As the long Iowa winter slowly retreated, snow melt from the record snowfalls saturated the ground. Spring rains rolled in wave after wave without an opportunity for the ground to dry.
River levels began to rise but no one was ready for what was about to happen.
Torrential rains to the North of Cedar Rapids, Iowa began making their way downstream. Coupled with the huge amounts Eastern Iowa had already experienced, the rivers finally left their banks.
Flood stage of the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids is 12 feet. When the river finally crested the level stood at 31.1 feet.
Over 25,000 people were evacuated from their homes, 438 city blocks were underwater. Bridges were completely covered and just to get to Iowa City from Cedar Rapids, normally a 30 mile drive was now almost a 300 mile one way trip to avoid the flooded roads.
They believe that it will be almost ten days before the river drops below flood stage. Early property value estimates of the damage Cedar Rapids experiences exceeded $736,000,000.00.
The response from Iowans from all walks of life has been amazing thousands of people came out to help their neighbors sandbag their houses even after their own houses were claimed by the rising flood waters.
Businesses realizing their own business was a lost cause, dismantled the walls of sandbags surrounding their exterior walls and took them to their competitors in order to try and save them if possible.
Although the river has crested in Cedar Rapids, the water is moving downstream and the city of Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa is currently under siege from the rising waters.
You can see a little bit of the devastation from some video I shot on the way to get supplies. There’s no telling how long it will be before supplies can start rolling back into Cedar Rapids on a regular basis.
The link to the video can be found here.
14
Mar
2008
Mar
2008
Bill to Reduce Shooting Fees in National Parks
March 14th, 2008 at 16:48 pm by admin in News
Currently small production companies are lumped into the same group as the major motion picture companies.
Any filming in National Parks for commercial purposes requires a permit, location fees and other fees may be applicable.
One or two filmmakers with minimal equipment such as just a camera and tripod are exempt from location fees but are still required to pay for a permit and additional fees may be applied as well.
The current law was never intended to include the small indie film crew but language was never included to exempt the independent.
Still photographers are exempt from this law as they lobbied to have language included in the current law to exempt them from these requirements.
A bill is currently in committee that will allow the small film and video companies of five or less crew members to be exempt from any fees other than a single yearly permit which would cost $200.
Currently you would need a permit for each park you wished to shoot on and would likely have to pay additional fees on top of that.
Below is a summary of the bill that is currently in committee:
H. R. 5502
To amend Public Law 106-206 to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to require annual permits and assess annual fees for commercial filming activities on Federal land for film crews of 5 persons or fewer.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 27, 2008
Mr. BOREN (for himself and Mr. YOUNG of Alaska) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend Public Law 106-206 to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to require annual permits and assess annual fees for commercial filming activities on Federal land for film crews of 5 persons or fewer.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to provide commercial film crews of 5 persons or fewer access to film in areas designated for public use during public hours on Federal lands.
SEC. 2. ANNUAL PERMIT AND FEE FOR FILM CREWS OF 5 PERSONS OR FEWER.
(a) In General- Section (1)(a) of Public Law 106-206 (16 U.S.C. 460l-6d) is amended by–
(1) redesignating paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) as subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C), respectively;
(2) striking `The Secretary of the Interior’ and inserting `(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided by paragraph (3), the Secretary of the Interior’;
(3) inserting `(2) OTHER CONSIDERATIONS- ‘ before `The Secretary may include other factors’; and
(4) adding at the end the following new paragraph:
`(3) SPECIAL RULES FOR FILM CREWS OF 5 PERSONS OR FEWER-
`(A) For any film crew of 5 persons or fewer, the Secretary shall require a permit and assess an annual fee of $200 for commercial filming activities or similar projects on Federal lands administered by the Secretary. The permit shall be valid for commercial filming activities or similar projects that occur in areas designated for public use during public hours on all Federal lands administered by the Secretary for a 12-month period beginning on the date of issuance of the permit.
`(B) For persons holding a permit described in this paragraph, the Secretary shall not assess, during the effective period of the permit, any additional fee for commercial filming activities and similar projects that occur in areas designated for public use during public hours on Federal lands administered by the Secretary.
`(C) In this paragraph, the term `film crew’ includes all persons present on Federal land under the Secretary’s jurisdiction who are associated with the production of a certain film.’.
