Executive Producer/Director Ed Commons

Film and Audio, and a bit of Museum research and A/v!

Film:

My first film project was a “Roman Epic” filmed in glorious 8mm, which I started in the 8 th grade. Next to be produced, a high school project for our exchange school in Germany, a “typical” day in the life of our school, shot on 16mm with a wild audio track to run with the presentation. I had not yet mastered “sync” sound recording. This was filmed with the schools Revere camera which I used to film football games for the team. That was actually my first professional film experience, on top of the press box, rain or snow, filming the games each week. Glorious black and white!

Theater:

After training at the Pittsburgh Playhouse School of Theater, I learned quickly that as an actor, choices for me were limited. My professional career began with my own record label and location audio service in Pittsburgh PA, Encore Electrical Recording Company. We specialized mostly in location recording, dragging the Ampex 350-2 from site to site. I missed the visual aspect of my training and soon my interest in film developed into a love of film, as it encompassed all of my interests from my theater experience; lighting, sound, photography , direction, and music.

Commercial Production:

After moving to Lexington KY in the early 70‘s, I studied and honed my craft as a filmmaker, surrounded myself with as much production and artistic talent as I could find and established a full service film and video production company, House of Commons Films. It was through House of Commons that I shot and directed hundreds of television commercials and corporate (industrials as they were called) for what now reads as a “who’s who” of the Fortune 500.

I am particularly proud of the early work I did for Wichman Advertising and the Keeneland Thoroughbred Racetrack. For many years, we produced award winning spots that got my work noticed by clients such as KFC, Westinghouse, Dow Corning, Coca Cola, Domino’s Pizza (the first “30 Minute Man”), Firestone, Billy Beer, many banks and hospitals and restaurants all across the country who took advantage of the high production values I have always tried to bring to my work.

There were of course corporate presentations for clients such as the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Mack Truck, Sperry Univac, the Gray Company and the beginning of a continuing relationship with Link Belt and now LBX. There were a group of projects for Fisher Scientific in Pittsburgh, outrageous fun, and many more.

In more recent years, projects included research and A/V production for the University Of Kentucky Basketball Museum, and the Music Museum and Hall of Fame in Renfro Valley KY. It is out of this latter Museum Experience that the seed of Red Barn Radio was born.

Currently:

I am working on a project in Wyoming, a history of the Bighorn Basin, as seen through the eyes of an icon of that region, Bob Edgar, a writer and historian of the old west. Out of this experience, a spinoff, the creation a DVD program with Clay Gibbons, President of Old Trail Town, Cody Wyoming.

Some of my most recent work, IN DREAMS AWAKE, is a documentary about the life of a Kentucky artist who was also one of my film crew members, Bill Petrie. In the film, you will see stills and footage from some of the shoots mentioned in this bio. It was a work of love!

Red Barn Radio:

Continuing on the location audio aspect of my early career, I now produce and direct a weekly syndicated radio program of Bluegrass Music, all recorded “live”, called Red Barn Radio. It is a challenge “to hit the marks” and a lot of fun. The musicians that we feature each week are an inspiration with their knowledge and musical craftsmanship. This program is now entering its ninth broadcast season, documenting and preserving the Music of Kentucky.

Associate Producer/Host Brad Becker

Born and raised in Virginia, Brad Becker was a contributing arts and music columnist for college and regional publications in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, and South Dakota before he moved to Kentucky in 1994.  While covering Eastern Kentucky events for ACE magazine, Brad visited Appalshop numerous times.

“After I did my interviews and took my notes, I’d go over to Appalshop and somebody would set me up in a room with a VCR to watch some of the films they make down there.  I’d learn about coal mining and listen to these powerful stories of hardship and faith in the mountains.  Those films affected me deeply; but it was the music backdrop—the banjo especially, which I’d never heard played the old way-- that got me right at my pit, and still halts me whenever I hear it.  For me the earthy and dark sounds of old instruments played by ear-trained musicians capture that region better than photography. “

“At the same time, it’s no wonder to me that young people growing up in the mountains would shun their parents’ music for something louder and faster,  a little tang and twang to satisfy their hunger for movement and change.”

"My association with Red Barn Radio over the years has been terrific fun and amazing education. Every week I host non-professional but expert Old Time and Bluegrass musicians, talk with them about their homes and churches, their families, and their musical journeys, and then listen to them play the music most of them learned from their parents. The resulting weekly radio broadcast is something you won’t hear anywhere else in radio land."