The challenge for this piece was gathering enough B-roll to get through the story. There aren’t very many photos that exist of The Elizabeth, much less of Amway founders Dick DeVos and Jay Van Andel on it. To add some flavor to the photos, I animated one of the first images we see so that it looks like the boat is moving away from the dock. It’s called the parallax effect, and I’m happy it turned out so well!
Firefighter funeral: Keven Sikkema laid to rest after battle with cancer | FOX 17 News
Kevin Sikkema was a firefighter in Blendon Township, who died after fighting an aggressive brain cancer for two years. He was laid to rest March 18,2016.
I recorded the funeral footage from a pool camera and edited in photos/videos from past stories FOX 17 had done on the Sikkema family. Revisiting this story, I’m happy to see that through the GoFundMe page his family set up they were able to raise enough money to pay their mortgage.
Gov. Snyder releases e-mails pertaining to Flint water crisis | FOX 17 News
An hour or two before news time January 20, 2016, Governor Rick Snyder released more than 270 pages of e-mails he sent or received in connection to the Flint water crisis.
FOX 17 Reporter Josh Sidorowicz scanned through the pages and wrote this story, which I edited using archived footage and document scans.
Save “The Moontower”: Van fire leaves cross-country traveler without a home | FOX 17 News
This story originally aired August 11, 2016 on FOX 17 in Grand Rapids, MI. Joe Henderson went to the Grand Haven beach in his trusty Volkswagen called “The Moontower” when it tragically burst into flames.
No one was hurt, but there was a lot of history that went up in smokes. Henderson says it originally toured with the Grateful Dead before becoming a rusted wreck in Denver. He restored it with all the time and money he had available to him – eating a lot of ramen noodles in the process – and made the van his home, taking it across the country and sharing everything with it.
After the fire, his friends in West Michigan organized a benefit concert to help Joe get back on his feet and into a new set of wheels.
For this piece, I wasn’t able to take any of the principal video myself. We sent reporter Michael Dupre to interview Joe and collect videos and photos of The Moontower to use for the story. When he returned, I had approximately 2 hours to turn the story around so it could make the evening newscast.
“Peeping Tom” caught creeping around Walker neighborhood | FOX 17 News
This story aired May 6, 2016 on FOX 17 in Grand Rapids, MI. I was a photojournalist and went to the neighborhood with reporter Brody Carter with some surveillance footage and a general area of where the perp was peeping into windows. The neighbors were understandably spooked.
Sightline Display: Testimonial
Sightline Display is a West Michigan-based company specializing in manufacturing retail displays and signs. Gordon Food Service is a client of of theirs and shares how Sightline Display is instrumental in opening several new stores a year.
This is a story that was brought to me by Westbound Productions in Grand Rapids. I was brought on to edit the footage they captured for this and another video showing the process of how their displays are made.
Searching for Greener Energy | Amway WHQ News
Investments in green energy are paving the way for cleaner technology to help people and businesses co-exist with their environment.
Amway is committed to being 100% powered by renewable energy sources within the decade. This story takes us to one of the wind farms they purchase power from.
This project was challenging. We could only do the shoot in the early afternoon when the sun was directly above us with little cloud cover, which created some pretty harsh lighting. In post production and I was able to get everything to look more consistent lighting-wise and eased up on some of the harshness cast on Rick’s face.
ARCHDUKE MEDIA 