Greetings fellow travelers. 2024 is about in the books with no shortage of meaningful work jammed with adventure, faithful clients and new friends along the way.

Lutheran Social Services of Illinois took us to Peoria, Illinois to record a lovely story about Intact Family Services.  We also told the story of Marni Jamison, a woman who has fostered nearly 100 children in her amazing career. 

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago  had a busy year living into their new digs in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and we were there to record much of it including their new asynchronous learning program, Baccalaureate, a Hymn festival in St. Louis, a reunion of the faithful Semiex alumni, the retirement of James Nieman and much more. 

Chicago Theological Seminary had us back to record a pastors retreat and the Chicago Rehab Network asked us to livestream a series of one day workshops focusing on non-profit housing development.  The Christian Fellowship Community had us back in Texas and their National gathering at Milwaukee’s Summerfest outdoor pavilion. 

In the medical space, we produced a series of training videos for the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists in Chicago. 

And Cedar Interactive hired us along with a team of talented actors, to produce quality assurance videos at Berwyn’s MacNeil Hospital.

The Rural Community Assistance Partnership had us all over the place, from West Virginia to Illinois to Nebraska to Montana telling and recording stories about their support of America’s rural communities.  My old employer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America hired me to record Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton.

Hephizbah Children’s Association, Oak Park’s oldest social service agency, hired us again to tell stories about their work helping children thrive and families flourish through innovative, community-based programs.

New clients included All Chicago and their efforts to address the housing crisis in our city,  A history of Bonnhomme Presbyterian Church in Chesterfield, Missouri. Josephinum Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all girls school on Chicago’s north side, Pacific Garden Mission, Chicago’s oldest homeless shelter, and the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois.

Much of our work this year included the help of my freelance colleague, Stacey Adams.  I’m deeply appreciative of his help and shared appreciation for our many clients. 

And finally, we were able to finish our latest documentary, the Secrets of Hidden Lake, the story of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s Hidden Lake.  Thanks to the Butterfield Park District for hosting the premier and the Lombard Historical Society encouragement and help with research along the way. 

Our hearts are full as we reflect on all that has transpired and then look forward to the new year ahead.

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Happy December!

Travel, I’ve had my share, man. 2023 was perhaps our busiest. I’m thinking the post-pandemic reality prompted our non-profit, faith-based, broadcast and corporate clients to make up for lost ground. 22 different clients and more individual videos than I can count.

Here’s a brief rundown.
The Rural Community Assistance Partnership led the way with stories and events in New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Ohio New Hampshire, Boston, Mass, and Washington D.C.

Father Bob Miller, my spouse Julie and I did a deep Civil War dive with Faith of the Fathers, a new Documentary with the Kenosha, Wisconsin Civil War Museum that took us back in time to Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

The Christian Fellowship Community had me back in Rural Texas, Louisville, Kentucky and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Here at home, The Islamic Foundation of Villa Park, Illinois honored me with a commission to tell the story of their 50th anniversary in what has become one of the largest and most influential Muslim American organizations in the United States.

Lombard, Illinois brand new Helen Plum Library opened this year and I was asked to document it all.

The Chicago Bible Society, Pure Processing, The Chicago Rehab Network, Hephzibah Children’s Association, The Law Center for Better Housing, Chicago Theological Seminary, Catholic Theological Union, McCormick Theological Seminary and All Chicago, a new client that seeks to end homelessness, all asked me to tell their stories.

And then it was Lutheran, Lutheran Lutheran! Lutheran Social Services of Illinois kept me really busy with a wide variety of stories and events as they serve Illinois’ most vulnerable populations. Lutheran Services in America asked us to cover a large Gathering at Bethel New Life in Chicago, and last but not least, the Lutheran School of Theology made their big move into new digs and I was there to cover it all.

Thank you to each and every one of my clients. It is an honor and privilege to serve alongside you as you do justice, love mercy and walk humbly.

