Gary Keller(I)
A National Telly Award-winning writer/producer, Gary Keller produced
video for a Fortune 500 company and then founded the first-ever
official South Dakota Film Office during the first term of Gov. George
S. Mickelson. Keller landed in South Dakota from Iowa (his home state)
in 1987, immediately beginning to work with "Dances With Wolves"
producers Kevin Costner and Jim Wilson, assisting with all aspects of
location production and then working with Orion Home Video on the
national release of the video by producing a South Dakota tourism video
as a companion piece to the original video store release of the
7-Academy Award-winning film, as well as producing a "fantasy weekend"
for Orion Home Video brass to promote the film across the video rental
platform, from local video stores through the distribution chain. Other
major productions Keller worked on during his 12 year career in South
Dakota include Jerry Bruckheimer's "Armageddon," and Paul VerHoeven's
"Starship Troopers," as well as many other commercial, television and
documentary film productions which included "Live with Regis and Kathy
Lee at Mount Rushmore," and Ken Burns' "Lewis and Clark, "The Journey
of Discovery" PBS documentary, which Keller also served as producer for
the Dakota's premiere of the series by personal request of
director/producer Burns. As a writer, Keller also penned a feature film
script and has a variety of advertising and marketing awards to his
credit.