About Hodag Video
Who am I?
I have been caving for 25 years, and have been doing still and video photography for 23 of those years. I started caving in 1973 from Louisville, Kentucky, where I was working for General Electric. I went caving almost every weekend in Kentucky and Indiana, plus a few excursions out west. When I moved to Circleville, Ohio, I bought a 35 mm camera. I was still caving almost every weekend, surveying caves, drawing maps, and taking many pictures. I even entered some of my prints and slides in the NSS Photo Salon. I garnered at least one Honorable mention.
After spending one year in Circleville , Ohio, I moved to Cleveland to work for General Electric's lamp facility at Nela Park. After putting up with Cleveland for five years, I obtained a better job (and location) with GE in Roanoke, Virginia in the fall of 1981. My primary criteria for a new location was that it had to be within a couple hours of decent caves, of which Roanoke fit the bill very good. What made Roanoke even better was the fact that it was not a large City - it is also were I met my wife, Mary Sue, who is also a caver.
After reaching saturation for still photography, I switched over to cave videography in 1983. Since then, I have slowly been improving my video equipement and my editing skills. What really kept me going in the hobby of videography was the purchase of a non-linear, digital editing system. The editor I use is manufactored by Draco, Inc in Colorado and is called the Casablanca. This system made it far easier to edit video over linear or tape to tape editing. The quality of the distribution takes also increased by orders of magnitude.
What do I do?
Anything about Hodag Video Productions is about
me, Dave Socky. I am a one person enterprise (which is more of a hobby than
a business), and specialize in videos about caves and caving. I produce documentary
type videos about specific caves or caving areas, conservation and/or educational
programs, semi-fictional programs about caves and cavers, and even fun MTV
style "music videos" about caves and cavers. I do more then just
caving videos, though. I've produced 2 programs of plays and variety shows
put on by our local elementry school. I did a 10 minute program about a charitable
organizations help in constructing a school playground. And I have even done
a program on a retirement dinner, and one family wedding (The wedding was
in the family. I do not do weddings, but this one was done as a family favor).