For Commencement 2024, we tried something different.
I’m not referring to our hosting Commencement in a construction site. Though that WAS different. This is my tenth year at KU, and keeping things creatively fresh can be challenging. So, different is good.
Commencement is an emotion packed event with students cheering, crying, laughing, hugging etc… so to tap into those emotions, we turned to the students. We started by looking for students from each of KU’s major schools from the Lawrence and Kansas City campuses and asking them to write a letter to their younger selves. And yes, I realize we were assigning homework to student volunteers while they were trying to wrap up their final semester.
I was a little nervous with this approach. What if the students didn’t get it? What if the construct was “trying too hard?” What if the students couldn’t write well? What if it was super cheesy?
Even with some guidelines and parameters like length and suggestions about themes to write about, I had no actual idea how the different students’ voices might cut together in this format. Plus we added an extra layer of funkiness by having them write to their past… but in the future tense. So I had to wonder if it would even be coherent!
Video is already a team effort and this one relied on more people than usual in unique ways outside of my control. Plus we were trying some new techniques. Like getting some big beefy projectors, figuring out how to blend their images together, plotting the size of the image needed and throw distance, and finding a space that could accommodate it. Shoutout to KU IT and the theater department (especially Ann Sitzman) for their help.
Compared to most of our projects, this felt risky. And it required a lot of extra leg work in uncharted territory. It felt like a win. Anecdotally, it’s nice to get comments like “This is the part of the ceremony that hit me” and “Keep kicking ass.” Plus, it’s always good to see that you made a whole bunch of people cry.
“Letters”
Director: Tim Seley
DP / Editor: Steve Rausch did the heavy lifting on this one. Great job, Steve!
Production Coordinator/Producer: Elizabeth Nelson
Motion Design: Brendan Costello
Additional Design: Susan Geiger
Set photography: Meg Heimovics Kumin, Corey Ransberg
Copy Editing and “script” assistance: Lois Sierra, Christy Lynch
PA / Assistant Editors: Jake Kotzman, Camryn Caruthers
Crafton Preyer Theater Stage Manager: Ann Sitzman
Special thanks to KU IT, KU theater, Lisa Coble-Krings, Wendy Bridges, Joe Monaco, Lauren R. Erickson
Shout out: KU Marketing (for all of the beautiful work on Commencement, this year and every year)
And congratulations and thank you to Shamaria, Jackson, Karame, Joshua, Olivia, Rohan, Kaley, Dane, Mya, Daisha, Oscar, Sofia, Kat, and Faith
One of the more visible projects that my team produces each year is the TV spot for the University of Kansas. It’s a chance for us to lean heavily into the brand and make something that stands out from other institutions. We’ve had some great ones over the years but of the spots I’ve directed I was particularly proud of how well this piece synthesized so many different elements for a totally different look than you’ll see from so many universities.
It started with an all-star script by Justin Wheatley that heavily leveraged the Our Chant Rises brand platform. Lovely new shots courtesy of Steve Rausch with existing shots and elements from Andrew Lee Trevor Mowry and Andy White. And all of it integrated so elegantly and distinctively with a fantastic edit by Brendan Costello that pulled in assets ranging from archival photos to submitted iphone clips with a heavy dose of motion design on top. It was a big challenge to pull so many disparate elements together and he really knocked it out of the park.
Elizabeth Nelson provided a load of logistical support and coordination and couldn’t leave off additional photography and production assistance from Meg Heimovics Kumin and Corey Ransberg. Not to mention the great music crafted by Primary Color Music (with a Dave Gnojek saxophone easter egg) and voiceover by Jake Gillespie. As well as all of the other great people at KU Marketing that helped directly or indirectly on this project.
I’ve been flying drones for eight years now. Long enough that I remember when we hired an actual helicopter to fly around the KU campus to get aerial images. I’ve wanted to compile a reel of my aerial work for awhile and this is the result.
