User feedback: Mike Swain

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For over 40 years I have been vice president and director of cinematography of Swain Film & Video, a family owned video production studio in Sarasota, Florida. My college background is in aerospace engineering at the University of Florida at Gainsville. During college I became interested in spelunking (cave exploration) which started my lifelong passion for high-action sports such as hang gliding, white-water rafting and flying ultralight aircraft. In 1964 I started skydiving as an off-campus activity and to date I have made over 2,500 freefall jumps.

During the early years of freefall skydiving, I happened to be one of a handful of skydiving cameramen who pioneered in the development of helmet-mounted motion-picture cameras enabling skydivers to film while freefalling at over 120 miles per hour. Over the years, my freefall 16mm film has been used in many film productions, documentaries, and TV commercials. In 1968, I became the co-holder of a skydiving high-altitude record for the southeast United States with a two-and-a-half-minute freefall from 28,000 feet. In 1972 I filmed and produced an award-winning documentary, "Bill Cole's Chuteless Jump," which won a Cine golden Eagle in 1973 and a first place award in the 30th International Sports Film Competition in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, in 1974. From 1975 to 1978, I was invited to Canada as a member of the Descenders Parateam, an exhibition skydiving team that performed for the annual four day Canadian National Exhibition Air Show in Toronto, Canada, with an estimated daily audience of a quarter of a million people.

In 1977, I was hired by a Canadian film company to do all the freefall photography documenting the Canadian National Skydiving Championships for a Canadian Wide World of Sports program. I have been a member of the United States Parachute Association for 35 years and acquired an Expert Parachutist "D License" early in my skydiving career. I have received an award for over 12 hours of freefall time and obtained my "Gold Wings" for making over 1,000 jumps. I have operated my own skydiving exhibition team, Skyquest Parateam, for many years, and currently I skydive for many public events. In 1989, while filming for a manufacturer of giant-screen theaters for theme parks, I was the first skydiver to take a large 65mm motion-picture camera into freefall attached to a harness. I tought myself how to scuba dive in the early '60s and when I started my film career, I quickly learned the specialized techniques of underwater cinematography.

Over the years, my underwater filming has glamorized such Florida attractions as Silver Springs, Weeki Wachee Springs, Marineland, and Sea World. In 1977, I was hired by a Washington, D.C. producer to shoot underwater footage for a series of national scuba safety television spots sponsored several years in a row by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These TV messages won a "Gold Screen Award" from the National Association of Government Communicators. I have had experience with many different still, movie, and video formats -- from 35mm to 8X10, 16mm to 70mm and Hi-8 to Betacam. Being aviation orientated, over the years I have developed an expertise in aerial photography, logging hundreds of hours in many different types of aircraft both fixed wing and helicopters. In addition to shooting stills, movie and video all over the United States including Hawaii, I have filmed in France, Canada, Mexico, Haiti, Brazil, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands. In 1974, a children's film I shot in Mexico entitled "Pinata" won the second-prize award of $12,500 in the prestigious Concurso Internacional Mexico film contest.

I have always been mechanically inventive and have designed and custom-built underwater camera housings, helicopter camera mounts, vehicle camera mounts, video field carts, title stands, animation stands, sound readers, and a time-lapse intervalometer. One especially good time-lapse sequence of storm clouds, shot with my custom-built equipment, was bought by Microsoft and one frame of this footage was used as the cloud background to their "Windows 95" logo. It was especially rewarding to know that this logo was the first page booted up on almost every PC moniter in the world at that time. One of the innovative camera-mounting ideas I developed for filming helicopter aerials in Hawaii with a heavy 65mm motion picture camera is now being utilized in a helicopter nose mount by one of the leading helicopter camera-mount systems based in Hollywood, California.

Currently, I shoot video productions on digital video cameras and edit on a non-linear video system along with my brother, Tony, for our company, Swain Film & Video. On weekends, I shoot freefall video and stills for tandem skydiving at Suncoast Skydiving in Wauchula, Florida. My wife, Rosemary, has recently retired from many years of teaching ballet, jazz, and tap to children and young adults. We live in the beautiful resort town of Sarasota on the west coast of Florida.

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