PRESS RELEASE
Highland Village Video Production Company Wins National Award for Drama
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: A Highland Village writer/director has won the Award of Excellence - the highest award given - from the national Videographer Awards for an original video drama. Jeff Neill (JN Productions) wrote and directed A Matter of Life and Death, a twenty minute video drama that is used in training for food processing companies. The program was produced by GAI Videos of Bryan-College Station in cooperation with Copesan Services of Wisconsin. Technical supervision was provided by Dr. Ted Granovsky, B.C.E. and Ole Dosland of Copesan. A complete list of winners is available at www.videoawards.com.
Jeff Neill has mixed memories of the production. “We had a shoestring budget and very little time,” he said. “Since we had virtually no money, I called in every favor I could. Andy Librizzi, a great writer/director friend of mine, put together a terrific cast and a lighting package. Garden Ridge Church of Christ in Lewisville let us shoot at their building - I even had the pulpit minister, Mike Danchak, play one of the parts in the drama. Afterwards I told him he needed to start looking for an agent.” The music from the drama was mostly from generic industrial music CDs, with the exception of the last piece. “Nothing we had worked, so I wrote this melancholy little theme for the end,” said Neill, who composes music as a hobby. “I recorded it on my little synthesizer, and for what it is, it works.” Then he added, “But someday, I’d like to do it right.”
The story concerns an employee in a breakfast food processing plant who lets several critical safety violations go, resulting in contaminated cereal being released to the public. Hundreds of people are poisoned, including his own 8 year old son, Daniel. Todd Terry (Walker, Texas Ranger) and Duvall O’Steen (Inside America) star as the parents. Neill was very impressed with their work. “In the closing scenes, the father must deal with his guilt and the possible loss of his son. Then the mother tries in vain to wake her son in the hospital as a TV in the background reports on the number of people who have been poisoned. It’s very moving. Todd and Duvall were incredible.”
Although Neill’s story was fiction, a parallel incident in real life occurred during the production of the drama. A contaminated breakfast cereal was released in several northeast states. Hundreds suffered from food poisoning. “The timing of this was uncanny,” recalled Dr. Granovsky, who funded the production. “But I think it drives home the point of the drama better than anything else could.”
The Videographer Awards is a national awards organization that helps set standards for the video production industry. Only 13 percent of the 2,386 entries won the Award of Excellence. Jeff Neill also won an Honorable Mention for a training video he directed for Copesan Services. His previous awards for writing include First Place in the Dallas Writer’s Association for his original screenplay, Whirlwinds. Associate Producer for A Matter of Life and Death was Joyce Danielson of Lewisville, another Walker, Texas Ranger staff regular. JN Productions produces programs for TV, cable, industrial, promotional, and training projects. For more information, contact JN Productions, (800)479-5636 or visit them on their website. Email: jnprod@pobox.com
