A WORK IN PROGRESSMy name is Miles Maker--the Writer, Producer, Director, Camera Operator and Story Editor of "Brown Baby," my debut feature film. I am also an ex-husband, fiancé and father of seven children by six different women, and by all practical definitions--I am a deadbeat Dad.
My journey isn't entirely unlike many other fathers with good intentions and bad choices who have subsequently lost their way. I have two sons from my 4-year marriage--I was 29 when our first child was born. I single-handedly destroyed my marriage and paid the price for a woman's scorn. I was so detached I didn't even know she filed for the divorce until it was final, and the child support order issued by the court in my absence exceeded my income. I didn't stand a chance--and once I fell behind…
Although I was an unfaithful and disrespectful husband, I never truly considered life AFTER marriage. It was simply incomprehensible to me. What an asshole I had become! My world imploded around my mistakes while my decision-making digressed from poor to piss-poor. I surrendered what little control I had left of my life in search of something I lost the day I broke my wedding vows. I wandered the world—devaluing myself and countless women at every opportunity. I jumped from city to city and woman to woman and bed to bed with everything I owned flung over my shoulder in an over-sized duffel bag. I carelessly conspired with like minds and conceived three more children in three different countries over a six-year period I now refer to as my Dark Ages.
At each humiliating point in my life when I felt things certainly couldn't get any worse, I discovered I was sadly mistaken and sank even deeper into a self-loathing state of mind. I blamed everything and everyone for my misfortune--running toward each new relationship for meaning and self-worth. In hindsight, I acknowledge a blessing in disguise when my UK Visa expired and I was denied re-entry into the country and promptly banished to New York City on the next available flight. I shrugged it off and checked into a homeless shelter on 4th Street and Avenue D on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with $3.68 in my pocket. Having nowhere else to go and nothing but time on my hands, I found myself writing again for the first time in a long time--with timely affect. It forced me to stop running; to turn around and face myself. I stared long and hard at my human condition; my weakness; my inner demon--and I chose to exorcise it.
Ironically my first child is unknown to me. He was given up for adoption without my knowledge or consent when I was 18 years old, and it plagues me to this day because I don't even know his name. I was given up at birth myself and became a ward of the Waverly Childrens Home in Portland, Oregon. I have yet to unravel the mystery of knowing who my own birth parents are, but I thank my mother every day for giving me life. Despite the fact abortion was illegal (I was born before Roe vs. Wade), her selfless choice to carry me was hers alone to make. I was raised under spirit-breaking conditions as an adopted child (to say the least) and I quickly learned to escape into fantasy novels and storytelling for comfort and solace. If not for rediscovering my passion to write as an adult, I don’t know what might have become of me as a lonely homeless man. I retreated to that safe familiar space inside myself--it grounded me and re-energized my soul. I soon discovered my writing style had changed--after seeing so much my voice was visual. I began to explore screenwriting—then filmmaking. New York City became my home; a place to begin anew. I began to forge a career-path as a filmmaker by setting attainable daily goals I could achieve and build upon. I eventually left the shelter to squat in a friend’s dilapidated brownstone in Harlem in 2005. Netflix became my film school while the ceiling eroded above me—literally.
Ironically my first child is unknown to me. He was given up for adoption without my knowledge or consent when I was 18 years old, and it plagues me to this day because I don't even know his name. I was given up at birth myself and became a ward of the Waverly Childrens Home in Portland, Oregon. I have yet to unravel the mystery of knowing who my own birth parents are, but I thank my mother every day for giving me life. Despite the fact abortion was illegal (I was born before Roe vs. Wade), her selfless choice to carry me was hers alone to make. I was raised under spirit-breaking conditions as an adopted child (to say the least) and I quickly learned to escape into fantasy novels and storytelling for comfort and solace. If not for rediscovering my passion to write as an adult, I don’t know what might have become of me as a lonely homeless man. I retreated to that safe familiar space inside myself--it grounded me and re-energized my soul. I soon discovered my writing style had changed--after seeing so much my voice was visual. I began to explore screenwriting—then filmmaking. New York City became my home; a place to begin anew. I began to forge a career-path as a filmmaker by setting attainable daily goals I could achieve and build upon. I eventually left the shelter to squat in a friend’s dilapidated brownstone in Harlem in 2005. Netflix became my film school while the ceiling eroded above me—literally.
I began to establish myself as brand--building on my passion and commitment to motion picture art and commerce. I have no idea where my tireless efforts will take me, but I'm committed to my professional success and realizing my full potential. Repairing my relationships with all of my children and their mothers and providing for them is of paramount importance to me. I myself am quite comfortable living a lifestyle of modest means--I'm happy and content these days. I prefer to live this way indefinitely; reinvesting in my children, my art and my communities from this point forward.
In learning to love myself again, I reopened the inevitable door to being love and be loved in the process--and yet another child is born. He is my youngest (and perhaps my last) child, and she is my fiancé; we love and fully accept each other wholly and unconditionally--thus my concept of family is born. I now truly understand and respect the concept of fatherhood; what being a father is all about, and the importance of a father in a child's life. My newfound appreciation for motherhood and the unfathomable void single mothers fill in a father's absence is enlightening. My daily role as caregiver for my son has also fostered maternalistic qualities in my personality, which has made a positive impact on my filmmaking philosophy to nurture our collective community of creatives. 
All of my problems are far from solved or resolved and the challenges I face are often daunting, but I feel good good about the man I am. I take full responsibility for the man I wasn't and look forward to the man I will become. My intentions are as good as they've always been but my priorities have changed. Having said that, "Brown Baby" is a labor of love and commitment; uniting my passion for storytelling with my life's purpose to provide for and nurture my own children and mentoring others. Although 'Brown Baby' is not a biographical film, I will nonetheless draw upon my own experiences in depicting the hopes, fears, failures and aspirations of fathers like myself who are simply seeking some inspiration and motivation to do the right thing.
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