Cloudstreet video

The preliminary trailer for "Cloudstreet: Soaring the American West" is now available for your viewing pleasure as the first video on the www.cloudstreethd.org website. It is a four minute piece intended to give a taste of the planned 2014 release of the one-hour documentary featuring modern soaring over the magnificent landscape of the western United States.

The video is in post-production for editing, adding the (original) musical score and narration, and is slated for (hopefully) national screening on many Public Broadcasting System (PBS)venues sometime this summer.

The project was conceived by New Mexico soaring pilot Mike Abernathy over eight years ago, and his unflagging passion for the concept has resulted in a truly inspiring achievement that immediately captured the interest of the local PBS affiliate KNME in Albuquerque, NM. Michael Kamins of KNME only put two simple caveats on the production: "Put the viewer in the cockpit," and "Don't make them sick."

I have been proud and privileged to be a part of this endeavor since its inception. We had to learn about small HD cameras and their limitations as they evolved over the years, what camera mounts were feasible and how to build them, how to fly in reasonable formation utilizing dissimilar aircraft and how to work with the ever changing meteorological conditions to find a sequence of scenes that could be woven into an (constantly) changing story line.

We hope you will be pleased with the trailer, and we encourage you to contact your local PBS affiliate to request that hey show the video when it is released.

The short video trailer was premiered at the 2014 SSA Convention in Reno, and received many compliments. Please view it and realize that many factors drove the production. Who was available (with their own glider) at a moment's notice, who had practiced formation flying with the principal camera ship and who was willing to drop a potentially epic cross country flight to follow a big-ass Stemme at a range of forty feet for what seemed like hours to gather footage that would often end up on the cutting room floor. (or whatever digital equivalent)

Note that the participants are all geezers who refuse to wear Justin Bieber masks to attract the youth of today and we are working on sponsorship from the National Emphysema Foundation.

gotovtskepoi: When is your movie coming out?