By Jennifer Champagne This month, Seaberg Pontoon Rentals dropped a new commercial – a visually stunning offering of boating adventures showcasing Pictured Rocks, Grand Island, the Lighthouse, Shipwreck and more. The commercial is one of two videos that will be released, giving viewers an ocular taste of the magical experience of boating on Lake Superior in the Munising area.

The production company behind the commercial is no stranger to the Upper Peninsula. Rick Dobson, who created Dobson Entertainment, Inc. a good 35 years ago – started the company upon graduating Columbia College. What started out as a wedding videography company, forayed into shooting tornado content for a local Weather Channel, which opened the door to shooting with CNN and has now grown into a fullsized production company with offices in Illinois and Wisconsin. The company has a global portfolio ranging from commercials to episodic television series showcasing locations around the world, including South Africa.

Dobson’s relationships within the snowmobiling community, brought him to the Upper Peninsula to shoot footage for clientele the likes of Yamaha, Polaris, Castle X, American Snowmobiler, Snow Goer Magazine, and Snow Week Magazine, to name a few. His snowmobile filming adventures include shooting episodes for American Snowmobiler Television and Snow Goer Television that initially started out in the Keweenaw in 1989 and led him to Munising in 2016.

Dobson started working with Munising Visitors Bureau (MVB) in 2018 on a variety of Munising- specific videos that have now grown to approximately 15-projects in the Munising area, reflecting collaborations with both the MVB and other local businesses. These commercials have become key to advertising the natural beauty of the area to the world at large and drawing tourism to the community.

“Ninety percent of travel advertisements are digital online and the best way to deliver a story and do storytelling is through videography versus still photos. People seem to identify with that and get involved in that story much more, and it drives that desire to come to an area,” said Cori-Ann Cearley, President of the Munising Visitors Bureau. “We have hundreds of thousands of views on the videos that Rick has produced for us.”

On one of the first MVB shoots, Dean Seaberg of Seaberg Pontoon Rentals took Cearley, Dobson and the production crew out on one of his pontoons for a day on Lake Superior and guided the crew to a variety of locations for the shoot.

“Rick is very much a visual storyteller. He does a beautiful job with the videography and storytelling. The content is beautiful and it’s organic,” said Cearley. “He and his team are professional, accommodating, and deliver in not only a timely manner, but also the assets are organized and easy to maneuver.”

Dobson considers Munising to be like a second home. Some of his favorite projects include shooting waterfalls, rock formations on Grand Island, the Glass Bottom Boat and working with Dean Seaberg on their recent collaboration for Seaberg Pontoon Rentals.

Seaberg and Dobson formed a friendship during that first shoot with the MVB and have been friends ever since. When Seaberg needed a commercial he reached out to Dobson, and they started brainstorming on story ideas, creating the storyboards and treatments, so that by the time the crew landed in Munising they had a plan in place.

“Rick has been a longtime friend. I’ve enjoyed his work over the years and when we needed a video, of course I called him,” said Dean Seaberg, Co-owner of Seaberg Pontoon Rentals. “His organic cinematography style is very much on point with our brand. He made the whole process easy for us.”

Dobson also notes that with the evolution of technology over the past 34-years it is now easier to film in remote areas and in extreme conditions, whether Mother Nature is kicking out the wind and waves on Lake Superior or cutting first tracks out on a plain in the middle of winter.

“Technology has changed so much. For instance, if you would spin the clock back even 10-15 years ago, the equipment that you would need to even get on location, then of course on top of that, you would need more manpower,” said Rick Dobson, Director of Dobson Entertainment, Inc. “Now what happens is because of the technology, the size of the equipment, you could definitely handle a project like Deans with a very, very small crew, which works out nice.”

With more affordable tools née technology and smaller crews, this opens the door for smaller businesses and rural communities to economically utilize filmmaking to advertise their offerings like never before.

“Fifteen years ago, it would have been absolutely cost prohibitive for somewhere as small as Munising or private businesses in Munising, much less, as you know, an organization advertising for the whole area.” said Cearley.