The Planets: A Multi-Media Presentation

Tomorrow night (April 23,2008)  at The Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center there will be an event called Visual Art, the Big Screen, and Orchestral Performance featuring a video we produced of Gary Kelley's artwork and featuring the music from Holst's "The Planets." The music was performed by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony under the direction of conductor Jason Weinberger from the original full concert last November. 

That concert received a triple standing ovation by the over 1,000 people in attendance as well as a fine review by the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. It was an honor to work with with such a talented group of artists and nice to see it be so well appreciated.

Gary Gute from the University of Northern Iowa will be leading a discussion and Q&A on the creative process of bringing together all of the various elements of the multi-media presentation.

Video with Nobel Peace Prize Winner

It's not every day that you get to meet and work with a Nobel Peace Prize winner. In fact, it's only happened once in my life. A couple months ago we received a call to video tape an interview with Dr. Norman Borlaug for Self-Help International.

Dr. Borlaug was a farm boy from Cresco, Iowa who grew-up during the depression and would go on to become one of only five people in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His work in increasing agricultural production has been credited with saving billions from starvation in Mexico, Pakistan, and India. His 1970 Nobel Peace Prize was "in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply."

His work in the 1940's and 1950's is considered to be the spark of the beginning of the Green Revolution. In 1986 he started The World Food Prize which recognizes work being done for the world food supply.

Dr. Borlaug was 95-years-old at the time of the interview and when we took the above photo in Des Moines. His life represents a life lived to the full. This evening the video will be shown as part of a fundraiser for Self-Help International.

Winter in Spring

There were snow flurries as I drove to work today. No April Fools there. That's what I saw and I'm sticking to my story. Last week I had my first white Easter and from the first day of winter to the last day there was snow on the ground here in Cedar Falls.

Having moved to Iowa from Florida almost five years ago it was the first real winter of my life and in the top five winters, snowfall-wise, for the Cedar Valley.


So I guess it makes sense that I would get a call from Lost Island Waterpark in January to shoot an idea they had. They wanted to shoot the water park in all its winter glory for a tongue-in-cheek commercial. It was nine degrees when we shot and with the windchill it had to be below zero.


It gave us a chance to shoot with the Panasonic HVX 200 camera in extreme conditions. We shot HD footage onto a digital P2 card so we didn't have to worry about the tape freezing.


Here's the :30 spot that aired in the tri-state (Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois) area earlier this month as an ice-breaker as we moved from winter to spring and looked forward to the waterpark opening in May when things warm up a bit.