About
About the Author-Filmmaker, Brian Wizard
Budding poet and songwriter Brian Wizard heard his calling to become an expressive artist during his stint as a combat assault helicopter door gunner in the Viet Nam War in 1968-69, when he realized he was living the highly adventurous lifestyle that makes for good books and movies. It took ten years of settling his mind before he could start to review his gatherings of diaries, Super 8mm film, and still 35mm photos.
As an early pioneer of independent publishing, Brian Wizard released the first and second editions of his first book, Permission to Kill, in his adopted country of Australia in 1981. After six years there, he returned to the states to live and document thirty years of his post-war life in two books, Back in the World and Permission to Live, as well as two movies, Thunderhawks, composed of actual combat footage, and Make Friends Not War, regarding his return to Viet Nam in 1999. In 2005, Brian’s dual-documentary won the New York Independent Film Festival’s Best Documentary (short). In July 2007,
Brian donated the custom-painted combat flight helmet he wore in combat, as shown in Thunderhawks, with his platoon scarf, to the Vertical Flight Collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Va. (See video on website.)
In 2009, forty years after the war, Brian expanded his documentary to add two new music videos and the dedication ceremony of the smoke generator he located, bought, and donated to the SI NASM, which is now installed on the Huey smokeship the museum has on display.
Brian Wizard is a graduate of the School of Expressive Arts at Sonoma State University. Over the years, Brian Wizard has penned many stories.
Click here for Brian Wizard's resume as found in the following Marquis' Who's Who reference books, which are distributed around the world and in all major reference libraries.
Who's Who in: America - Business and Finance - Communication and Media - Entertainment - Emerging American Leaders - the West, and the World. Brian Wizard also has his work and name in space, via the time capsule Space Arc, in American archives such as the Library of Congress, (via copyrights) and the military history, as well as an international reputation as an artist and publisher.