Before Leeanne Krecic was an Eisner and Ringo nominated cartoonist she had the dubious distinction of being my friend and neighbor. With over 5 million subscribers to her comic “Let’s Play”, Leeanne has developed quite an international following and her experiences as an IT professional have given her a unique perspective as a storyteller. She was gracious enough to let me do a short video on her and her comic. Stay tuned as “Let’s Play” is currently on hiatus but is in development for both an anime and live action adaptation.
April 15 is Thomas Hart Benton’s birthday. Arguably the most influential painter from Kansas City he was a key figure in the regionalist art movement. But this post isn’t about Benton, it’s about Michael Mardikes.
A few years ago, I was contacted by Kevin Schwarzenberger. I’d had the pleasure of working for Kevin for several years at Scenic Road Productions. His friend, Nick Vedros had contacted him about a project with Nick’s uncle Mike. For those that have been in the agency or photography scene in KC for a while, there’s a good chance you’ve rubbed shoulders with Nick. And it turns out, photography runs in the family because his uncle Mike was a prolific photographer as well.
In late 2020, Nick’s aunt Myrt had revealed a treasure trove (1,000+) of Mike’s negatives from 1956, all featuring Thomas Hart Benton. In 1956, Mike had struck up a friendship with the painter and was given incredible access to Benton’s home, studio, and work. The result was a collection of striking black and white images, only four of which were ever published.
Nick realized what a historic collection of images his uncle had taken. With Mike now 93 years old, Nick took it upon himself to make sure those images were seen, shared and documented.
I rarely take on freelance projects and the few that I undertake, I do because I care about the project itself. And when Kevin called me, I knew it was a special opportunity. Nick directed, Kevin filmed, and I got to put the pieces together in the edit. And although the photographs were all of Thomas Hart Benton, the documentary was also about Mike, his wife Myrt, and Mike’s first visit back to Benton’s studio since the 50’s.
It was incredible to get to hear Mike’s stories and his remarkable ability to remember specific particulars about each of the images like the camera he used, the film type, camera settings, etc… With projects like this there’s a personal responsibility to make sure that you do justice to the people whose story is being told. And I felt that.
Thanks to Nick’s perseverance, an exhibition of 32 images (along with the documentary) debuted in the Mezzanine gallery at the downtown Kansas City library on November 20, 2021. The photographs are exceptional not only historically, but artistically. It was really rewarding to see Mike escorted around the gallery by Nick, seeing all of his remarkable photography on display.
Mike passed away a month later.
It was a privilege to play a small part in telling his story.
In 2016, I had the opportunity to work with Advice and Aid Pregnancy Center, an organization dedicated to supporting women in crises and unplanned pregnancies. I created this video for their fundraiser, sharing the story of Jenny and Dean’s adoption of their son, Winston.
Producing this video entirely on my own, from filming to editing, was a challenge and a great privilege.
This project was special for several reasons.
It was my first year in my role at KU and I had a lot of trepidation about this project. It’s the highest profile piece we do each year and airs during all of KU’s athletic events. As a perennial basketball powerhouse, that means a lot of eyeballs.
The Jayhawk is usually associated with athletics, but the goal of this piece was to connect the Jayhawk brand with the university’s broader impact on the state of Kansas. We wanted to show how KU supports and affects the entire state, beyond just sports. Over the years I’ve been able to collaborate with some fantastic talented copywriters that are able to bring incredible clarity to a project. But in this first year I actually wrote this script myself though our editorial team helped make it sing.
This commercial was also the first time our team took the production entirely in-house. In previous years most of the actual production had been farmed out. concept to execution, we handled almost every part of the project. Our digital asset coordinator Doug Koch even provided the voice-over, which really brought the script to life.
It was a great moment for our team.
I’ve gone on some great trips in my time at KU. To Hell Creek to dig up T-Rex bones. To Tanzania to follow a group of researchers. To the mountains in Colorado with a group of Geologists.
And Washington DC to film KU’s Wind Ensemble at the Kennedy Center.
This piece is representative of a lot of the documentary style story telling that our team creates.
In my time at Scenic Road Productions I worked with a broad range of clients. Applebee’s, Walmart, Bayer, HCA Midwest, KCPL, Farmland. While we often worked in collaboration with different agencies, we also frequently worked directly with the clients.
