Expert from Johns Hopkins hosts educational webcasts

The June 18th 2005 issue of U.S. News and World Report rated Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland the number one hospital in the country for treatment of Kidney Disease. Barbara Fivush M.D. is the Director of Pediatric Nephrology at the Johns Hopkins Childen's Center. TDI Productions recently visited the Children's Center to film two educational video productions which will stream on the Kidney and Urology Foundation of America, Inc. website and may be distributed via DVD and VHS cassette.

The webcasts, which have been funded through an unrestricted educational grant from Genentech, Inc. aim to educate viewers about the serious but treatable effects of growth failure in children suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). The first piece is geared to a professional audience of health care providers and contains detailed information on recognition and diagnosis of CKD related growth failure as well as information on tests, precautions and available treatment options. The second segment, which will stream from a different page on the KUFA web site, targets patients and concerned family members who may or may not be aware of CKD related growth failure and its treatments.

TDI filmed the entirety of the production on-site without disrupting the workings of the Children's Center. Because of Dr. Fivush's understandably busy schedule, it was decided that the piece should be filmed against a green screen onto which a background would be superimposed in post-production. This allowed Director Christopher Smith to film the entire piece with a single lighting scheme and avoided the inevitable breaks and readjustments required when shooting a subject against an actual background. Once Dr. Fivush had completed her segments the crew (which numbered only 4) obtained background images from the room of the Johns Hopkins building.

The production was shot using a Sony DSR-570 DVCAM camera equipped with a telepromter. The footage will stream in both Quicktime and Windows Media formats and will have high and low bandwidth options to meet the data rate requirements of various ISPs.