DISCOVERING "I am a Camera"!

From 1976 - 1981, ss the videography market grew, the Videography Studios, began to feel the powerful forces that were were chipping away at the company's niche. "We were at the bleeding edge of an early technology bubble" says Kiger. When we bought a state-of-the-art camera for $65,000 . . . two years later the same camera could be bought by our new competitors for under $20,000. We just couldn't compete." (Note: by 2007 cameras that will do the same job, and even more, cost $300)

In 1982 Kiger turned over the keys to Videography Studios to his financial backers and staff and moved to the Hawaiian Island of Maui.

In Lahaina he developed a small rent-a-bike business, which was marginal owing to lack of safe riding areas on Maui.

Ever the optimist, Bob and a friend were canoe paddling between Maui and Lanai when Kiger looked back at Maui's volcano known as Haleakala, "the House of the Sun" in Hawaiian. Some of Bob's friends had mentioned that there was a road all the way up to the summit of that volcano.

Kiger, trained in visualization from his days as a Hollywood director, thought there might be something lucrative in transporting people up the volcano in a van and then dispatching them with bicycles . . . so they could coast 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) vertical down a circuitous 38 mile road.

He began developing his marketing mission statement on the spot. "What if bicycles could become to Haleakala . . . as skis are to Aspen?".

Within a few weeks Bob got a ride with his bike to the top of Haleakala and made a test trip. He recorded his stream of ideas using an audio recorder and stopped once in a while to get a still photo.

His vivid commentary included words like "heavenly". The downhill ride was indelibly impressed on Bob's mind and caused him to synthesize the experience as a videographer.

Bob's revelation, now self evident, was that "we do not need a camera or any other type of recording device to be videographers!"

Quoting Shakespeare, "To Be" is ALL we need for videography to bloom. For Kiger, the downhill bike ride was a peak life experience . . . it was also a peak videography experience.

It was evident then, in January, 1983, that the definition of videography needed to be seriously considered. Lacking direction on how to tackle a project of such magnitude, Kiger decided to follow the roots of the word video-graphy to it's origins.

At the same time he took on the nickname, "Cruiser Bob", grabbed his bicycle and his video helmet camera, and began a 13 year long journey into videography while riding a bicycle.

Kiger began teaching videography as a non-credit course at Maui Community College and, with his class, produced an Emmy nominated documentary, "Cycle to the Sun" about the bicycle race UP Haleakala . . . telecast in 1985 on KGMB-TV Honolulu.

By 1986 Kiger felt compelled to update his original writings on videography . . . and give the word long overdue meaning. He wrote a Treatise on Videography, which he presented to Dr. Walter Maurer, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Indo-Pacific Languages, . Dr. Maurer's agreement with the Treatise on Videography sparked Kiger's enthusiasm that his root definition of videography was on the right track. He sent a complete report to the editors of Websters and Oxford dictionaries. (Note: in this early treatise on videography, Kiger admits that he had not yet clearly expressed the relationship between the individuals "vid" > the expression "video" and the universal knowledge base of "videography")

Living in the world's most remote island group did not impair Kiger's ability to watch cable TV and keep abreast with changes in the media. He also begin authoring his first website through maui.net He was fully immersed in the impending digital age.

From 1988 - 1996 Kiger took his videography on the road with his first (of two) round the world bicycle trips, using an air pass to overcome oceans and geo-political danger.

Along the way he met and married his soul mate, Ms. Lynnde Richter. When they returned to Maui, Bob & Lynnde formed a dynamic duo to co-manage "Cruiser Bob's" and appeared together on "Good Morning America" to promote the business. Less than a year later, on a routine health exam, Lynnde was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. She died in 1992. Bob departed Maui on his second RTW bike trip to settle Lynnde's affairs abroad. To this day he acknowledges a debt to her family in Australia for unfinished business.

Between 1994 - 1996 he developed a high quality helmetcam system and completed principal photography on "Cruiser Bob's Volcano Bicycle Adventures" a DVD now in preparation for release on the 25th anniversary of Bob's original downhill trip.

His bicycling helmetcam work attracted the notice of the JVC Company who muscled Videography Magazine into running an article entitled "Cruisin with Bob", describing Kiger as a "veteran shooter" . . . not the "father of videography". They added insult to injury when, later in 1996, the magazine published a book called "The Age of Videography" which carefully deleted any reference to the first four years of videography's history. Kiger is now researching and considering remedies for this situation.

These days Bob lives a comfortable and quiet life managing Videography Labs and blogging near the beach in Oceanside, California. His current plans include extensive RV travels around North America in the years ahead. On the way he plans to produce time lapse studies of great naturescapes. He is most eager to visit the Yucatan to see Mayan ruins and the site of the infamous 65,000,000 BP comet crash that caused the demise of the dinosaurs and the beginning of the "Age of Mammals".

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videography ©® Bob Kiger 1972-2007 | VID ® WGA-Bob Kiger 1999-2007