ADDRESS: 1218 Kingsbury Road, Abilene, Texas 79602 EMAIL: greg.golden@acu.edu PHONE: 325.829.7499

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Greg Golden // senior graphic designer // art director

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with the camera crewsaboard the four primary and four

secondary boats featured on the show. He then returned to Los Angeles to digitize

footage and close up holes in storylines. “It’s a lotlike detective work, in a way,” he said.

During the time between the two crab seasons lastyear, McNeill got the chance to produce a weeklong shoot with a

submarine to gather footage for the show. “In the end, I kind ofended up taking on the whole operation,” he said.

McNeill was stationed in the Bering Sea on a crab boat that servedas the submarine’s taxi out to the crab grounds. Their quest was to capture

underwater footage of crab pots, sunken crab boats and crab biomass (crabs that attach to each other and roll along the ocean floor in masses up to 10 feet in diameter), as well as material for a behind-the-scenes episode.

“It was pretty dangerous,” he said about the Bering Sea in the dead of winter. “There were currents going in every direction.”

His first night out on the sea brought the danger a little too close forMcNeill’s comfort. Sleeping in the galley of the crab boat, he was jolted awake by a tremendous crash.

“It sounded like we hit a rock, and I immediately felt water splash over me,” he said.

A fisherman, who had also been sleeping in the galley, jumped up and cursed.

“I thought, ‘Oh, man, if a fisherman is freaking out, this can’t be good,’” McNeill said.

The crash turned out to be a huge wave that crashed over the vessel.That time, the boat and crew were unscathed, but the relentless waves are often destructive.

On the wintry Bering Sea, a thousand gallons of water can wash over the deck every 30 seconds, and the water instantly turns to ice that mustbe cleared by deckhands with sledgehammers in subzero weather.

With hypothermia more of a probability than a possibility, crab boatcrews work under some of the toughest conditions in the world.

In the first season of “Deadliest Catch,” before McNeill began workingfor the show, six fishermen perished when their boat sank. Two years ago, a cameraman filming a documentary on the crab industry (unrelated to“Deadliest Catch”) was killed on the job.

Cameramen for “Deadliest Catch” stationed on the boats face dangerevery day. McNeill says they are prepared as much as possible before filmingbegins. Their training includes learning how to put on a survival suit in lessthan 60 seconds.

“They are told very clearly that it will be the most dangerous shootthey’ll ever do,” McNeill said.

With death as a recurring theme on the show, McNeill is constantlyaware of the grim shadow it projects upon everyone involved – even whenworking in his Los Angeles office, a safe 4,360 miles from the ice, wind andwaves. His first season working on “Deadliest Catch,” McNeill had thesobering task of calling families of deceased fishermen to obtain photos for use on the show.

Some people hung up on him, but others seemed grateful for the contact.

“Some said things like, ‘I’m glad you called because you are the first person who’s told me anything about my brother’s death,’” he said.

So what does McNeill’s family think of his job?“I know they are proud of what I’m doing, but I know

they’re concerned,” he said. “I’m careful about what I tell them. If something really scary happens, I tell them

way after the fact.”While awaiting the daily reports from the

boats’ camera crews during the crab seasons,McNeill is mindful of the very real

possibility that someone may not make it home.

While shooting in Dutch Harbor last year, McNeill received word that a man had gone missing from a crab processing boat.

“The production manager and I went out in thesea to where the boat was docked and shot everything related to the search,” he said.

The man was never found.“It’s sad that death is such a major aspect of our show,”

he said. “It’s definitely one of the hardest things about working on‘Deadliest Catch.’”

Even for boat crew members who avoid death, injuries are virtuallyinevitable. According to the show’s pilot episode, severe weather conditionsand working with heavy equipment on a constantly moving boat deckcontribute to an almost 100 percent chance of injury for members of crab boat crews.

Dr. Susan Lewis visited with McNeill shortly before he began working on the show.

“I had seen the first season of ‘Deadliest Catch,’ so I was excited that Ryan was going to work on the show,” she said. “Even though I was alittle worried for his safety, I could completely imagine him enjoying theexcitement and challenge brought by that treacherous environment.”

The popularity of “Deadliest Catch” continues to grow, and the showwas nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for the 2007 televisionseason, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series and OutstandingCinematography for Nonfiction Programming.

As the show’s viewer base has grown, McNeill has enjoyed watchingfame come to the unsuspecting fishermen featured on the show.

“It’s been funny watching these guys respond to celebrity,” saidMcNeill, who has achieved some celebrity of his own. On his last visit hometo Healdton, Okla., a nurse at his dentist’s office asked for his autograph.

