If I was to trace where my film career came from, I go to three projects. 1) The Niteskool Project music videos I did while a student at Northwestern. 2) The Denny Dent films-the longer and the shorter version, and 3) Victimless Crimes, the feature film I wrote and directed. For rights reasons I cannot play the entire film here, but here’s the trailer.
From the Farmstand
This is a pilot for a cooking show I made for my friend Janine MacLachlan. It didn’t go anywhere, but I always thought it was a nice piece of filmmaking. Janine did great. Again I was working with my friends Jim Morrissette and Jennifer Mayer.
FromTheFarmstand from Peter Hawley on Vimeo.
Wiss Janney Elstner- Janney Technical Center
For 20 years I have done work for WJE, the Northbrook, IL based engineer, architect, and material science firm. Over that time a made a film for their 50th anniversary, their 60th anniversary, several promotional films, and this during the spring of 2018, a film about their new state of the art lab.
Psychodots Music Video
I directed this music video in 2007. It was part of Production in Action. The band, psychodots, is from Cincinnati. It was a blast.
Illinois Helps TV spot
Every now and then you are in the right place at the right time. In 2011 this TV spot literally dropped in my lap. We wrote, produced, shot and edited, and have a killer voice over from Jeff Morrow, the master.
Wittenstein
I did this spot with a couple of former students. They did the heavy lifting, I just produced and worked with the client. It was my first deep experience using a DSLR and serious After Effects. Great work Andy and John.
My Favorite TV spots as director
This is an old reel, but these are some of my favorite spots I directed. Of course it all started with Denny Dent, you can read that story and see the long version here.
Commercials from Peter Hawley on Vimeo.
Beth and Scott and Friends
This was a fun one. I got to help out my friends Beth and Scott Bierko. We filmed a live concert outside of New York City. Editing was my friend Jennifer Mayer, and lead cinematographer was my friend Jim Morrissette of Kartemquin films.
T
Niteskool Project Music videos 1984-1986
In 1984 when I was a student at Northwestern University, I was part of a group of students that created the Niteskool Project. I am pleased to say Niteskool continues today at Northwestern. We set out to make a record and a music video. That first year we created a two singles and one music vide0, Ambition. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years, Miller Beer offered us a nice chunk of money to be our sponsor, and the next year I produced Heroes and Just One Look. And my senior year, I produced Next to You, which ultimately won a regional student Emmy Award.
To this day making these videos was one of the most rewarding, exciting, and fulfilling things I have done as a filmmaker.
Happy Halloween! This week Ghost Stories and Brad Gyori returns to talk about Shelley’s Heart
Happy Halloween week! Way back at the beginning of April Brad Gyori was on the podcast. You can read the original post and listen here. When we spoke in April Brad told us of his plans for a production of his Geo-location play, “Shelley’s Heart,” It goes live on Wednesday, Halloween, so I thought it would be great to have Brad back to discuss the production. For those of us who can’t travel to Bournemouth, England you can get the entire experience at https://www.shelleysheart.com/sample and I strongly encourage you to do it. It’s interactive, it’s great storytelling, and makes me want to hop on a plane. Good work Brad!
So it’s Halloween week, and in addition to Brad and Shelley’s Heart, the Lesson of the Day is sharing some of my own personal ghost stories. First up is my grandmother, Kakky. She died in 1982, but shows up regularly, and keeps pushing me to finish my horse racing documentary- more on that in a few weeks. She often shows up in my dining room, every now and then show teases me and pokes her finger in my chest and tells me to keep going. A couple of Christmases ago, I was at my parents house searching through a folder of financial documents. We had been talking about Kakky, and there, in the middle of all these papers is this photograph. There was no logical reason this picture from 1969 should have been there, but there it was. Kakky wanted us to know she was around. Hi Kakky.
Teacher Man Ghost Story # 2.
About 2 days before I found the picture of Kakky, our dog Nelson died. He was the sweetest thing. I found him chained to a fence in 2005, and he was with us and his big brother, Vishnu, until he died. About 2 weeks after his death a motion detection light in the backyard went off. It hadn’t worked in months, and hasn’t worked since. It was Nelson coming home, I am sure. And to drive the point home, the iPhone blew up with one of those “memory” things- all photos of Nelson.
And finally, just at this time last year our other dog, Vishnu died. Vish was “my” dog. We were close. Either I was like him, or he was like me. Stubborn in our ways, a little crotchety, we like to eat, he drank like crazy, we were close. By the time he died at 15 he was arthritic and drugged up like Keith Richards. That dog could maintain on all sorts of painkillers and other things. 10 days before his death we went to a dog blessing. Our groomer, Patty at Bark Bark Club was there and unbeknownst to us, took a picture of Vishnu. A couple of weeks later I was really sad. I missed Vish a lot and I didn’t understand why he didn’t come back home like Nelson did. Just at that time I go get out mail, and in the delivery was a letter- yes snail mail- from Patty with a printed photograph of Vishnu from the dog blessing. Just when I was wondering where he was, I literally walked in the front door with him one final time. 
Those are my ghost stories. Happy Halloween. Listen to the podcast here:
Teacher Man
