The Overs
In 1988, KCTS-TV where Marc was working at the time, teamed up with the state of Washington and Rainer Bank to create the first of the "Over Series", Over Washington. He started out as assistant camera but quickly became the primary DOP. The success of that project led to "Over New England" and "Over Florida". These programs were shot on Betacam, standard definition. In 1989 he teamed up with NHK from Japan and shot the first HDTV aerial production, "The Over California Sampler" The helicopter was a Vietnam era Huey and the camera was an analog tube HD camera connected to a very heavy 1" analog tape VTR. The success of this venture led to a relationship with NHK over the next few years with KTCS eventually purchasing the first Digital HD Camera and VTR, the Sony HDC-500 and the Uni Hi VTR. Their first major joint production was "Over America" and the rest is history.
This is the Huey we use for our first aerial HD shoot. You can see the camera sticking out the side door
Over Canada Shoot
Side mount camera position
The Series
- Over Washington (KCTS)
- Over California Sampler (NHK-KCTS)
- Over New England (KCTS)
- Over Florida (KCTS)
- Over California (KCTS - NHK)
- Washington DC : Our Nation's Capital (KCTS - NHK)
- Over America (KCTS -NHK)
- Over Arizona (KCTS - KCET)
- Over Philadelphia (KCTS - WHYY)
- Over St. Louis (KCTS - KECT)
- Over Beautiful British Columbia (KCTS - NHK)
- Over Chicago (KCTS - SEARS TOWER)
- Over Ireland (KCTS - RTE)
- Portugal: An Adventure of Discovery (Montiero Productions - KCTS)
- Washington the Beautiful (KCTS - NHK)
- Springtime in New York (NHK)
- Over Canada (KCTS - PBS - The Pattison Group)
- Over Alaska (KCTS)
- Monumental Arizona (KCET)
screenshot from a Pittsburgh news station
The Crash
In 1997, while I was still working for KCTS, we were contracted by Skustki-Oltmanns in Pittsburgh to shoot HDTV aerials for the Western Pennsylvania Environmental Awards Dinner. We shot 4 seasons, but our winter shoot ended up with hitting a wire strung across the Youghigeny River for a Kayak slalom course that was never removed. We crash landed into the icy river....
The Azores
Portugal: An Adventure of Discovery
One of the best aerial gigs (in fact they were all the best in their own way) was shooting the entire country of Portugal for an ex-pat Portuguese from Vancouver, Canada. His name was Roy Montiero, and after seeing our Beautiful British Columbia show, he wanted to do the same in the country of his birth. It was a huge undertaking but it turned out to one of the best!
