Woodward blends stories with technology to preserve history

by Marianne Morf
   It’s difficult to assign a title to David Woodward’s work. 
    He’ll tell you he’s a producer and director.  And he is.  But he’s also a historian, videographer and writer, to name a few more.  Wrap them all up into one and he’s technologically savvy storyteller.

    Woodward owns and operates Conwood Enterprises, Inc., an award-winning video production service with an office located on North Shore Drive. 
    “The process has changed so much, but basically I enjoy helping people tell stories,” says David.
    Those stories come in a variety of packages.  He’s produced documentaries which have aired nationally on subjects ranging from our health care system to those with a dream of becoming a professional athlete.  He’s also produced sports shows for Raycom Sports, including shows for former Iowa Hawkeye Coaches Hayden Fry and Tom Davis and 90 segments of Great Chefs of the World, which aired on the Discovery Channel.
    Producing these stories is something David says he has enjoyed doing since the mid-1970s.  He was attending graduate school at the University of Wisconson (Madison) in 1975 when he left school to accept a job in the communications business.  It was the start of a career which has evolved professionally and technologically.  Stashed in one corner of Woodward’s office is a wealth of equipment which has been replaced by smaller, lighter pieces which store information digitally, rather than on film.  He is now shooting in high definition, but says he will likely resist investing in 3-D.
    And while the equipment continues to evolve, Woodward’s planning and process for creating a good finished product is pretty basic.  It begins with an outline and content meetings, during which interviews are planned.  He will literally film hundreds of hours of conversations and action footage before boiling it all down to a script and finally blending it all together on DVD.
    Woodward’s work is often mingled with subjects and persons he holds dear.  For example, he recently completed “History of the Clear Lake Yacht Club: Sailing Through Time 1935-2010.”  The project, which features not only historical fact and archive photos, but interviews with “old salts” who have literally grown up as members of the Clear Lake Yacht Club.  Woodward’s late grandfather and father were both former Commodores of the CLYC and David recalls crewing as early as age 10.  He no longer races, but still enjoys the sport and the camaraderie of the organization.
    He was asked to undertake the CLYC history project the winter before the club’s 75th anniversary and completed the work in April 2011.  The finished product boiled down 75 years of history and countless hours of interviews to a 36-minute documentary about the club, as well as interviews about the Cougar, MC and C Classes, and women of the CLYC on one disk, along with two and one-half hours of interviews with senior - Read More Via e-Edition