Over
the past twenty five years Kevin O’Rourke’s production
experiences have run the gamut from shooting video from the open door
of a helicopter, an operating room, forty-five feet below the ocean’s
surface, an international equestrian event, a national golf tournament,
inside the walls of a Peruvian prison, to a U.S. Presidential debate
and a rural village in Ireland. Kevin D. O’Rourke the principal
of Kevin O’Rourke Productions began his broadcast production
career in 1984 as a videographer for Jeff Baker’s PBS documentary,
“Looking Up”. In 1986, Kevin’s documentary about
the University of Massachusetts Medical Center’s Lifeflight
operation entitled,”…there just the Patient”, was
picked up by Boston PBS affiliate WGBX.
After working for several years as a photographer, it would be Kevin’s
experience gained from shooting video from the open door of a helicopter
for his documentary that would lead him back to video production.
In 1988, Kevin was commissioned to produce a short documentary about
the Newburyport Grand Prix, an offshore high performance powerboat
event. This documentary was the launching point for Kevin O’Rourke
Productions. In 1990, Kevin O’Rourke Productions produced a
one-hour highlight program of the 1990 Newburyport Grand Prix telecast
on SportsChannel. Over the next several years Kevin O’Rourke
Productions, produced for telecast, international equestrian events,
offshore powerboat racing, national golf tournaments, intercollegiate
football and basketball, and high school football Superbowls and state
championships. In addition to his own productions, Kevin O’Rourke
worked with London based CSI-IPD, Ltd., to re-edit international sporting
events for North American audiences. These events included, The World
Judo Championships from Toronto, the World Water Skiing Championships
from Singapore, the Biggin Hill International Air Fair from London,
Burghley Three Day Event from Stamford, England and HRH Prince Charles
Cup (JAL Cup) from Windsor Park, England. These events were telecast
on SportsChannel America, Prime, The Sports Network (TSN) in Canada
and Super Channel in Europe.
The independent television sports programming market began to change
in the mid–90’s with cable channel mergers and the development
of ESPN2. Kevin O’Rourke Productions adapted to the changing
market by producing a pilot for a unique cooking series for PBS submission.
While PBS did not pick up the pilot, Kevin did land a spot for a season
on the production team of PBS’s cooking show Ciao Italia .
In 1998, Kevin O’Rourke returned to graduate school. While in
graduate school Kevin was part of the production team for the educational
television series, Framing the Net, Pulling in the Net and Net Gains
telecast by the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Television
(MCET). In addition, Kevin O’Rourke was part of the production
crew for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) and National
University of Singapore (NUS) Alliance program. The NUS program was
the daily exchange of graduate level engineering courses between Cambridge
and Singapore via Interactive Television (ITV) over Internet 2 (I2).
Upon completion of his graduate studies Kevin O’Rourke accepted
a position as Production Coordinator in Distance Learning for a university
in Boston, Massachusetts. Kevin has served as a graduate school adjunct
faculty member at two universities in the metropolitan Boston area.
Since 2000, Kevin has produced a number of award winning multimedia,
documentaries and streaming video productions for various educational
and non-profit institutions. In addition, Kevin O’Rourke’s
production of Dressage at Devon has won numerous international awards
for sports programming.