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.

Addy Awards

River Run Productions picked up two Addy Awards at the recent MAC Addy Awards. One for a black and white photography for Covenant Hospital and the other for a video produced for the website of Beam Central Vacuum Systems - International.

The elegant and dynamic website for Beam/Electrolux International, and the Beam U.S.A site as well, were designed by Spinutech.

Bike Week Iowa Style

Happy Valentine's Day.

I looked through our stock footage from last year and I found this fitting shot from Ragbrai. A young girl had "Marry Me Lance?" written on her back at the 35th annual event. Every year during the last week of July it's Daytona Beach meets New Orleans for the bike ride across Iowa. A Marti Gras on bicycles. Up to 10,000 bikes.

Ragbrai is the longest, largest and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world. Last year Lance Armstrong road the majority of the ride and Lance sightings were legendary. This young lady didn't want to miss the opportunity.

We received a call from Franklin Films down Nashville way to shoot a group of Ugandans for the national television program Joni and Friends Television Series. That TV series began airing on TBN this month. The Africans we were taping were riding as a fundraiser for Child Voice International. It gave us an opportunity to learn to ride a tandem bike and shoot HD footage at the same time.

It was a picturesque two hour ride/shoot through the rolling hills between Stout and Cedar Falls, Iowa surrounded by corn, farms and one romantic biker.  

 

Shooting for National Television

The end of 2007 did not only bring opportunities for River Run Productions to video tape many presidential candidates leading up to the Iowa caucuses, but we also did two shoots for the nationally syndicated TV program The Montel Williams Show. The screen shot above shows the young man we shot on location in Marshalltown, Iowa. The other video shoot was in Des Moines.

I thought of this last week as it was announced that Montel would be stopping production after 17 years of being on the air. That's a long for any TV program. Montel won a daytime Emmy Award in 1996 for Outstanding Talk Show Host.

The Political View From Iowa

Where's Waldo? 

Can you spot the political candidate in the above photograph? I took the photo at the Iowa State Fair this past summer and it summarizes what Iowa (and the candidates) went though this past year in Iowa and what the rest of the country (and again the candidates) went through the last couple weeks leading up to Super Tuesday.

We received a call to do camera work at an event where six of the presidential candidates were speaking. Having only seen one candidate in my life I thought it was an excellent opportunity. Little did I know it would be up close and personal as I was within ten feet of most of the candidates.

In the months leading up to the January 3, 2008 Iowa Caucuses I photographed and or video taped a total of 13 presidential hopefuls. More than most states will have on their ballots today. While many of our productions take us outside of Iowa, most of these shots were taken within 10 miles of our office in Cedar Falls. The photos below are part of the fun of being a video producer based in Iowa: