Sandy Kowal: Telling Stories with Video, Drums and a Mic

Sandy Kowal of Simply Creative Production has done so much. Who knew? She started in TV News as a photographer, became the first Assistant News Director at WKOW-TV, and started her own production business. Plus, she's a heck of a musician and apparently, a set-up comedian...kinda? Find out more in this episode with Dan & Carrie.

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Turkey Testicle Festival Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNf9t8R-ZWo

Transcript

stand by is this thing on yes Dan oh hello you're listening to old news with Dan and Carrie this just in breaking news to report we are live old newscasters re H can we just say former sure former newscasters reunite behind the mic after more than 20 years old news is good news stay tuned welcome back to old news with Dan and Carrie I'm the carry part of Dan and Cary and that would make me the dan part of Dan and Cary and the other person we have today is the owner of Simply creative Productions she's really a Storyteller she's done a lot over the years we used to work with her many years ago at Channel 27 and I worked with her for many many years after that at a company called Tweety media Incorporated that was our last name right Sandy we had so many other names she also worked at Channel 3 WCTV in Madison and WK TV in Madison as I mention and at Kusa in Denver one of the top shooting photography news stations in the country it's Sandy coall everyone Sandy great to have you great to be here so and you're wearing I see you're wearing your s creative Productions t-shirt yes there there it is I like it I am always marketing tell everybody what Productions is well um if you look at our website it looks like we have a cast of thousands you do but it's um really it's me and I get together the crews that I need to get the jobs done that I do so if I'm uh doing a video production let's say I'm shooting a TV commercial then usually I direct those so I would hire a cinematographer hire a lighting crew um all that kind of stuff sometimes I hire the actors um it's different every day if if I'm shooting kind of a basic storytelling story I'll go and shoot that and I'll hire a a producer to come out and be my reporter and I'll light it and take care of it um I also do some live uh streaming event so one of them is kind of a pretty big one that I do every year and it's uh five or six cameras streaming around the world and I hire a whole array of people for that and we bring in a lot of big actual television type cameras because it's such a big arena that we're in so every day is different and so I just basically hire who I need to get the jobs done and um I try to stay out of trouble what is the giant event that you stream every year it's the Epic software in Verona they have a big users group meeting so we broadcast not just to the uh inside screens in their giant theater that they have it's like a 10,000 seat theater but we also then broadcast to a bunch of satellite places in their campus so thousands of people will watch it in other smaller theater groups and then we also broadcast um to America and Europe on the interwebs and that way their clients and workers in Europe and around the um around the country can can see the the users group presentation so this is just a slight s step down from that for you this Zoom technology this just slightly smaller just a little yeah and I don't have to call the cameras so it's good it's really fun though I mean it's a really long process and stuff but that's a fun event I remember you were doing that back in the day Carrie knows this but people who are listening don't know that uh Sandy and I work together at Tweety media and uh Carrie sy's probably the only other person that I used to sing with outside of my sisters you know in the office than you so Sandy and I were also singing Partners in the office but um yeah and in the car right in the car and she's been doing that epic show for many many years so we would basically lose Sandy for a while in there because you know epic I don't know if you know this but they're a pretty big company they're kind of a big deal so um she she'd take care of that for for quite a while and and did such a great job she's been doing it for so long um but been doing it like 20 some years now wow I did their very first streaming event which was uh in Downtown Madison at the Civic Center then and we were broadcasting via a cable that was running across State Street into the orium oh my gosh so you know it's imagine all those ropes you had to jump through but that was the very first one we did and it was just a little teeny tiny thing and we got a satellite uplink because we had to Uplink it back to the Verona campus from Downtown Madison so it was it was a big deal well and then anyone who's ever been in a doctor's office you know it's like they said let me check your chart and then here comes the Epic logo and every you know that's software it's in every doctor's office now or many really is the world interesting so Sandy was your first job in TV was it WK or were you working in TV at another station before K well Dan it was a dark let let's take you back yeah I started working at wko um in the production department when there were still like floor crew people so I used to run camera I ran prompter ran the uh the the CG generator with all the little names in it and I was an assistant director and I uh realized that this was okay it was a little part-time job you know but it was okay but I I knew I wasn't going to be making a living because I didn't want to be a 247 TV news director it just didn't seem fun to me wasn't really creative in the way I like to be creative so um so I was kind of trying to figure out what I was going to do and um the news Department lost one of their news photographers they like moved on someplace and so they were looking for someone and I was freelancing taking still photos of employees at Channel 27 and the chief photographer came in and I was taking his picture and he's like oh you're a photographer oh oh would you ever be interested in uh shooting news shooting video and I was like yeah so so essentially he walked me through the whole thing I didn't really I mean I had shot some video in college it was just starting video was just kind of a thing that was starting at the um the college I was going to and um and so I had barely used the video stuff I had shot film um and so he just was walking me through see because they made me go in the parking lot and shoot some stuff and then come in and edit it together and so he stood behind me in the cracked door and he's like press the orange button press the red button you know it so that I could make a 30 second video out of this stuff I shot in the parking lot and the news director said great you've got the job we'll train you so I learned what I do now for the for the rest of my life uh and the News Room on Channel 27 and was that Greg shivi who was the chief photograph it was oh my gosh where we talked a lot quieter than that it was touch the orange button yeah it was really quiet yeah I mean he was great he really wanted wanted me to get the job and um because I think he really wanted to get more women involved you know in the news product behind the scenes like that and I was for the longest time one of two uh women who were photograph video photographers for news in Madison now there's many more of us out there so it's not as unusual but I would show up at jobs and people would do a double tap take like you're a girl and I'd be like yeah I am what nobody told me so were was was photojournalism kind of in your mind when you were younger going to school or anything like that or was it just kind of more like it developed out of getting the job at 27 um it kind of developed out of 27 but my I first thought about doing it and when I was in high school and we had uh a TV reporter come in from a Green bay station to my my careers class that day and she was talking about how much fun it is and the teamwork you do and they were up in upper Michigan shooting a story that day so they were driving back to the station and were able to stop and um and I thought oh this is kind of fun something I might be interested in doing so then I went on a ride along at that station um in the summer I took a day and went down to uh I think they were in yeah in Green Bay and I hooked up with her and uh photographer and I thought I could be a photographer I could do this and so it kind of got the seed got planted but I didn't know how to make that happen right wow right and I have to pause because there's some activity behind your head in the form of a bird can you tell us about your bird Elvis Elvis he's an African gray he's being a very good boy right now so I don't want to bother him but when he gets a little lower you can see him more but he's gray obviously and he's got a flashing bright red tail and is he the one that talks he he talks he sings he's got a a great vocabulary and he he mostly knows uh old sitcom music so you know in the pett coat Junction right now he's heavy duty in that come ride the little train that is rolling down the tracks to the

junction forget about your cares it is time to relax at the junction lots of cures you bet and even more when you get to the junction ped

Junction was mission Impossible has been sneaking in the last couple of days

but and then there's the famous pop goes the weasel because he likes the pop part of it oh he likes get to that part where he'll hustle up to get there and you have to do your part too and then he he wants to be the one to do the pop so Sans it so that he ends up getting the pop unbelievable and don't they live like 60 years or something yeah 60 65 it depends you know and how old is he he will be 24 on Halloween oh my go that's so cool all right young man I just had to find out well I have to so he knows Petty Co Junction does he know the music to Petty Co Junction or does he know like here comes Uncle Joe and he's moving I mean what what no he just knows the music so he'll whistle the melody and everything and I can over here behind my shoulder you see that organ yep oh yes our big entertainment I play the Oregon so I'll play pedico Junction on the Oregon or other various songs that you know we've come up with and uh and he'll participate so I'll you get to the guitar out and he'll sing along with that or the organ he's very musical he really really likes music that's owner incredible I was gonna say yeah because we even had a Channel 27 band for one event for Madison cares when we formed a band pretty much anybody who wanted to play an instrument we did our Beatles music practiced at your house you were on drums right and uh we did uh well and and our our name of course the Human Genome Project remember that oh yeah that that those were the days those were the days that was that was really fun though I enjoyed that it was really fun that was one of the many bands Sandy has been part of because now you're in another B I mean we're we're getting way ahead of ourselves here but you're you're starting a new band right now right you are yeah yep um uh back prior to co I was in a band called The sori Weavers and oh yeah we did a CD and we us play play around Madison it was really

[Music] fun they were very good and then uh I'm in a band that we only play uh like uh Pride events so like so we like played a gay pride event up in green a year ago or so and U and so this band that is kind of getting roll in is kind of an offshoot of that band there's a couple of us who really like playing together so we we have a threeome right now so we're kind of just seeing where it goes and kind of just staying in touch and in practice so in case we suddenly have to do another event because they do come up quick sometimes and we're ready cool that's are you Originals or covers for that Sandy this one is covers I like doing originals but this we for the uh Pride band I'll call it um we do covers for that so we kind of want to come up with some covers that we could do that we could use in that if we needed to music has always been important to you right I mean as long as I've known you you were very musical were you musical growing up and through high school and all that oh yeah I had a um of course was in the aband in grade school High School I played the cornet and then I got that wasn't really very fulfilling I got kind of tired of the Cornet so I decided with my high school boyfriend that we were going to start a rock band so first we called ourselves heavy leather we played like heavy rock en roll like stuff like ACDC from the 80s that kind of that kind of thing and then we kind of changed our name to high voltage because um we figured we could get those high voltage signs and put those up when we played nice so that that that really caused the name of the band to change and then we got a couple more uh instrumentalists to join us and it was fun we played around uh kind of the Marinette Wisconsin area we played some gigs out there and you know wasn't really a big deal but it was really fun so yeah I pretty much uh always played music or wrote songs and you know so she's kind of like Wayne Newton she plays the drums she plays the Cornet she plays a guitar organ compared to him that's so I thought but you you were never on the Lucille Ball show so no no I was not I cannot claim that I digress hey so you were at K uh shooting then shooting News until what like 92 the first time yeah 92 I left um I was lucky enough to um get a job at K USA in Denver yeah so I went there and um my big hope someday was to be a chief news photographer in a Major Market y so I um went there with that in mind that I'm going to just learn everything I can learn so unfortunately I was hired to be the f one of the photogs for the um Morning Show so that meant you had to be there super early in the morning and you had to edit for all the stuff for the morning show there was an editor also but so the three of us would edit the whole two-hour show and then uh one of us would go out and do a live shot with they had Engineers who would run the live truck then so you would just show up hook up your camera light it and go and do your live shots um and then you'd come back and then you you would get assigned a a story for the day most of the time I did feature stories when I got back from my morning stuff because um you know my shift was done by 1 in the afternoon so I had everything I had to do was like in the morning so I would kind of be one of those people where I'd shoot one day and then a day or two later I'd be editing but I shot a couple days before Oh um so I did that for a couple years and then I thought I was going to die because that those hours are not for me so we are familiar said to my supervisor wait a minute when you hired us to do the morning show you knew what you were putting us into I did thank oh yeah these fools so I said to my boss I said I need you to hear me I I need to get off the shift and if you can't help me get a different shift or tell me I'm going to get one eventually then I'm going to have to look for another job so I'm not saying as a threat I'm just saying that I can't do the shift anymore I got to do something else it's it's killing me so a week later I was working the night shift so that was good oh it worked it worked yeah he he just arranged everybody to make me get a shift that that wasn't the morning so thank you wow yeah it was great so I did that for a while and then I um eventually moved on to the investigative unit and so I did most of my pieces then were always future pieces and I did a lot of undercover work and um I even had to be uh played some parts in some little sting operations that we had done oh my gosh what are some of the ones you remember um one of them I played a welfare mom who was trying to get some um food stamps Without Really registering because we had heard through the grapevine that they weren't doing it correctly at the county level giving out welfare benefits to people so I was chosen to go in as the welfare mom and tell my really sad story of how I moved from Wisconsin with my boyfriend and he was a jerk and he took the checkbook and blah blah blah I work at the Taco Bell over by my apartment building and I you so I used my real life in my situation so I right you know when I'm talking about places they were real um and and I I actually teared up a little bit in there for it and the lady felt so bad for me that she said sit here for a second and I thought I am so screwed I am so busted she knows I'm wearing a microphone right now you know and um but she didn't she came back and she gave me $80 in food stamps and she said here go get some food for you and your kids for tonight and um let me I'll get your paperwork through and you know we'll get you we'll get you going but this will get you started and then I just felt like a complete jerk right because she was so kind yeah yeah she was just trying to be nice and I was lying and um but unfortunately that's what people were doing were going in there and lying and getting food stamps and then they couldn't just the county couldn't justify it you know so when I got out of the office and then with my little packet of food stamps I came out and we turned them over to the district attorney's office so I did not keep the food stamps yeah but um and I really hope that lady didn't lose her job because I thought about it afterwards like oh right um I'm sure she's not the only one doing it there you know they're just trying to help out people in need and but you got to do it the right way right that was one there's another one I was on um sitting in an empty van on the street in some janky neighborhood and I was I got to the they dropped me off and put me in the van in the afternoon sounds like I was kidnapped but that's not how it happened so I was in the van I had to stay in there until it got dark the cops were going to show up and they were goingon to do giant drug bust at this house and drag people out of it and um we were the only TV station that was going to be there to cap the big bust and it ended up that they parked my van in a slightly bad place and I didn't have a good shot because they went in and came out and it was like that and it was over and I'm like where's the lights where's the sirens where's so it was the worst video ever it was just like a dark city street with people walking around on it it was dumb but you know story of you know working at yeah really you said something before though that other people have talked about too and it's one of those things that I don't know if a lot of people think about it when they think about the news business but like you had to put yourself into a position there as as the welfare mom and and then you're dealing with some people who are trying to be good people but and then you walk out of there and you feel bad about it and that happens probably more often than people really realize when you're working in the news business whether you're covering a story just spot news or or an investigative piece like that right I mean did did you have other instances like that yeah I mean one of the hardest things for me was um like violent crimes yeah um and I know like in Madison I had seen like at the big um Aaron Lin shooting down at the city county building yeah I was there that day I was one of the photographers on the scene and you know they're bringing people out and you know gurny and stuff and it's um very dramatic it's very tense and the moment though you're working and you're not thinking about it but it's when you leave that it kind of hits you like oh that was the shooter that just came out and oh that you know you know the people because you're in that building every day working and so it really impacts you that I know these people who are really injured or dead in this case too um another weird one for me was um in Denver since I did the morning show overnight there were usually if somebody's going to get shot killed or something it's going to be in overnight hour so I got sent out to a um a prostitute was killed and they just left her on the middle of the street so when I got there um they didn't have her covered so okay you know what do you do with that you know you carry that around with you for the rest of your life because you can't not see that it's there now you've seen it so there's a lot of things like that where um it does impact you and it is stressful but I always thought that whatever I was doing was for the greater good of trying to help the community trying to inform people um so if you have to see or do be in a place like that where you really don't want to see the body or whatever it is um it's just part of the job and you just you have to do it in order to be successful and tell a story how did you mentally with everything were there like did you do yoga meditation or like how did you unwind after um stressful day like that at work I I worked I did a lot of working out so I would go to the health club and you know do my regime because I had to stay in pretty good physical shape too because the gear you know was kind of heavy yeah and so that really helped and it also helped to be able to uh have the camaraderie or commiserate with with other people on the job because everybody has been in those positions if you go out into the field at all so um it just helps to talk about it yeah well you had your music too that that's another for you too um and so you you stayed in Denver then until what mid 90s and then came back to K it was 96 I think I came back in um June of 96 I think it was okay people should know I mean k USA is like one of those stations we've talked to uh you know we talked to Bill Sher about this up in Minnesota and Reena in Minnesota K USA was one of those stations that was known as a shooter station I mean good Shooters go to k USA I referred it referred to it when I took the job to explain it to my family as this is like going to the Olympics this is my Olympics I get to go here yeah and I'm gonna go there for as long as I can be there and I'm I'm going to go and so um I went there with the full intention of being a chief photographer someplace someday and this is going to be a great stepping stone I was the regional chair for the national press photographers Association out there you know I was really working on that and then my mom got sick oh so then I had to come back to Wisconsin so I thought well let me just see if anything going on so I called the news director Andy booh at the time and I said hey and he and I were very close when I worked here at the first time and I said do you have any openings at the station or you know of anything in town cuz I got to move back to Wisconsin I really want to live in Madison and he and he said well actually yes I have an executive producer position open would you like to interview for it and I said yes I would thank you I'm going to be in town on these days could I talk to you and he said yes that would be great so came in I met everybody reacquainted myself with most people who were still there because it's a great place to be and um met the new general manager and all that and um and Andy offered me the job and um yep so I took it I literally took it I was just like it it paid really not well but it paid enough so that I could come back to WIS it didn't pay well shocking um what a surprise didn't make any money here yeah Chief photographer was on your radar or something you wanted to do but how about you know executive producer was that on your on my radar and um and actually shortly after I came back to Wisconsin and um took the job and was settled in was just about to buy this wonderful house that I live in I got a job offer to be Chief photographer in Phoenix oh my goodness so I flew to Phoenix and I told Andy I'm going to Phoenix because I have to do this you know yeah and so then um I and it was for an old news director that I used to work with in Madison and so it didn't work out the first time cuz I knew what I should get paid to be in Phoenix at that position and he wasn't he didn't really want to pay that much and I said okay well then it's just not going to work out I'm fine in Madison so you know I moved here for my mom whatever so I come back and I say to Andy I'm not taking the job and he's like okay and then about two weeks later that guy calls me back from Phoenix okay I'll pay you what you want will you take the job and I said I can't take the job I'm staying here because my mom told me I'm not moving to Phoenix with you oh I'm like well then I'm not going to Phoenix yeah career decision made so I don't really regret it you know my life would be completely different now I understand that but I would have not had some really great years with my mom and I I really wanted to help her and be a part of her final Journey right so this allowed me to to be there for her and to play that role and help and so I feel great about myself because of that and I would have felt crappy about myself if I would have taken that job and left her in Wisconsin mhm well she needed you around emotionally and physically too so I mean obviously that that was the right decision for you guys yeah it was the right decision and then eventually I talked to through different news directors I was the interim news director here in Madison and so finally um when the final news director there was another one but like when Todd Pritchard was hired I said to Todd I know you can't give me a raise that I'm gonna get one but it's GNA be like whatever you know it's not gonna be a lot of money so I'd like my title to change to assistant news director oh he said that sounds good to me oh good idea yeah so that's so I became the first official assistant news director at the station so I'm really proud of that to because we never had that position and it's kind of one of those things like well why not we have a million newscasts we should have somebody who is here to Shepherd things when Todd is not yeah other than an executive producer so so that was good so that that was uh pretty sweet and then I worked on special projects and did remote broadcast directing and stuff like that too well and we refer to the time period when Andy was the news director and then you were the interim news director for a little bit as the Golden Era of working in news for us because because you let us operate like we wanted to operate right and I mean not that you like we were me you weren't doing anything wrong no we weren't doing anything wrong creative freedom some creative freed within General bounds like we'd be like can we do this and most of the time you said yeah I mean You' say know if it was something zany that we we had a lot of stupid ideas too but had some like that like my favorite one was when you guys all went ice skating and you did the whole show live from the ice skating rank that was my favorite morning show ever because really that's what people remember they remember those moments they remember that the personalities and that you guys really get along and they get a little news in there and they really care about the weather anyway at that time of the day right you so it's perfect way to show the weather yeah it is show the weather and you guys really had a lot of fun and I think Carrie did a triple sow too crazy the end it was just like crazy I'm like's going on this is great yeah my little spin I learned on Lake Geneva Wisconsin from my mom that's the only thing I can do do one single spin way to go Peg way to go she taught you she taught you you know it's funny because like like you're playing that like I essentially left you alone to do to uh do what you knew what you were doing um and that's really what my whole goal was when I took the management position was I wanted to try to be the manager that I always wished I had yeah and so I took kind of the best from a bunch of different people and I was trying to be like let people do what they want to do give them you know a lot of rope let them you know let them explore let them because you all care about what you're doing you know doesn't matter what shift you're working you're caring about what you're doing or we wouldn't have hired you and um so that was a a pretty big deal for me to just try to be more more thoughtful in how I say things and but be direct with people also well you did a wonderful job we appreciate you thank you thanks thanks you can keep your jobs so so then you left though you left 27 and started your own business um what was that the early 2000s or about just to get the time 2002 it was my last Harrah was the Oney year anniversary of 911 I went to New York with the satellite truck and we did a bunch of stuff wow with all the stations in our group and so that was fun and then but I had pretty much run the gamut of my life isn't creative enough I wasn't it took me a long time to figure out why I wasn't happy yeah and and it wasn't just cuz I wasn't making any money it was because I wasn't really telling stories I was managing people so yeah not that I don't like people but it's not really creative like telling stories and you know because when you're shooting news it's like you do a little tiny movie every day here's your little minute 30 movie that you're putting together the best you can and so that to me was fun and creative and I was always looking to shoot and produce little special projects because at least I would get some of that and I just thought I know I'm not happy I got to do what I'm happy and that they hired a news director and you know it wasn't like we didn't see eye to eye I just didn't think that that person was really understanding what was going on and I thought you know I don't want to do your job and my job and not be having any fun so I need to do something else and so I just I kind of just quit without a plan so you didn't have just got a jump oh yeah and that's what I did I mean at that point I wasn't married yet but I was in a relationship that was going to be my long-term relationship and um so I was able to not have to have a paycheck briefly and so then after thinking about it and wondering what should I do with my life I thought I'm just gonna you know I'm just going to go and I'm G to buy equipment and I'm going to see if I can make this work and see if people will hire me and then once people heard that I was doing this now then I got then the work started to come in and I kept pretty busy and I paid off my gear in the first year I felt I was really really fortunate you know to be able to do that and I made made a lot of great connections and um and I would get a lot of great referrals and I um took a little parttime gig once a once a week at Channel 3 filling in for a news photographer who needed a break so that she could be a mom that's right I forgot you did that yeah and so that kind of got me in the door over there and I got hooked up with their production Wing that they had at the time and that brought a lot of more creative work long form work that was really what I was what I enjoy doing so um so it was it it worked out great and then when did guy and I was gonna say when did you hook up with Dan and Greg at Tweety Productions this is how they sucked me in they said don't you want to share office space with us you probably should have an office oh and I said I don't know if I need an office and they said well you know you could share an office with Dan and I thought okay I'm in you had we had you at Dan 80 bucks a month to have this partial office space with Dan and we would just hire each other to do jobs I'd hire Dan or Greg to do something with me and then they hire me to do something with them and we'd just be pushing invoices back and forth and then it finally was just ridiculous like why don't we just join up together we all get along we all have the same kind of work ethic we all like to do the same type of stories let's just see if we can make this work and so we uh hired um ma Charlton to be our our sales guy be kind of the face of Tweety and go out and do networking and that type of stuff and we hired Steve Donovan to be an editor for us and he brought us up to a whole new level because he's this super creative guy and uh and then we chugged along pretty good there for a while it was a slow start and it was scary at times but we worked through it and here we are today yeah I lik it when you had me join you for things like Sandy remember we did all the technical college stuff we went up and did a bunch of features on some of the programs they did I love doing that stuff yeah it was really fun it was fun storytelling I like I like stories where it's all in somebody else's words you know because you have to be more creative in the field thinking yeah well and and Sandy and I both have an affinity for Elvis so um that obviously with her her bird being named Elvis that was one reason I was okay with her being in the office with me too so um we luy to have our life is a musical we would just sing all we were just lucky to have each other I think uh in a lot of ways because we all did get along and we all liked the same type of work and we had we had that common knowledge and that's why we do this show too Carrie like you know we have that common Bond of having worked in in the trenches in the news business right so you kind of understood each other