Fire-Wired Blog

Somewhere along the line I earned the professional title of "Multimedia Specialist." I really like this title as it doesn't imply expertise, just that I am someone who can be turned to for guidance and information. I've always relished the opportunity to offer insights on a project or kick around a project's digital potential -gives me a sense of ownership in the final product. Sadly, my track record of searching out guidance is dreadful. I've never had a mentor or been someone's apprentice. While in San Francisco, somehow the cloud's parted and a mystical force gave me the opportunity to shadow a news camera man I greatly admired, but I've never had that person I could turn to to bounce ideas off of and help me steer the ship that is my career. While I am may be navigating the jungle without a guide, that doesn't mean I can't lay bread crumbs for others behind me. As you might recall, earlier this summer I lead a team of filmmakers for

Last Friday I had the unexpected pleasure of taking pictures for the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism's Future's Forum. A couple week's earlier I was given the photog assignment, but few details except for a handful of choice people to photograph. It wasn't until I showed up that I found out it was a Greenlee event (a school I have a little history with). It turns out the "Futures Forum" is a chance for current journalism students to hear from industry execs, ISU grads in the field and  current  students with unique intern experience. This year's panel was made of a senior editor at Better Homes & Gardens, an Ag magazine exec, an graduate who now works at ESPN and a student who recently interned for Rolling Stone and Maxim. For the majority of the forum I was looking for different photography angles, but after the M.C. held a cheer for the recently deceased and beloved professor, Barbara Mack, and announced the topic, my interes

A year ago my favorite web property was Foursquare, this year it's Kickstarter . What is Kickstarter? Well in its own words... Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others. Basically if you have a passion project, and don't have the capitol, Kickstarter gives you the platform to crowd-source the dough. Recently Bridget Gongol, the sister of one of my best friends, used the site to raise funds for her children's book shown above. Like most of the projects on Kickstarter, she only needed a small amount of money to get her project off the ground. Bridget's book is quite fun and very colorful, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of "Crocodile Life is Hard ...and Other Observations"  and follow her blog for r

Last night my 48 Hour Film Project team, Tiny Explosions, had it's short film screened at the fleur cinema in Des Moines (trailer below). Not only was this the first time I've lead a 48 Hour Film team, it was the first time a film project that I've Directed/Produced was shown on the big screen, I was all kinds of excited to see how it would play out and how the crowd would react. Needless to say my stomach was full of butterflies. They ate it up. Seriously, we could not have received a better crowd reaction. There was so much laughter some jokes were drowned out because the audience was too loud. It was amazing.  While I was pleasantly surprised with the audience, I was not surprised with the product. As you may know, I am currently in grad school for Software Design and Programming, and a good portion of my classes have dealt with project management and project architecture/framework. As it turns out Information and Communication Tec

I am an ardent supporter of what many people find to be menace, web advertisements. CNET.com's YouTube channel starts all of their videos with 30 second Ads and without fail one of their top comments is always someone complaining about sitting through an Ad. Get over it people , those ads are what make that content possible and keep the web free, and for minuscule content creators such as myself, these ads are a minor way to receive some form of payback from projects we've worked hard on.  For web-viewers there is no easier way to support a page you receive free content form than by clicking on an ad.  For instance, one local blogger I really enjoy is Barefoot Angie Bee , in a recent post she opened up about her struggle with Multiple Sclerosis . Her post was well written, heartfelt and inspiring... and I could have done the easy thing and left a supportive comment, but instead I clicked on every sidebar graphic/link on her page. See many content providers get paid on a pay-

Today the second issue of the Forward Magazine mailed, the magazine produced by the Iowa State University Foundation which focuses on philanthropy's impact on the University. I've mentioned the magazine in a previous post , but considering this magazine prints only three issues a year, I thought I might share some of my work.  If you look real close, squint your eyes and tilt your head back at a 57˚ angle you can see my credit on the back page of the magazine. Beyond my usual video work, I also snapped a couple photos for this issue. That interesting piece of art on the back page was photographed by yours truly. Magazines are an interesting bird. Just as newspapers are slowly dying, magazines are as well. Forward, I believe, flys in the face of that trend. No one is purchasing this magazine, it goes specifically to donors and is meant to give much wanted insight into ways private donations impact the facilities, faculty and students of the University. I am quit