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Here is a new video I produced for Lombard’s Helen Plum Library. The new, planned library location at 411 S. Main Street, Lombard (get it, 411… information… library) will be built on the site of the former Mr. Z’s Grocery story.
The Helen Plum Library worked out an agreement with the Lombard Fire Department and the Village of Lombard, to use the facility as a fire training site, in advance of the building’s demolition later in May.
I’m proud to have this opportunity to serve my local community and help make Lombard and even better place than it already is.
Drone footage by Pictision , LLC

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I’m excited to share a promo trailer for a new documentary I’m currently working on with the Lombard Historical Society. We are well into production and hope to have it finished by Spring 2021. For more information go to frakesproductions.com or contact the Lombard Historical Society at lombardhistory.org

On a small network of curving, treelined streets in Suburban DuPage County, Illinois, rests a collection of homes known today as The York Center Homeowners Association.

From 1947 to 2007, these custom, single family homes built on 1 acre plots over ground once occupied by a dairy farm, came to be known as the York Center Co-op.

This pioneering, faith-based effort provided fair housing, community and opportunity in an era of white flight, redlining and restrictive covenants that effectively prevented non-white Americans from fully participating in the American dream.

It’s a dream that influenced the course of American history during the Civil Rights era when a young attorney for the NAACP who would later go on to become a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, wrote a legal brief to President Harry S. Truman, advocating on behalf of the Co-op, just as Truman and Congress were grappling with the crisis of an epic housing shortage after World War 2.

Despite acts of overt racism that included a cross burning, bullet holes through widows, internal conflict and systemic economic racism, the York Center Co-op and the white, black, asian and Jewish families who lived there, demonstrated to themselves, their neighbors and America, what results when determined people put aside racial, religious and class differences, and work together for the common good.

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Making Virtual a Reality
“This must be heaven,” says Shoeless Joe Jackson. “No. It’s Iowa,” writes W.P. Kinsella, in his 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe.
2020 and the Covid-19 Pandemic has blurred the line between virtual and reality in the video production business. Much of my business involves generating content for or actually recording large fundraising galas for various non-profit organizations, businesses and institutions.

Covid-19 changed all that and likely changed it forever. Last spring I watched client after client, cancel their events and fundraising galas and banquets. But then, a funny thing happened. Business began to trickle back in as clients pivoted to virtual gatherings.

An so began a busy summer and fall producing and assembling virtual events for some amazing non-profit organizations like Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, Lawyers Committee for Better Housing, the Northern Illinois District of the United Methodist Church, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the JCFS Therapeutic School, Lutheran Life Communities, Augsburg University and the Chicago Bible Society.

Each of these organizations needed to move forward with annual fundraising drives and they needed content, properly recorded, edited and crafted into compelling narratives. In my world we call that a TV show and producing those, is right in my wheelhouse.

The big difference is the advent of Zoom and other platforms giving us the ability to safely record individuals from their homes or offices. We also did some safe, socially distanced recording sessions with individuals by creating sets and scheduling individuals to be recorded one at a time. These recordings were then edited together into virtual events.

2020 was also filled with documentary production, including several new documentaries. The York Center Coop is the story of a fair-housing cooperative in my hometown, Lombard, Illinois. This project with the Lombard Historical Society is still in production and will complete a trifecta of historical documentaries that span the history of our community from the arrival of European Americans through present day.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in American commissioned me to create a documentary about two of their missionaries, Mark and Linda Jacobson. The Jacobsons spent most of their careers in Tanzania working to develop healthcare through a missiology known as “Accompaniment.”

Shekinah Chapel is an amazing African American congregation on Chicago’s far south side. They asked me to produce a documentary in celebration of their 25th anniversary. Shekinah Chapel recounts the story of a small group of African American men and women who dedicated themselves to creatively addressing the needs of children in their community amid the gang and drug conflicts of the 1990’s. The result was the birth of a surprising new community of faith that continues to flourish today.

Finally, our Save Your Memories digital transfer service continues to grow. This year we digitized thousands of hours of VHS, Hi-8, Beta-cam, 8mm and 16mm film, 35mm slides and various audio recordings. It’s fun to work with the legacy formats that once were the primary tools of our industry.

To paraphrase W.P. Kinsella, my 2020 production calendar was erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt. Thanks to all my faithful clients who do such amazing work, healing the sick, comforting the suffering and defending the defenseless, doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly.

Here’s looking to a bright future in 2021 with new opportunities, challenges and adventures.

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Join us Sunday, June 7 at noon on Youtube for a special premier of our new documentary.

All Citizens
The Lombard women who voted 29 years before the
19th amendment and the story of those who made it possible.

