After sifting through 2,000+ photographs for a documentary, you are bound to have some kind of epiphany into the world of your subject.  And today, mine was a monumental one.  James J. Hill, the “Empire Builder” and founder of the Great Northern Railway actually lived in a world of color, just like you or me.  Yes, I know it sounds absurd, but I have proof.

Case in point:  Below is a picture of James J. Hill’s daughter, Mamie, living, in what I always assumed to be, her little black & white world:

But that was before I saw something in the corner of the screen…

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The funnest thing about shooting documentaries is that every day is a field trip. Last August, Stephen and Kyle headed east on HWY-2 capturing images for our documentary on The Empire Builder: James J. Hill. Armed with only a car, a camera, and an iPhone, the two followed the old Great Northern line through Washington, Idaho & Montana, shooting railroad history and beautiful scenery along the way.

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We recently completed a piece for Nordstrom Rack to use to recruit new employees.  We traveled to Bellevue, WA to meet and film the amazing Rack crew and the flurry of activity going on when the doors open.  Stephen even managed to find time to buy a pair of Jack Purcell’s…and got a great deal!  This 4-minute video consisted of seven interviews, b-roll shot on the Rack floor, and graphics created in-house.  We had a great time working with Angela, Lori and Rick and have already begun to hear some nice feedback.

We were very excited to recently learn that a documentary our editor Kyle Kegley cut has been nominated for an Emmy! The film was produced by Team Juicebox as part of International Documentary Filmmaker Challenge where 122 teams from 17 different countries had five days to produce a film. Ars Magna, which follows Corey Calhoon an obsessive anagramist, went on to take first prize in the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto and was later broadcasted nationally on PBS. It was even written about on the USA Today blog:

I just watched the most delightful little documentary, and I think it gave my brain a shot of energy, too: Ars Magna follows Cory Calhoun, a man obsessed with anagrams. He’s best known for taking the first three lines of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy and rearranging the letters to form “the world’s greatest anagram.” (That sounds like an exaggeration, but when you hear it, you’ll be amazed!)

You can watch the film on the PBS website here.

The winners will be announced September 21st. So stay tuned. You view the full list of nominees here.