elcome to the Doctor! Doctor! TV Series headquarters on Dubuque Community Schools' web site! Click on the logo above for a high res copy for posters and publications. Doctor! Doctor! is a show about kids and medicine.

The formula is quite simple: Put some middle school kids in doctor's coats in the middle of a hospital, and let them explore and ask questions about everything from medical technology to specific procedures. Young people may only know hospitals as places where you go if you're injured or sick, but they are also places where we can learn to stay well.

Hospitals such as The Finley Hospital have expanded their role in our community's total health picture. Their campus has expanded to include care for cancer and diabetes patients. And then there are the jobs and professions in medicine that we want to explore. There are hundreds of people employed in health care in our community. We will learn all bout them.

Paul Hemmer is our musical director on Doctor! Doctor!. This celebrated composer and local radio personality has written an orginal theme song for the show. We hope this is the first of many such creative collaborations.

Lisa Meyer is our logistics manager on set. Lisa is a public relations and communication coordinator at The Finley Hospital.

We have completed our second season this year, and it is still, we admit, a grand experiment. We knew we wanted to produce some sort of show about health and medicine in general, but we didn't know exactly the route it would take. We met with hospital administrators and doctors on the topic, and we arrived at a basic concept that would provide lots of options and opportunities for kids to explore.

How We Do What We Do...

The second season concentrated more on organ and groups of organs in the body. The plan was to start each episode in the radiology and medical imaging area of the hospital, and then move to the lab for pathology, and then on the physicians and technicians that work with treatments of those organs.

However, as we got into this new format, we found it was better to put imaging on the end of the show. Instead, Dr. Grotz, in a burst of creative enterprise, prepared incredibly details models of organs and organ groups for students to interact with. Wait till you see the kidney simulation! It actually works!

What makes the show so exciting to watch is the guest physicians on the show and how they prepare to teach these young people about their profession. It's an extraordinary chemistry that occurs on screen, and it's completely spontaneous and unplanned. The students have no idea what they will be seeing or doing from week to week.

To many producers, this is unheard of. No scripts? No cards? No teleprompters? Nope. We fly the the seat of our scrubs. The results are often unexpected but always entertaining. Do we make mistakes? Occasionally, but we learn from them, obviously.

Gary Olsen with the Tiffen Steadicam on the set of cable TV's Kids in the Kitchen

What makes the show interesting to watch is the point-of-view of the camera that literally brings the viewer into the action. Our show is what's called a "single camera" production. We actually employ our camera on a Tiffen Steadicam, a camera that is worn by the operator and which hovers along following the action suspended on a spring-actuated armature that dampens camera movement and shake. The device allows complete movement of the camera in any and all directions as the students make their way from venue to venue.

The result of shooting episodes with the Steadicam is you simulate a person's point of view of the proceedings. The camera lens stays wide angle and does not zoom (our eyes don't zoom unless, of course, you're Superman). When we want a close up, that camera operators just walks up to what we want to see just like you would if you were in the scene.

We use the Steadicam in all of our productions, and it is precisely for that reason. A static camera, one on a tripod, can be a very boring shot. If the performers in front of the camera aren't doing much, the resulting footage becomes uninteresting, and this is largely due to the static camera view.

But film the same scene with the Steadicam, which is constantly moving, and suddenly things become a bit more interesting. There's a visual tension that exists, and the viewer doesn't know what's going to happen next, but he is aware that something is about to happen. It becomes observational for the audience, and it becomes more realistic or naturalistic.

We are grateful that you have discovered our show, and we hope you will enjoy the episodes we've provided on this site so far. More are on their way, so stay tuned.

--Gary Olsen, Producer and Director of Doctor! Doctor!

This is an object or vector file of the logo for most industrial applications such as screen printing, embroidery and really large advertising, like outdoor signs. Download.