Today I decided there was no way around it, I had to advertise my distaste for Facebook, on Facebook. I've mentioned in the past my feelings about the king of social networks, but after getting a slew of non-family friend requests I did decided the best way to keep from hurting peoples feelings was to lay it all on the line. Facebook is a HUGE "time suck." Before I laid 300 friends to waste last fall I was just as bad as your average tween, checking my phone every couple hours for what's happening in the socialsphere. I guess it's good for brands, organizations, businesses and what not, but it's not for me. This company wants all your private information and they want to flip it for a buck. I don't want my face showing up in the sidebar ads, I don't care about edgerank, beacon, socially crafted advertising, sketchy t.o.s. and I don't want to give you something without getting something in return -not unless I can interact with you in the rea

If Apple is truly the lion of the computing industry right now, than it seems only fitting that its most recent iteration of OS X is the thorn in its paw. Thanks to less-than-stellar reviews, one going so far as to claim OS X 10.7.3 was " Apple's Vista Moment ," I held out as long as I could to upgrade my MacBook Pro . And if it wasn't for new software requiring the operating albatross, our laptop would be roaming the computer jungle issue free as a graceful snow leopard. Everything I was worried about is true ; Preview windows takes 5+ seconds to buffer files. Finder searches, formally instantaneous, seem to have been refashioned in an homage to Microsoft. Pointless screen animations abound for fullscreens Launchpad and Dashboard continue to be a waste of computing power. Quicktime video playback is choppy. Upon upload, Preferences are rewired for no reason what-so-ever. There's plenty more to list -I could write 500 words on Finder windows alone-

When you start a new job inevitably you get asked what you miss most about your old job.  Easy, writing music for kids. In December of 2009 CRI started producing a show for kids aptly titled "Kids Show." Jon Hoffmann, the shows producer came up with a long list of cool segment ideas, one I threw in the pot was music videos. I teamed up with my coworker A.J. Hodgeman and started working on some song possibilities under the moniker PB & AJ . First we tackled the standard public dominion tunes ( Old MacDonald , ABCs , Hickory Dickory Dock , etc) but that well ran dry rather quick, so we had to come up with our own songs real quick.  Of the 11 songs/videos we produced the children's standards were the most popular but not my favorite. Below, in no certain order, are my favorites. I do wish the child's play could continue but sometimes you trade one hobby for another. Where I used to write kids tunes and produce music videos, now I make absurd short films . May

What you see above is the finished product of four months of work, a dozen interviews, a bunch of b-roll shots, and meetings upon meetings. A seriously large project and done for an audience of... two people. Hey that's what happens here in the world of higher education fundraising and stewardship. This project was almost like producing a documentary into the way private giving has impacted over 100 students at ISU and thousands of people around the world. Quite a cool project for my first big assignment. I worked with a team of 10 people building everything we wanted to touch on and figuring out who we needed to feature. I really wish I could share it with you but thems the breaks. I'm really proud of the finished product and I hope the donors enjoy it.

No ever gets out. So what do you do? You run. A short filming Starring Brian Hogan, Andrew Stephen Pratt, Tim Denner - Directed by Patrick Boberg & Brian Hogan - Produced by Patrick Boberg. My latest short film as promised. Why did we call ourselves the Boberg Family Trust? Too ridiculous a reason to discuss here . Considering many of my video projects for work do not get released on the internet, you may be seeing quite a bit more of my extra-curricular video work. Hope you enjoy it, leave me your thoughts in the comment section.