“Everyone who works on the show has been overwhelmed by its success,” he said.

While the show is on break between fishing seasons, McNeill’s status as a freelancer enables him to work on other projects because he is not bound by a contract.

“Freelancing is an available option out here, but you have to beambitious and willing to network,” he said.

While on break from “Deadliest Catch,” McNeill has produced adocumentary on karaoke singers in the Los Angeles area, along with otherfilm projects.

“I’m still figuring out where I want my career to go, and the greatthing about freelancing is that I can work on my own projects,” he said.

Staying busy in Los Angeles, McNeill anticipates returning to DutchHarbor for another crab season. Even in the sunny warmth of southernCalifornia, reminders of McNeill’s other work location turn up in unlikelyplaces – such as the seafood counter at his local grocery store.

“That smell of seafood I once found putrid now makes me miss Alaska,” he said.

And if McNeill ever complained about the price of seafood, he doesn’t anymore.

“Having worked on the show has definitely changed my perspective on crab, or any seafood for that matter,” he said. “Knowing the risk these fishermen take makes you respect your crab dinner that much more and makes you understand why you have to pay so much money to eat it.”�

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Photographer Corey Arnold holds one ofthe show’s co-stars – an opilio crab.

McNeill restsaboard the Time Bandit.

Ice can encrust everything on the ships. Fishermen sort crabs from the pots.

ANDY

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crab boats and their crews, as they put lives on the line to

land a massive catch.It’s dangerous work, but crab fishing

can mean big money. According to the NationalMarine Fisheries Service, nearly two billion pounds of

red king crab worth $1.6 billion have been harvested fromAlaska’s waters since Alaska became a state in 1959. One large

catch can bring in several hundred thousand dollars. The 2004 total catch of red king crab, priced at $4.70 per pound, was worth

$65.8 million at the dock.But no dollar amount can be placed on what’s at stake. Battling

subzero temperatures, high winds and rough seas while hauling in 800-poundcrab traps (or “pots”), crab fishermen have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. McNeill and the rest of the show’s crew are keenly aware thatthe dark, icy sea has demanded the ultimate price from fishermen in the past.

According to 2005 statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, thecommercial fishing industry sees 118.4 fatalities per 100,000 fishermen,making it the occupation with the highest death rate.

The Alaskan king crab fishing industry alone reports a fatality rate of more than 300 per 100,000 because of the brutal weather conditions on the Bering Sea each winter.

For much of the time, McNeill stays out of harm’s way. During the two crab seasons featured on the show (king crab in the fall and opilio – or snow – crab in the winter), he is stationed at Dutch Harbor, a port within the city limits of Unalaska, a town of about 4,000 hardy people in Alaska’sremote Aleutian Islands.

“It’s pretty far out on the Aleutian Island chain, approaching Russia,”he said. “To give you some idea of the enormity of Alaska, we were 1,203miles from Anchorage.”

Dutch Harbor is not only the hub of the crab industry, it is the largestfisheries port in the United States in terms of volume of seafood caught.

Shooting land footage for the show, McNeill captures docking boats,crab-processing plants, Alaska’s wildlife, time lapses of the picturesqueharbor, and the more personal side of the fishermen’s lives – such as the last phone call made to family before setting out on the boat.

Once the boats are at sea, McNeill tracks storylines developing amongthe crew aboard ships such as Early Dawn, Farwest Leader, Maverick,Northwestern, Time Bandit, Wizard, Aleutian Ballad and Cornelia Marie.

“Cameramen call us via satellite phones every day to tell us everythinggoing on with the boats,” he said.

After shooting is wrapped up, McNeill returns to Los Angeles, where he sifts through thousands of hours of footage he and the productioncrew have gathered.

“I work closely with the editors and story editors, serving as a liaisonto our graphics company by explaining to them what kinds of animations we might need,” he said. “And every week I sit in voice-over sessions with Mike Rowe (of ‘Dirty Jobs,’ another Discovery Channel show), who narrates our show.”

The harrowing adventures of crab fishermen in the Bering Sea didn’t even cross McNeill’s mind during his tenure as an electronic media major at ACU. He may have been considering a more traditional career in media,

but McNeill seemed to possess an uncommon drive.“Ryan was the student with the gleam in his eye. Even as a

college student, his energy level far surpassed his peers. He had astrong desire to challenge himself, obvious intelligence and an

excitement for learning that indicated to me he was bound for success,” said Dr. Susan (Lester ’92) Lewis, assistant

professor of journalism and mass communication.Lewis remembers the semester McNeill

spent in her Electronic Publishing class. Each student was assigned to create

a Web site, but Ryan wanted to take it further.

