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Joy Mumford was wondering when Wanda Braymer was going to say something.

The judging was over and Braymer knew the results. But she was staying mum.

“I hadn’t heard from Wanda and I wanted to know what happened” Mumford said. “Then (Saturday) was our 4-H banquet and Wanda was speaking. And when she started to say, ‘When we asked this 4-H group to start a video project a couple years ago ...’

“That’s when I knew.”

A few words later, Braymer announced that Mumford and her group from the Hodge Podge Deluxe 4-H Club had taken first place in the state of Pennsylvania for their video presentation of the Crawford County Fair.

“Very surprised,” said Mumford, the club leader for Hodge Podge Deluxe. “And very excited.”

The group’s win was announced during the convention of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs, held last week in Hershey.

“And this contest is with all the fairs in the state,” said Braymer, Crawford County’s 4-H coordinator. “There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania, but there are more than 67 fairs in the state. I know that Erie County has three fairs. So, it’s quite the competition.”

During this year’s fair, Mumford, along with Hodge Podge members Brooke Griffin and Lydia Gillette, scoured the fairgrounds taking pictures of as many events as they could.

“There’s so much to cover,” said Mumford, “Getting everything can be a trick.”

One trick the film’s producers used was getting an aerial photographer to take some video footage from on high.

Then they took that footage, and the still photos, and turned it over to Bruce McCrillis of Saegertown, an amateur videographer and a friend of Mumford’s.

“There were about 350 pictures that I had to sort through,” said McCrillis. “I’d say that (the final film used) less than 100. I never did count them.”

McCrillis edited the film and gave it a running motif.

“He kind of had a theme in mind,” said Mumford. “He had a theme of it being like a book, and the pages are being turned. So it’s basically like going through a photo album of that year’s fair.”

Sound effects were added, along with music and a narration by Mumford.

“(McCrillis) said that putting it together took about 19, 20 hours,” said Mumford. “And that doesn’t count actually taking the photos. Who knows how many hours that would be.”

The end result was a three-minute, 15-second video representation of the Crawford County Fair. And a good one at that.

“It was pretty Hollywood,” said Braymer. “It was very nicely done.”

The judges at the fair convention must have agreed.

The film was actually the second one made by Mumford, McCrillis and the Hodge Podge photographers. Their first was for the 2008 Crawford County Fair.

“The Crawford County Fair Board had asked me if I had a 4-H club that was interested in doing a film for this contest,” said Braymer. “And at the time, that was the project that (Hodge Podge Deluxe) was doing, photography. That’s why we asked them.”

The video the group made of the 2008 fair finished third in that year’s contest.

And with such a successful first try, Braymer wisely asked them to do another one.

“And then they took first,” said Braymer. “I don’t know where you go from there.”

Repeat, maybe?

“If they want us to, I said I’d be more than willing to do it again,” said Mumford, “because it was pretty exciting.”



Pete Chiodo can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at pchiodo@meadvilletribune.com.