Take Five guys, six hours, a camera, a boom mic, stir and what do you get? A 5 minute suspense-thriller we dubbed "The Chase Begins." If you've checked out my personal blog  before you know I'm a bit of a film fanatic. I've reviewed films, I've scored them, and FINALLY! I'm making them. Since January I've made two short films with my longtime friend Brian Hogan. In January we made " Master of Puppets ," an absurd dark comedy showcasing the seedy underbelly of the puppet world, and just this weekend we shot the afore mentioned  "The Chase Begins." What was the impetus? Our mutual starving artist actor friend, Andrew Stephen Pratt , was back in town for a couple days from NYC, so of course we took advantage of his talents and grabbed my camera. Without giving too much away I'll say the movie is pretty much a long chase sequence. I doubt I'll ever make a feature length film, but right now, I'm in love with short, g

Recently this video came across my gReader . It's a couple years old but I love it. Of course because of the client headache story arc, but also because of what it says about people dealing with "creative" situations. Everyone likes to believe they are creative and when they are given a project to let that show, they strike. And while people feel they are creative, they generally worry that others, and definitely unknowns, are either not creative or need some hand-holding. Sometimes creative license leads to great things, sometimes bad things, sometimes project leads are so uncomfortable in the group mindset they micro-manage the project to death. I think we all know how painful that can be. Prior to my new job I've always worked in media production environments. Coworkers have always been some variation on my talents. The Foundation is much more of a classic work environment; numbers, clients, budgets... I am an outlier as employee talents go. I rarely deal

Last night I filmed an ISU student event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, "Universities for a Better Iowa." The short and sweet is students from all three major Iowa universities have banded together with the Governor's office and the State Board of Regents to lobby legislators to either increase higher ed spending, stop state funding cuts and/or slow funding cuts. Obviously the preferred action would be the increased funding. There were roughly 300 people attending, mostly made up of students, and over half of them were University of Northern Iowa students. If you know anything about what's been going on at UNI you know they've been dealing with cuts in hard fashion recently . Considering my employer and as a product of a public university - Go Cylones! - I am absolutely on board with their mission. The problem is they are going about it in a very old fashion way; Public events, state tour, lobbying at the state capitol building... These are all smart i

One of the stories buzzing around the internet right now is jobseekers being asked to supply their Facebook password during job interviews. American Public Media's Marketplace had a really good discussion on this week and Tuesday the ACLU fired off a declaration saying it's an invasion of privacy. Well yeah, of course it is. In the Marketplace story Kai Ryssdal brought up the bizarre fact that interviewers can't ask applicants if they have kids and yet somehow they can demand Facebook passwords. Very topsy-turvy. A few of the blogs I follow provide insight into how to handle interviews and provide well crafted answers to tough questions such as salary requirements, short employment stints on resumes, how to discuss negative experiences without coming off as snake bitten, etc. I'm going to assume this practice will become illegal just the same as the kids question, but until that point, if prospective employer makes this request it seems that there are a few p

Somehow this TED discussion from threes years ago popped into my gReader today and I fell in love with it. I have never heard of this man before, Simon Sinek, but I love this presentation. People don't buy  what you do, they buy why you do it. If you're going to bypass my thoughts at least watch the first six minutes of this video. I love that Mr. Sinek broke down his thoughts on leadership, innovation, marketing and consumption based on brain processes and consumer intuition. "It just doesn't feel right" or the gut reaction is huge. The idea of unconscious intuition makes and breaks the leadership-innovation-product-producer-consumer relationship.  I'd say the majority of people work in an environment where they might believe in their organization but don't believe in their leadership. When you can't stand behind your leaders you aren't working to your highest. It's an idea that shows in Sin

When you change jobs the first thing people ask you is how do you like your job. Hopefully most people like their new gigs otherwise you're in for a long and incessantly painful 9-5. Generally the second question is how is your new job different from your old one. For me the answer is easy: It's far more organized . I loved my old job. We were a bunch of kids having fun with cameras. We were very serious when it came to the news and public event production but outside of that it was a lot of goofing around. Each day was very casual and people were just expected to do what they could. With a smaller cast of characters you're just expected to do your job, accountability is front and center for all to see. The ISU Foundation is very different from CRI. The Foundation is 100 employees strong, whereas CRI was constantly in flux between 12 and 15 employees. When you work in an organization with 12 other people your work is very out in the open. Everyone knows what yo

