DynaSoar Media

We are sometimes asked by clients who we are and what do we actually do. The short answer is we are veterans of the cinema /media industry and related business working since the nineteen sixties.However a longer in depth answer and discussion is required for several reasons not the least of which is we are dealing with real life historical incidents be they local or national.

In today’s high energy world where everyone is busy we are almost always asked to send an email. Our preferred first attempt is by phone to verify and put at ease the person we have contacted. Research on behalf of a client will in many cases call for confidentiality. We provide our bonafides as a professional organization and ask what additional references if any are necessary. If authorized we identify the client we are representing. We hold all information in strict confidence until a signed released has been processed.

Because our work is primarily historical we are often seeking information which may be several decades old and may concern deceased relatives, acquaintances, or individuals who were not related but who participated in the event and are known to our contacts or our client.

There is a plethora of missing material in various form(s) known to have been filmed, photographed, sketched, drawn, written or in some way recorded by individuals or organizations during or sometime after an event and then disappeared from the public view. Some of these documents have and or may contain additional or new information possibly yielding new insights. When, for instance, an historical waypoint(s) is removed and a new one is revealed especially with visual media, startling re-thinking about or insight into the event causes dramatic new actions to come to pass pertaining to the event.

As the author of this short essay on what we do at DynaSoar Media. I believe the story now tracks back to the national archives and as yet is still encumbered by secret or top secret documents from the second Roosevelt Administration. Some of these very rare materials are held in private repositories and yet way to much is more likely under beds, in cellars or garages. Its very likely a great deal of this “Lost” historic and possibly highly valuable media has been improperly stored. So the photos, film frames, drawings, or writings continue to deteriorate with time. And so too do the memories of those who witnessed these events.

In addition to looking for materials we also look for the opportunity to interview people who “Were There” either before, during or after the event. We also look for children or grand children of the participants or witnesses. We often start our searches with the curators and staffs of museums. In our state and our cinema business several individuals contributed exceptional innovations, developments and at least one invention to critical skill sets used every day by major and minor media players the world over. Unfortunately in too many cases these pioneers were not able to protect their developments and their stories represent portions of our current projects. Today our culture is losing the ability to recover this material. In too many cases the media is forgotten locked away and too often thought to be of no value. In some specific cases the footage is hidden from view by restrictive government censors. Possession of old WWI or WWII photographs, or film clips could in a few instances still be classified. Should this become evident we as researchers have to determine if the material can be published and who is the intellectual property owner. Often this appears in searches of private estate materials.

A dramatic case in point: The frame below is  taken from the Arts and Entertainment Documentary of August 2001, “Sink the Bismarck.” This frame is part of a short sequence shot from the German Heavy Cruiser Prince Eugen, during the brief first Battle of the Denmark Straights on May 24, 1941.

This long lost short piece of 16mm sound film shot by a German office during the first Battle Of The Denmark Straits was hidden for a quarter of a century. Locating this historical visual media by A&E producers, researchers and German, British, and American archivists required a prodigious amount of reading, searching multiple archives, libraries, and communications with families of veterans, authors and experts who played some role even if only indirectly and many years after the event.

Searches of Google, Lexus Nexus, Yahoo, Dog pile and related digital data-bases or archives are of only minimal use if any at all. Discovering the material you’re searching for almost always requires connecting people, places, dates, times, and then to the materials themselves. The creation and storage of media before the internet was not always viewed as important or taken seriously. Today these materials still exist but time is not on the side of the researchers, historians, or archivists. The materials often lay discarded, unprotected, or misplaced.

Today in the vast high energy fast paced media business with its world wide connections it seems as though we are all looking for that next big thing, that “big payoff.”  And yet that big thing might be 30 or 70 years old and resting in your house, garage, cellar of down the street and have never seen the light of viewing devices. Uncovering information that exists on film, slides, paper, or any other pre-digital media is a matter of good old fashion leg work, experience, networking, and long hours in order to connect unknown people to events, places, and materials. This is how we at DynaSoar media use our time. Our mission is to recover and bring to life the missing memories, photos, recordings, writings, and film frames to expand our knowledge of those worthy historical events.

Technical USAF Photo 1963

Technical AMPEX, Basic Quadruplex Recording 1963

Texas Christian University, BFA 1970,

Texas Christian University, MFA1975

Thesis: The NBC TV Navy Project 1975, Aka “Victory At Sea” TCU Press 1975

Los Tulares, Above the Head of Navigations, Steaming South to Fresno on Tulare Lake,

California Book club 2002

The association for Graduate Education d Research (TAGER) TCU 1963-1965, Graduate  student site Operations Manager.

Communications Department chair Central Wyoming College 1975-76

United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) 1992-1997

Alliance for Distance Education California 1992-1997

ASU, Adjunct Professor, CATV Basic Production 1981-82 KAET

Career Education Corp, Communications / Media Department Chair Collins College 2004-2011

Also, as a professional interviewer, Harry has interviewed two former US Presidents [Richard Nixon & George H. Bush]; First lady, Rosalynn Carter; candidate for Presidency [Steve Forbes]; former Governors’;  CEO’s & Executives of several Corporations, including Leadership Network Group; Disney Corporation; Forbes; The Restaurant Leadership Industry; McLane Trucking & Distribution; Cold Stone Creamery; CSP Magazine; KFC founder Colonel Sanders; two former U.S Astronauts [Eugene Cernan & Daniel Bursch] and numerous Professional & Collegiate Sports athletes and executives; and evangelical ministers.