By Amy Zahra
The 5th Annual American Business Awards, The Stevies™ (www.stevieawards.com/aba), just announced their 2007 winners, and Welcome to Nordhavn, Behind the Scenes at Pacific Asian Enterprises, has won for Best Editing in the Corporate Film or Video category. The Stevies™, the business world’s version of the Oscars™,recognize numerous aspects of American business, and the Corporate Film or Video category acknowledges a film/video that presents a message within the business world. In Welcome to Nordhavn’s case, that message is how a small company with modest beginnings grew and achieved great success through determination, integrity and cutting edge concepts.
Sprague Theobald, who’s Hole in the Wall Productions produced the film, knew exactly how to convey P.A.E.’s vision and tell the story of a thriving and truly unique company. Sprague is a three-time Nordhavn owner (currently of Nordhavn 57 Bagan), and his passion for Nordhavn is evident in the film. The one-hour documentary goes behind the scenes at P.A.E. with insightful interviews of employees, Nordhavn buyers and the three principle owners of P.A.E. Additionally, it delves into the early history of the company and even tours through P.A.E.’s partner factories in Asia where Nordhavns are built.
Theobald, who is also an Emmy® award winner, was thrilled to receive this prestigious award, especially given that his background is in broadcast entertainment. Creating a business documentary provided a new challenge for him but he had a vision for Welcome to Nordhavn. By applying his broadcast background to the documentary format, he hoped blending the two styles would create a film that was less of a marketing piece and more of an inspirational story. Just as P.A.E. believes their best sales pitch is to let the boats do the talking, Theobald decided to let the folks at Nordhavn tell the story in place of a voiceover, which is the approach traditionally taken with documentary-style films. Doing so meant editing would be crucial in piecing the story together, but the gamble paid off and Theobald turned out an interesting, heart-felt inside snapshot of what life is like behind the makers of the world’s finest ocean-crossing motoryachts.
Welcome To Nordhavn has also been nominated at the Le Creusot International Film Competition in France. Out of all the international entries, it’s one of only 10 American nominations.
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Theobald is currently busy working from Bagan with The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) on an underwater documentary 40 feet below in Newport Harbor (RI), about 13 British revolutionary transport (ships) which were sunk during The Revolution, hoping that they will be able to identify one of them as James Cooke’s H.M.S. Endeavors (see www.rimap.org for more information). If you’d like to check out more of his work or contact him about your own documentary film needs, drop him an e-mail at info@hole-in-the-wall-productions.com or check out his website at www.hole-in-the-wall-productions.com.