Dan Austin Speaker Profile at The Lavin Agency

The travels were documented in the film, True Fans, recipient of the People’s Choice Award, given to the most popular film screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival; it was also honored at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride as Most Popular Outdoors Film. True Fans has screened to audiences worldwide, everywhere from Nepal, to Iceland, to South Africa. Additionally, Dan and friends gathered signatures of “all the true fans, the ones who will never be in the Basketball Hall of Fame for their athletic talents” on a virgin official NBA basketball. These “true fans” were people who helped the young men along their way; with money, free lodging or sage advice. The basketball is now enshrined in the National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. A musical based on True Fans is currently in development.

Dan is also the director and host of the PBS Television series Tales From the Trail, an exploration of the legends and scenery of Utah’s back-country hiking and biking trails. He filmed a similar pilgrimage for the short film, Pilgrimage of the True Jazz Fans, documenting a bicycle trip from his home in Salt Lake City, UT to the birthplace of Utah Jazz star John Stockton’s birthplace in rural Washington State. The third installment in the True Fans series, Last Game, which documents a millennial mountain bike journey to Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, was completed in 2001. Dan's next film, True Fans Forever, a film shot during several pilgrimages in Scotland, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, Peru, France and the Western United States, will be released in 2004.

Dan Austin takes the audience on a spiritual quest deep into the soul of America. His lively, entertaining lecture celebrates hometown America, the common man, the True Fan. The audience meets a wealth of characters-folk heroes-from the heartland to the Mojave to the Appalachians to the Eastern Seabord: Reverends, pilgrims, trailblazers, vagabonds, farmers, poets, Vietnam vets, miners, streetcleaners… The cultural fabric of America unfolds as Austin spins tales from a vault of journeys, interviews and filmmaking forays, including his 100-day, 4800-mile mountain bike odyssey across the country (the trip behind his celebrated film True Fans). At the heart of Austin's lecture is a discussion of America's grassroots heroism and the role of unique, individual work in sustaining and nurturing this heroism. Audiences leave Austin's lecture inspired and reconnected to their country-more than a few audience members have left the lecture and just kept on going-striking off on their own journeys to rediscover the people and places across town or across the country.

Austin takes the audience on an around-the-world exploration of the power of the journey. Austin draws from his own experiences making movies and going on pilgrimages, as well as the vivid history of what may our oldest, shared, cultural archetype. In an age when folks are always looking for a temporary escape from the rigors of daily life, Austin demonstrates how going on a pilgrimage offers a more permanent solution. For Austin, a pilgrimage is an escape to a new identity, which, when thrown back into action upon return, can recharge and electrify a person's life, transforming what may have before seemed mundane circumstances into an exciting new reality. For Austin, even a weekend journey, a "pico-pilgrimage," can have meaning. Austin demonstrates that it is the same today as it has been for millennia: The road holds all the answers.

Despite shoestring budgets that would hardly cover craft service for larger productions, Austin's films have inspired a musical from Broadway producer Bill Rosenfield, aired on national cable, screened to theatrical audiences in excess of one hundred thousand people all over North America and throughout the world, and liberated filmmakers and adventurers from the fallacy that ample funds are necessary to generate a successful project. Each film has a few things in common: minimal resources but compelling narrative threads and fascinating characters. Austin discusses the process of a roadtrip/travel documentary, from the inception, the journey, sponsorship, post-production, the festival circuit, cable deals and even developing a cottage industry via website development, marketing avenues and DVD authoring. Austin has built his genre from the ground up, turning a bike trip film shot on "ten bucks a day" into a perennial classic and a fun brand. He discusses the advantages of limited resources in driving creative solutions. He discusses the creative balance of the trip versus the film, and some basic conflicts, such as how to capture something pure, when bringing out the camera naturally changes it. He also discusses the pros and cons of going independent, versus signing on with a major player like National Geographic. With the digital and independent film scene exploding, Austin delivers a fun, action-packed lecture that provides sound advice and a compelling framework for filmmakers, adventurers and travelers. Austin demonstrates, as the MountainFilm in Telluride Festival said of him and his films: "How a handheld camera coupled with a good ear can make magic."