On April 6, 1891 fifteen Lombard women, led by Chicago attorney 
Ellen A. Martin, marched into their local polling place and demanded to vote. It was 29 years before the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution secured women’s right to vote nation-wide.

Martin and her colleagues, all prominent Lombard women, were able to vote because 22 years earlier, Civil War General, Benjamin Sweet, author of the founding charter of Lombard, deliberately wrote “All Citizens… shall be entitled to vote at any election.”

Tim Frakes Productions and the Lombard Historical Society are proud to present this new documentary that tells the story of these suffrage pioneers in this, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment.

All Citizens. A documentary by Tim Frakes with the Lombard Historical Society.

Watch the Promo Trailer

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Hello. I’m Tim Frakes. Tim Frakes Productions is a full service video production and post-production company based in Lombard, Illinois. We record, produce and post-produce in the Chicago area, across the United States and globally:

We produce award winning documentaries, multi camera broadcast events including concerts, worship events and celebrations, development videos, marketing videos for major pharmaceutical and, research institutions, medical equipment, manufacturing, and the real estate industry.
We also produce live audience training presentations, instructional videos in the manufacturing and healthcare industries, commercial television and social media spots and a wide range of testimonials.

Our production and post equipment and software are broadcast quality and allow us to meet a wide range of client needs using proper tools of the video production trade.

Tim Frakes Productions began in 2007 and our client list is long and always growing. Quotes are free, references are abundant. Tim Frakes Productions Inc. Documentary and image video for non-profit, faith-based, broadcast and corporate clients.

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The year started off working with Chris Meyer from Orange Flux to produce a series of stories for Lutheran Child and Family Services. Jim Parks and I continued to work with Northwestern Medicine producing a video on NM Supportive Communications at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital.

Lutheran Social Services of Illinois kept me busy with Good Shepherd Sunday and Amicus Certus videos. I also continued to record and edit staff training videos for their deployed staff around the state of Illinois. Strategic Coach invited me back to their Rosemont offices as well as several special events as they help entrepreneurs organize their lives and businesses.

The Deaconess Community of the ELCA asked me to cover their assembly at the Mt. Olivet Retreat Center in Farmington, MN. I also produced a video on their work with the food bank ministry at Shekinah Chapel in Chicago. Jim Quattrocki and I did New York’s Times Square on a shoot with Patient Power and OncologyTube, recording recording the latest in Oncology.

Lutheran Life Communities asked me to introduce their new CEO and tell more stories about vibrant, grace filled living across all generations. Franciscan Outreach had me produce a 2018 video about their vital work with Chicago’s homeless. Chicago Theological Seminary and Michael Jordan from 31 Lengths in New York sent me on shoots in Los Angeles, Seattle and here in Chicago telling stories for their Leaders for the Next campaign.

Zach Shepherd with Braddock Investment Group and Bill Powers RTO Properties gave me a birds eye view of the real estate flipping business. Belniak Media in Glen Ellyn hired me to record interviews and landscape photography. Christian Fellowship Breakfast is going strong. We produced a new “About” video as well as several of their 2018 events. Pure Processing, a medical equipment company had me create some fancy product videos about endoscopes!

Catholic Theological Union invited me to their gorgeous seminary campus in Hyde Park, to record gatherings of Catholics from around the globe at the Bernadine Center. Excel Marketing took me back to Ramcel Engineering.

Two big projects outside the continental United States included RCAP Solutions and their solid waste management efforts in Puerto Rico and an absolutely delightful project with Haiti Outreach Ministries in Port Au Prince with my friend Ulrick Louijeune.

Great Lakes RCAP took me to the Sandwich, Illinois fairgrounds to record their field day training with rural waste water and drinking water professionals. The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance whisked me off to San Diego to cover the American Hematology Society (ASH) conference. My ELCA colleague Melissa Ramirez Cooper called and asked me to cover a teachers strike for INCS.

And I wrapped up the year with the Amish at the Home Guard Industries factory near Fort Wayne, Indiana with Darren Harrison. And of course my big personal project in 2018 was a 37 minute documentary on the life of Lombard Illinois most famous son, 19th century folk artist Sheldon Peck. Thanks to all my clients for making 2018 a year filled with meaningful work and energizing adventure.

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Here is a video I helped Michael Jordan from 31 Lengths and Susan Mooney Cusick produce from Chicago Theological Seminary‘s Leaders for the Next campaign.

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