. He also wrote and directed “The Grand Energy Transition,” a documentary on the book of the same name, written by Robert Hefner III, covering energy, natural gas, and his life story. Professor Mellott continues to write and direct because he believes the best teachers are the teachers who remain artists themselves, who keep challenging themselves through their art — and teach students from that place of inspiration in all filmmakers, students and teachers alike — the artist within you.Professor Mellott was a technical director on Francis Ford Coppola’s Live Cinema Workshop held here at OCCC. He and his students are finishing a documentary on this experience. Professor Mellott with the help of his students has also directed DOGS OF LEXINGTON, a documentary on the prison dog-training program in Oklahoma that helped get the program into a new prison for the first time in 22 years, Mabel Bassett Prison, and also got the program approved by the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association. A second documentary, BASSET TALES, which followed the development of the program at Mabel Bassett, has along with DOGS OF LEXINGTON helped raise $480,000 for a kennel/classroom facility that has been built in Mabel Bassett. Professor Mellott has also completed a documentary on the SCMS mentoring program at OCCC, and is finishing work on another documentary, CHILDREN OF HOPE, about the plight of children with incarcerated parents here in Oklahoma.