Imagine MKE released its fifth annual Milwaukee Day video – which it calls, “a media love letter to Milwaukee’s arts, culture, and creative industries” – on Friday.
“Reimagine Milwaukee,” was directed by Wes Tank of TankThink and produced by Sara Daleiden of MKE<-> LAX, and it includes cameos by many Milwaukee artists, civic leaders, art organizations and others.
Among the sites featured are the Domes, Red Arrow Park, Bradford Beach, Milwaukee Art Museum, Sherman Phoenix, Three Bridges Park and North Point Water Tower, and among the personalities included are Klassik, SistaStrings, DJ Kenny Perez, muralists John Kowalczyk, Tia Richardson and Fred Kaems, Adekola Fadunmade Adedapo and Ko-Thi Dance Company, photographer Samer Ghani and others.
“This year's Milwaukee Day video has been a remarkable labor of love and is the crown jewel of the Reimagine Milwaukee campaign,” says Imagine MKE’s Executive Director Adam Braatz. “With the incredible talents and reach of filmmaker Wes Tank and producer Sara Daleiden of Washington Park Media Center, the inspiring music of Vincent Van Great, and so many other standout local creatives, we’ve been able to produce a media time capsule of this moment in the life of Milwaukee’s creative community.
“We sincerely hope that it will resonate in an enduring way with all those who call Milwaukee home, and can serve to broadcast the special warmth, creativity, and diversity of Milwaukee to the outside world.”
The video, the makers say, is the result of a four-month campaign that celebrated the city’s cultural and artistic life and led to the creation of more than 100 pieces of content shared in nearly 400 posts on seven social media platforms, generating a total watch time of more than 2,300 hours.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