“He was taking a first-year Spanish class at thesame time, so he decided he would makehis required Web site, then translate it to Spanish– just for the challenge,” Lewis said. “Ryan took what many students saw as a chore and figured out how to make it more challenging, which to him made it more enjoyable.”

Nearing graduation in 2002, McNeill had his eye not on the frigid Bering Sea, but the bustling excitement of New York City.Earlier in his ACU career, he had completed a New York internship that piqued his interest in advertising.

After graduation, McNeill headed back to the Big Apple to begin a job in the creative department of an ad agency. The work turned out to bemore tedious than creative, however, and he started looking for somethingelse. After a brief stint at the Jack Spade fashion company, McNeill joined afriend who was moving to Los Angeles to work in commercials. Once in Los Angeles, McNeill kept running into people who had graduated from ACU. The connections proved invaluable.

“This is an industry where it is absolutely all about who you know,and the ACU connections out here in L.A. have been very helpful,” he said.

McNeill and the other ACU alumni he knew began to form a mini-ACUcommunity in which members stick together and help each other make vitaljob connections that can be hard to come by in Hollywood.

One member of this group, Adam Willis (’02), had known McNeill in college and moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Angie (Brooks ’01), about a year after McNeill arrived there.

“I think we have a big advantage,” said Willis, who works oncommercials as a production assistant. “Most every job out here is on afreelance basis, so the only way we can get work is on a reference fromsomeone else. It is considerably easier for us than someone who moves outhere not knowing anyone.”

For two years, McNeill worked on music videos and commercials forclients such as Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, Nike, Sony and Ford. Then a friend got a job with “Deadliest Catch” and landed McNeill an interview.

In December 2005, McNeill started working on the show as aproduction coordinator. From his Los Angeles office, he coordinated the huge task of shipping the show’s expensive equipment, including $20,000high-definition cameras, to Dutch Harbor. Because the gear is exposed tosome of the harshest weather on the planet, it must be replaced often.

“It’s a guarantee that any piece of equipment going up there is going to be destroyed,” he said.

McNeill stayed in Los Angeles his first season working on “Deadliest Catch,” coordinating other aspects of the show such as crewmembers’ travel. Then the associate producer position opened up. McNeillwasn’t sure what it would involve, but he applied for it anyway. He got thejob, which meant, among other things, that he would be traveling to Alaskafor filming during the two crab seasons. Dutch Harbor may be a vastlydifferent environment from Abilene, but McNeill was no stranger to the skills required for his new occupation.

“When I started ‘Deadliest Catch,’ they went over the rules ofshooting, which had already been ingrained in my head by Dr. LarryBradshaw (’65) and other faculty at ACU,” he said.

Before the season began, McNeill worked closely with the senior story producer and the boats’ crews.

“I spoke to all the boat captains and deckhands to get an idea of what storylines might be awaiting us whenarrived,” he said.

McNeill spent five weeks last fall in Dutch Harbor during king crab season and another twomonths at the port during opilio crab season inJanuary and February.

While at his post, McNeillstayed in close contact

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McNeill at port with Time Bandit in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

Crab fishing has occupational hazards. Fishermen and their bounty from the sea.

Fishermen battle the elements to bring potsaboard from the Bering Sea.

ROSIE SHARKEY

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Who we are• Twenty-five faculty with conducting, performing and research

experience from around the world

• Seventy-five music majors and more than 400 participants in bands,

choirs, orchestra and small ensembles

• A department with more than a century of music-making traditions

• A university dedicated to changing the world one servant-leader

at a time

What we do• Performance experiences from solo recitals and chamber ensembles

to full orchestra, marching band, and a mass choir

• Rigorous classes designed to develop and inspire performers

and educators• Connect faith with music-making to reveal our purpose as performers

How to join us• Complete an information form at www.acu.edu/music

• Call 325-674-2496 to schedule an audition

February 29 - March 1 or March 28-29, 2008A Cappella Chorus • University Chorale • ACU Opera • Wind Ensemble

Concert Band • Jazz Ensemble • Percussion Ensemble / Steel Grooves

Abilene Collegiate Orchestra • Big Purple Marching Band

More than $70,000 in scholarships were distributed to freshmen last year. Call now

to schedule your audition. Scholarships available for music majors and non-majors.

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Williams Performing Arts Center

ACU’s newest building is a $17 million,

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Department of Music Faculty

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Samuel Cook, Voice,

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Cheryl Lemmons

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Kay Williams

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