Since February 2010 I’ve been involved in helping to produce “Amie About Town” with Amie Winters. We’ve got some forty stories to our team credit now. Our philosophy of with “Amie About Town” (AAT) is as follows:

That Sounds Like Fun.

That’s it. That simple. If it’s fun, we’re in.

Sometimes Amie is at the center of the fun, sometimes she’s just along for the ride like you are.

To round out the details, we do have what you might call “categorical parameters.” Fun can assume the shape of: food, dance, art and literature, recreational sport, music, dining out, film or theater, or “zoos/anything else/miscellaneous.”

   This past week was a perfect example. While plotting out our story schedule for the summer and fall Amie and I decided we’d like to do a story on the Irvine Park Zoo. We had no physical plan or strategy of approach — other than show up with camera and batteries during operational hours. Both of us knew that the combination of kids, camera, animals, and Amie would offer intriguing possibilities. So we just piled out of the car and hit the little button that said “do a TV story, go.”

   Sometimes feature shoots are like that –- an exercise in free flowing creative application. One of the first things that happened that day at the zoo was that we spotted a Guinea Fowl standing on a nearby railing, with several children gathered around. A Guinea Fowl is a bird from West Africa that looks like a knight’s helm with a spike sticking out the top. I noticed that the bird was amazingly tame, so I hurried over and began stalking it, camera rolling. When Amie came over I introduced her to the bird. Moments later, Amie blurts out “That duck over there is moving its mouth like it’s talking…” Summon forth the Lennon Sisters, a touch of audio manipulation, a rolling pony, an “angry” goat (but that’s okay!), and volleyball-playing pig, and the rest is WQOW history.

   Even the promos (the little fifteen or thirty second “self-promotional” clips that run during commercial breaks are fun. Like the time we duct-taped the camera to the drivers’-side rear-view mirror and taped Amie “waving at herself” in downtown Eau Claire, or the time we taped her “popping up” about town.

   “Amie About Town” is about community. AAT is about creativity. AAT is about fun.

   Recently we just wrapped up shooting for the current ten-story “third” season.

   Season Four?

   Sounds like fun!

   (You can see this season’s stories on our website, under the Amie About Town page.  While there — be sure to check out “Norwegetarian” and “The Vinyl Countdown” — two other of my favorites from this year.)

Posted under Artist? Scientist? Philosopher? Camera Guy?

Rise Above it All

   The videographer is always interested in trying new and novel things, especially when they involve action, drama, humor, or take the viewer to new heights. I think that it would be incredible to put together a TV story on sky-diving. You know, have the camera in hand and rolling during the entire jump. That way, if my chute didn’t open, I could leave a recorded message for my wife reminding her to roll the garbage out to the curb in time for Tuesday pick-up.

   One of the things I always wanted to do was document a trip in a hot air balloon, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I finally got my chance in the summer of 2008.

   I was stringing together stories for my Weekend Getaway series and I’d contacted Ivan &  Mary Idso of Windrider ballooning about hitching a ride in their balloon. As I’d been told by other balloonists, my chances rested entirely upon the winds of fate. For conditions to be right for a launch, the weather had to be storm-free, and the winds could neither be too strong or too light.

   The three biggest logistical problems with taping a hot air balloon story are getting airborne (see above), landing, and that you get one perspective in between  -– from either ground level or inside the basket. Being inside the basket is of course the place to be, but the view from Earth provides the better shots of the balloon itself. Balloons –- in case you haven’t noticed — are VERY camera-friendly objects –- always colorful and dramatically positioned against a wide open blue sky.

   Inside the basket there’s not much room to move around, but the views both pointed directly up into the balloon, and down at the passing countryside are incomparably photogenic. And there’s nothing at all like the sound – or lack thereof.  Unlike a plane or helicopter, a balloon moves silently (outside of the occasional burst of flame and fan) as it glides over the farm fields, homes, and treetops. As you skim the forests, you can eavesdrop on the intimate conversations of birds below you.

   And landing? That’s an adventure all its own. It is both impossible to tape a landing and at the same instant grab a secure hold of the basket as it reunites with terra firma and bounces along to an eventual stop. If you don’t drop the camera and you live to tell about it, it’s the kind of memory that will last a lifetime of less risky pursuits…

Here’s a clip…

 

Posted under Artist? Scientist? Philosopher? Camera Guy?

   Squeeze Bus

   As I often say, many of my story ideas are triggered by neighbors and family. The world is too wide to keep track of all by one’s lonesome.

   Sometimes I’m simply out of the loop. Sometimes I’m too close to the story to think like a journalist. Sometimes I just miss the bus entirely.

   I owe “Squeeze Bus” to my neighbor Pete Hable.

   A couple of years before the story actually aired, Pete –- who is an adept musician – mentioned to me that a couple of his friends had developed a tradition of performing concerts on city buses during the Christmas season. My journalistic antennae sprang to full attention at that, I promise you. Pete said he didn’t know when they were planning the next event, but that he’d let me know.

   After missing one winter entirely, I finally got word that the musicians –- Paul Cook and Joel Jensen -– had scheduled a play date on the Margaret and malls bus.

   I got to the transfer station in downtown Eau Claire early enough to hear Paul And Joel –- who go by the name “Squeeze This” — warming up with a few holiday classics. As the faithful –- some adorned in holiday-appropriate attire –- assembled, I worked in an interview.

   By the time we loaded up, it was standing room only. The theme was “ride-along sing-along”, of course, so the passengers –- most of whom were riding solely to experience the music –- joined right in on classics like “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer” and Frosty the Snowman” –- unless, of course, Paul decided to change up the lyrics.

   At stops along the way, more than one unsuspecting traveler ascended the steps of the bus, plinked a token in the till, and looked around dumbfounded. I have heard it told that some bus passengers even react angrily to the musical imposition. But most seemed pleasantly assaulted by the prospect of live music for the ride home from work or shopping.

   When we completed the loop and disbanded at the transfer station, people were still laughing or singing to the strains of two squeeze boxes trailing off into the cold and dark of the December night.

    A part of the story as aired is embedded here…

Squeeze Bus

Posted under Artist? Scientist? Philosopher? Camera Guy?