One of the few topics that comes naturally to me is history. My Dad is a bit of a history nerd and after childhood full of museums and presidential trivia I passively became infected with the passion for yesteryear. Seems fitting that I've worked on a handful of historical documentaries.  Recently, the Foundation made a decision to hold a major banquet at Iowa State's newly renovated State Gym, and as part of the program for the evening, I was tasked to dig up some history on the facility. I got really excited and contacted the ISU Special Collections Department  to see what they have on the old gym. Turns out quite a bit. Above is a picture of the Iowa State COLLEGE State Gym circa 1918. Built in 1913 and opened in 1914, the State Gym was at one point considered "one of the finest gyms west of the Mississippi." The State Gymnasium was the first multi-purpose gym on campus. It housed two basketball courts, a suspended track, a swimming pool, a basement lev

When I blog about my 9-5 I tend to talk about the perks; interviewing someone cool, filming something people might be jealous of, getting into sporting events free...   For the most part I get to do some cool stuff because of the nature of my work. Some things I get to cover I assume are going to be cool but end up being something entirely different. Welcome to today.   This morning I set up shop at 9:30 a.m. in the atrium of Howe Hall for a town hall meeting featuring the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. I was sent to film the event and the University's President interacting with him. Well the VP's people didn't want every camera man gumming up the works so during the time when Biden and Leath were together there were only 2 cameras allowed to film them, one from the news affiliates, one from the University. I let the College of Engineering guy take the University position. What I didn't realize was my choice doomed me to standing in p

This week the Foundation mailed out the first issue of its new magazine, "Forward," and coinciding with its release is the release of my first videos for the Foundation. As I've stated before, The ISUf's main purpose is to raise funds for Iowa State. For scholarships, for facilities, for endowed faculty, for programs, etc. "Forward" Magazine is meant to highlight the cool things ISU is doing and keep donors informed about where their funds are going. It's a pretty cool magazine. I'll probably produce 5-6 more videos for the next issue which will mail in June. Up to this point I've been doing a lot of prep and planning for upcoming projects and reworking previous video material for different purposes, but the last couple of weeks I finally got to shoot a couple of videos. The one above and this one: These videos, along with 3 others I edited from old content, are supplemental material to an article discussing the use of

For many, discovering how to make money off of what they love to do is not easy. I am no different. I love to make videos and I love the boundless nature of the internet. Problem is I didn't properly equip myself to make money off my fanaticism right out of college. I enjoy broadcast journalism but its more of a necessity for videographers than a passion. Well recently through the wonders of web 2.0 - remember that term? - things are changing. Right after I graduated in 2005 I signed up for Google AdSense and thought "If others can make a bucks off their blog readers, why can't I?" Well the problem was the ads were ugly and I felt kind of a drug mule for Google. I turned off the ads and didn't touch my AdSense account for 6 years, last October. YouTube opened my various accounts up for monetization and I decided why not give it another shot.  So I placed text ads on about 5 or 6 of my most popular videos. I was averaging just over a buck a month until rece

If you know me outside of the information super highway you know I am no longer a television producer. That's right I quite my job and as of January 9, 2012 I am the Multimedia Specialist for the Iowa State University Foundation. Hooray! The new gig is very similar to what I've done in the past; filming events and putting together videos. The main difference being now my work is used to promote Iowa State and cultivate & steward donors for the University. Of course there are other responsibilities but this is the quick and easy explanation. I wish I had an example of my work to share with you but projects take a little longer to perculate here than a TV station. This post isn't to tell about my new job, no it's more about HOW I got my new job. Like the social media maniac that I am, I'm proud to say I discovered the Foundation's position through Linkedin. That's right I'm one of the 16% of job seekers who found their new gig through th

After 5 years in the news-media I am out. Forever? Who knows. But for the forseeable future I'm a Multimedia Specialist for the Iowa State University Foundation . The Foundation is a non-profit fundraising entity that raises funds for the University and helps promote its mission. My role is to produce multimedia content to that end; videos, presentations, advertisements and more. It's really exciting, I've had some fun calling myself the Foundation's in-house documentarian. Today I took advantage of the beautiful weather and used my equipment for the first time. Shot a building on campus. Not for any specific project, just to learn the camera. After that I took five minutes and shot the weather on campus. Not a perfect video, but for my first DSLR filming experiment, I think it turned out well.