(b) Recovery of Costs- Section (1)(b) of Public Law 106-206 (16 U.S.C. 460l-6d) is amended by–
(1) striking `collect any costs’ and inserting `recover any costs’; and
(2) striking `similar project’ and inserting `similar projects’.
I’m constantly looking for new music to license for my projects. One site I find myself going to time and again is Stock20.com
If you create a free account by clicking on the link below, they will license you a track for free! Check it out.
Stock20.com creates high quality music for media production. If you create a free account using my referral link, they will give you one free song. Here’s how:
Click this link, then create a free account (it takes about a minute): http://www.stock20.com/gvr.php?rc=65xl2nv6394asd5v2x
Note: You can be assured that Stock20.com will not give away your info. They send out one e-mail per month when they release their new songs.
As I sit down to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I’m reminded what an incredible year we’ve had here at Silver Phoenix. We’ve had some fantastic filming opportunities this year and have even more incredible journeys planned for 2008.But we’re especially grateful to you. Even though so many things have been going on behind the scenes, there hasn’t been much for you to see.Well, that will be changing soon, but Julie and I are thankful to those of you who drop by to see what we’ve been up to. It won’t be much longer and you’ll be able to see for yourself. 
15
Aug
2007
Aug
2007
“Journey to the Sea” Takes 2nd place in UWOL Challenge
August 15th, 2007 at 22:11 pm by admin in News
The “Under Water, Over Land”
(UWOL) Challenge is a brand-new
opportunity for documentarians,
planet Earth-lovers, tree-huggers,
extreme sports enthusiasts,
bird-watchers, sea-dwellers, and
guys and girls who like to walk
around with cameras shooting stuff
in their neighborhoods, to get out
there and shoot something.
We’re pleased to announce that our short film “Journey to the Sea” won 2nd place in the most recent UWOL competition.
Filmmakers are given a theme and then have three weeks to create a film based on that theme. This is the fourth round of the challenge and there have been over 100 films created.
You can view “Journey to the Sea” on our new iTune Podcast called HD Naturally. Subscribe by clicking HERE.
Before the first frame of High Def footage was ever shot, Julie and I made a conscious decision that all our footage would be handled as Rights Managed media and not Royalty Free.
With the plethora of royalty free companies cropping up we still feel that we made the right choice.
That choice really hit home one evening when I was watching a commercial for a local church. I recognized the music in the background as a royalty free track from SmartSound. It wasn’t but a few days later that I heard the exact same track on a Girls Gone Wild commercial.I’m sure if the church had known that their commercial featured the same music that was in a Girls Gone Wild commercial, they would be mortified.
That is the driving force behind our choice to stay rights managed. Many clients want to have some exclusivity whether it’s advertising their product or putting together a show for Animal Planet. With royalty free, you have no way of knowing if your commercial will play right next to the competitions using the same footage.You might think that the sheer volume of royalty free footage would make that pretty unlikely. But have you really taken a hard look at some of the footage that is out there?
Make no mistake, there is quality footage out there in the royalty free market. But, there is also allot of footage that is sub par. So, the real pool of royalty free quality footage is actually much smaller.When a client buys footage from Silver Phoenix, we have the ability to provide to the client every instance where that footage has been used. We feel that it’s an important part of our customer service to ensure that clients get the best footage and the peace of mind in knowing that it’s not going to show up in a competing project before theirs hits the market.
While royalty free footage can certainly keep the bottom line down, for some clients they actually prefer buying more expensive footage. It’s called pass-though. Some agencies will tack on commissions for anything they need to acquire to complete the project. Stock footage which would fall under “media expense” can have up to a 17.5% premium added to the cost which is passed onto the client. So, the more expensive footage actually means a larger profit for them.
Internationally award winning photographer and cinematographer, Kevin J Railsback takes you on an incredible journey through our natural world.From a gently flowing creek in the Iowa countryside to the top predators in the Yellowstone food chain, and everything in-between.Along the way you’ll get an opportunity to get inside the mind of filmmaker Kevin J Railsback. Learn how he captures some of his incredible footage with helpful tips as well as how he puts it all together in front of his camera lens. You can subscribe to HD Naturally through iTunes by clicking HERE