um from being tested in the fire so to speak and so I think that that's one of the reasons we always joke that it was you know we were kind of like the you know Channel 27's closet because we you had to have worked at Channel 27 to work for for TW at that time that's we tell people I've never work at Channel 27 oh I'm sorry you can't work it's not going to work out we never said that in interview though disclaimer we would we would joke about it though we did have somebody who didn't work at 27 and we told her she had to get hired so she could get fired and work here just go or intern for like a day put in a day yeah yeah yeah yeah well and go ahead I was gonna just say did you end up were you did you work on the the documentary with us or did you come after that you did no I did I shot that um old lady in the stands oh yeah yeah gosh she was great yeah and then I did some audio parts of it for you but that was kind of my chunk of shooting I think I did a couple otherly pickups but that was like the story I got to be a part of and was that the red zone that you're talking about yeah yeah yeah in the Red Zone in the red zone and you and Carrie were part of the most famous viral story we ever did and Carrie has talked about this before but you sh millions of hits well I checked today before we did this in interview I went on YouTube to try to find the turkey testicle Festival 1.5 million views and then it was Dan's voice leading off sponsored by in the Red Zone in the Red Zone the history of Camp Rand Sandy and I were at the turkey testical festival and I have somewhere in Illinois it's Huntley Illinois Illinois and I had no I mean I liveed not far from I lived not far from there and my friend Caroline who was featured in that story she was the one going it's

O deep fry gooey gooey chewy chewy [Music] chicken she's the one not taste bad so anyway for people who don't know it's a big Festival where people come and eat fried turkey test it's they taste kind of like a juicy fried mushroom that you get yeah and and of course they drank a lot of beer and K and I wandered around and interviewed them and got them to eat it in front of us uh interesting but I ate a number of them they weren't that bad no I ate some as well and then the the hot tip we got in that story and we'll link the story in the show notes by the way if you want to see it but eat the small ones cuz those are not as explosive I've heard that it's better to go for the small ones so I have sought a small

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oneis the small ones little Pro tip Pro tip from ker Kens Pro tip maybe it's time for you guys to revise that story go back and do you know Turkey testical Festival 20 years ever come back for a second time oh well my friend Caroline goes every single it's like all all the friends in the area that's just the annual tradition and I mean that's how I first learned about it because they're like what you've never heard of it I'm like what no what is this and then I was like Dan we've we need to do a story you were living in Illinois in Illinois at that time I think weren't you like yes I was very close I was like L the hilles away or something yeah yeah that was an interesting story well and then you did a couple others too didn't you for us for like just visit us that was that we had tried to start a website at one time a travel website did you do a couple others too I did a I remember shooting with my phone like Pelicans dive bombing in South Carolina I kind of put together my own montages but I don't think I did an official store with sand I had a bunch of them on my own when I um I'd go on vacation yes that's when I went to Florida I shot like a couple packages or stories down in Florida and then I went to Hawaii and I shot a couple packages out yeah so I would try to use my vacation so I could somehow write off my travel as an

expense taxes so and so let's let's wrap this all up today you are still doing it you're still um out there producing videos doing stories but kind of at your at your own pace I would think yep yep I think things that have changed is that um I'm not out there like beating the sticks trying to come up with some type of thing to keep me busy every day I got I got to get this I got to shoot that I'm more working with clients that I've had long term um and they pretty much sustain me and then if I get some referral work or um I see somebody who I think might need a video to Market themselves um and I will suggest that I do a video for them and I will do it either for free or depending on who they are you know if it's a nonprofit I want to help them that kind of thing so I do things now more because I want to do them and not because I gotta get some work so I'm really lucky to be kind of at that place in my career where I'm making an okay amount of money and I can help people and things through what I'm good at and so a good feeling it sure is well and it's very similar to what Todd vasy told us he's doing something very similar because I said how many employees do you have and he said me but he's doing exactly what you're doing is to you know you're a able to hire the um photographers or you know these different people that you probably turn to time and time again you have that Rapport you're providing extra work for them and then you don't have to have everyone you know like in the office trying to support them you call upon them when you need them yeah it works out great I think it's a good business model for now yeah it seems to be where things have gone um and that gives