As a junior college lacrosse player from Rochester, N.Y., Andrew Peacock ’96 had always wanted to attend a southern school with a warmer climate and an up-and-coming lacrosse program. He had never visited the Shenandoah Valley, but after being recruited by Shenandoah University to play lacrosse, Peacock came down for one visit and fell in love.
“My buddy dropped me off at the field behind the chapel with my lacrosse gear and frisbee, and I stayed there for the next two years,” said Peacock.
Looking back, this might have been one of the best decisions of his life. After two years at Shenandoah, Peacock received a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications with the vision of pursuing a career in video production. Now, as co-owner of 7LineMedia—a company which takes aerial video footage using remote-controlled cameras—Peacock has found his niche, and he thanks Shenandoah for the foundation.
“Shenandoah and the Mass Communications program helped me tremendously with my career,” Peacock commented. “We always had great equipment and great teachers, and we were taught the craft. We definitely had the foundation to do whatever we wanted to do.”
After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Peacock moved to Richmond, Va., to begin a career in video. Eventually, he worked in Pittsburgh, Pa., with Clear Channel Radio, where he met his current business partner, John Beavers. The two brainstormed innovative ways to use the tools they had to create a service viewers hadn’t seen before.
Peacock and Beavers traveled to Montana, where a film team was shooting beautiful landscape shots of streams and mountains using cameras mounted on remote-controlled vehicles. They immediately recognized that this technology could be used to film golf courses, resorts and colleges, and the concept for 7LineMedia was born.
“We begged our wives for some money, and they let us take a chance on putting something that costs as much as our cars up in the air and fly it around to try and impress people with some footage,” Peacock stated.
Immediately, business boomed. “The footage really sells itself,” said Peacock. “We look for places that people are proudest of and want to show off, and we offer a unique and creative way to shoot footage that leaves an impact.”
“One of the things that we really want to do is to have people look at the footage and say, ‘How did they do that? Is that a dolly? It is a jib? Is it a crane?’” Peacock said. “But then the footage rises above the building, and people have no idea how it happened. We want them to leave scratching their heads.”
7LineMedia’s client list is impressive. Peacock and Beavers have worked with The Travel Channel and FoxSports Florida, the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic and FoxSports Girls. They are currently filming roller coasters at amusement parks on the East Coast for Insane Coaster Wars. Colleges and universities, such as Champlain College in Vermont, UCLA and University of Pittsburgh are also on their client list.
Peacock and his partner have created a revolutionary method for unmanned aerial vehicle photography and, as a result, have secured many top-notch clients. Even so, Peacock thoroughly enjoys the editing process, something he first learned at Shenandoah.
“The most fun is when we take everything back to the editing bay and take a look at it,” Peacock commented. “We view it on a five-inch monitor in the field, but when we see it on a large Mac screen, it takes our breath away. Just waiting to give that to the client is really the most fun.”
7LineMedia came to Shenandoah in October 2012. Visit www.shenandoahmagazinelink.com to view the footage taken of campus that day. See the amazing aerial shots and viewpoints that only Peacock and his team were able to capture.