Monday, May 21, 2012

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Home » Television » Our Productions On Demand » Global Energy and Carbon » Following A Trail Of Carbon Footprints » The Cast of Characters

The Cast of Characters

A blog update from producer Bob Dambach
May 2, 2009

I thought you might be interested in who is going on the trips and what they’ll be doing. As well as what we look like in the “mug shots” we needed to provide with our visas applications.

Bob Dambach (Minnesota, India and Cameroon trips) I’ve been at Prairie Public for almost 25 years. I’m the Director of Television for Prairie Public and I’m the executive producer and producer for the project. As executive producer I make all the travel arrangements; flights, hotels, ground transportation, travel shots, travel insurance, passports and visas before we go anywhere. As producer I’m responsible for ensuring that we have all the equipment and supplies we’ll need for the video shoots. I also provide an outline or a “blueprint” of the shoot. I must make sure we get all the shots we need and still be flexible enough to allow the story to evolve and to take advantage of video opportunities when they present themselves. But really I’m the “Dad” for the trip! Paying the bills and selecting the restaurants when everyone say’s “I don’t care where we eat.” Which translates into “but it better be good and they better have something that I’ll like.” I become the food taster, tour guide and entertainment director on our down time.  It’s also my job to make sure everyone behaves themselves during the long plane and car rides. (“Don’t make me stop the car!”)

Dave Geck (Minnesota, India and Cameroon trips) Dave’s been at Prairie Public for almost 20 years. He’s a wonderful award winning videographer and editor that works out of our Bismarck office. In addition to capturing beautiful footage he’ll provide bad puns and jokes that will keep me from taking myself too seriously. Dave is great, as long as he is not having a bad hair day.

Dan Daly (Minnesota, India and Cameroon trips) Dan has worked at the EERC at the University of North Dakota since the Stone Age. That’s probably good, since he began his career as a geologist. He’s now a Research Manager and has been one of the scriptwriters on all of our EERC projects. He’s our “science guy”! Even though Dan has a great sense of humor he also has a great stone face. We’ll use that to our advantage by sending Dan through the customs and immigration checkpoints first to smooth the way for the rest of us.

Barb Gravel (Minnesota and India) Barb is in her second stint (or life) with Prairie Public. For most of the ’90s she was our top director and an editor and videographer. She took some years off to start a family and returned three years ago as our television Production Manager. Barb will function as our second videographer in India. Barb has the ability to maintain a smile in all situations (that might come from having three kids!). We’ll use that smile to our advantage in case Dan’s stone face doesn’t work at customs.

Frode Tilden (Minnesota, Cameroon trips) Frode has worked at Prairie Public as a videographer for just over a year. Before that he worked for a number of years at the commercial stations in Fargo. Frode will be the second videographer on the Cameroon trip. Frode was born in Norway, was a high school exchange student in Iowa and graduated fro the University of North Dakota. Frode is one of the most outgoing and friendly guys you will ever meet. He has about 40,000 friends on Facebook and somehow he corresponds with most of them everyday! Frode likes to try new foods and eats just about everything, so he will function as my backup food taster.

Poonam Girdhar: Poonam born in India and was an actress there. She is currently a film production student at the University of Minnesota Moorhead. She found the two families that we’ll be profiling in Delhi. Poonam will be our grip and translator on the trip to India.

Alexander Azenkeng (Cameroon) Is a Scientist at the EERC. He was born in Cameroon and is still a citizen. We will be going to his village of Ikata in NW Cameroon to video our family. Alexander will be our guide to Cameroon and I hope to get a picture of him soon to post in the blog.

Tomorrow we leave for the Twin Cities and the adventure begins.

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