you time for like you said for your band for uh you know Bigfoot hunting all of that other things that those things that you like to do she really does like to hunt Bigfoot so that's a whole another podcast yeah that's another podcast oh man got some interesting stories that's for another day I know there's probably tons of podcasts out there on that yeah no kidding so and and Sandy um when when when I do this podcast with Carrie we always talk about first job wor job the job you might still be thirsting for you told us about your first job way back at Channel 27 do you have a worst job or a worst experience over the years that you can recount for us I think the worst job was not in TV news it was when I uh uh used to work for this uh drugstore and um the guys guy was like you do such a great job clerking and everything I need you to clean the bathroom two that was the worst wow thanks yeah it's more hours for you wouldn't that be great I know you're going to college that's what they call a [ __ ] sandwich you're so good at this now do that but you are good at this and then how about something you still want to do or have you done it all now oh wow I think I just I just want to help people that's kind of what I want to do I want to you know contribute in a way that enriches other people's lives and I can feel good about that so that's kind of what I I think there was there was actually a moment um I told you I know I asked you not to ask me this question but I came up one oh good so go ahead and ask me I'm ready okay okay we're ready hey Sandy the question I like to ask everybody is are there bloopers or funny things or embarrassing moments you still remember wasn't that natural you know there was this one time and Dan when I got this call late in the afternoon and that friend of mine who runs a big production truck he was up in Green Bay and he was producing a national uh concert that this genius kid who plays the piano was doing up in Green Bay and he needed a stage director to come on up and just run the backstage because it was just like you know probably like 10 cameras and all these people and they had like background singers from mtown and they had an orchestra and this kid on the this giant piano what are the giant pianos Carrie grand piano are you yes was on a grand piano and his coach like his his instructor was Billy Joel's Piano guy oh boy so this kid was good and this guy's like I've never seen anybody play so good as his kid so you know I'm hanging out with them and then we go to tape it and the host of this whole thing is a former TV personality from Green Bay and um and she's you know telling everybody what's going on is going to introduce the show and then uh they say to me before we get going so this is me I've never stage directed before this I only like am in the booth with the TD and stuff uh we we need you to go out there and warm up the crowd because we have to get some shots of people clapping and reacting and looking happy just like you're in a sitcom yeah so they look at me like so can you do that can you go out there and just make make that happen and get everybody in this audience I mean there were literally like a thousand people out there it was packed let me dip into my material and see what I got I don't know if I could do this I I don't think I could do this and the and the and the TV lady from Green Bay she's like oh you can do this it's not that hard you could do this and then I was just like oh good lord so finally she's like well she's like or I can can do it I'm like I'll do it I'm gonna do it she's like are you sure I got it I got this so so then what happens is I get I get a microphone now and I've got my little headset on because I'm supposed to be just behind the scenes so I'm talking to everybody and everybody's talking to me and I say uh I go out there and I'm like hi everybody I'm Sandy and I'm the stage director you don't normally see me but I'm out here to get you warmed up and I like just I turned into Kevin Craig I'm telling you I just suddenly was like on somebody like lit my butt on fire I was hysterically funny I was getting them all like all applaud oh my gosh I don't even know who I was I was like outside of my body it was insane but it was the most fun I've ever had but I thought you man where are you from yeah that's literally I was like that hey you kids are you a group let's get those kids on camera you know I was just it was just hysterical funny I was like who am I but it worked out great and they were like telling me on my headsets you got to calm down a little bit like too much no one would be laughing that hard in the audience during the show you're gonna you're gonna make the ACT you're don't have enough hang on you're gonna make the Real ACT look bad you're just too good you're too good I can't so yeah so that was my I thought I was going to throw up here on stage you know it all worked out and if you have any footage of that please send that to us so we can put that in the YouTube version of Sandy running around like she's on the Ellen show it was it was I think I was hysterically funny maybe just in my own mind but it worked out I think you're legendary I know you're legendary Sandy coal of Simply creative Productions you missed your calling as an onstage comedian just think of what you could have been I know look at me now well thanks for doing the show with us good catching up guys and congratulations on all your success thank you thank you

cheers thanks for tuning in to old news with Dan and Carrie that's old news for now join us next time