Bruce Branit’s bosses demand a lot. Don’t all bosses? His bosses may ask him to land a spaceship on a building one week, make a skyscraper disappear another, or make him raise an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Hollywood executives expect a lot.
Branit creates visual effects for major motion pictures, television and advertisements for his company, Branit FX, in the Crossroads Arts District. He opened his business in 2004 after working in Hollywood for 10 years, but Kansas City is his home and he wanted to come back here to raise a family. Branit grew up in Johnson County, graduated from Shawnee Mission East and earned an industrial design degree from the University of Kansas.
Randy Mason sits down with Branit to discuss the world of Hollywood special effects.
Here is a look at his short film 405. This 3 minute film, co-produced by Jeremy Hunt, shows a DC-10 airliner making a suspenseful emergency landing on a Los Angeles freeway.
Interested in finding out more about the KC Film Scene? Check out these links:
The Land Institute in Salina, Ks is looking to revolutionize the agriculture industry by developing perennial crops with the same or greater yield than current systems. Here is a look at their history and mission:
The Land Institute has worked for over 30 years on the problem of agriculture. Our purpose is to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops. We have researched, published in refereed scientific journals, given hundreds of public presentations here and abroad, and hosted countless intellectuals and scientists. Our work is frequently cited, most recently in Science andNature, the most prestigious scientific journals. We are now assembling a team of advisors which includes members of the National Academy of Sciences. These scientists understand our work and stand ready to endorse the feasibility of what we have come to call Natural Systems Agriculture.
Our strategy now is to collaborate with public institutions in order to direct more research in the direction of Natural Systems Agriculture. We are seeking funds to construct and operate a research center devoted to Natural Systems Agriculture and to underwrite scientists elsewhere who will engage with us in such research. We estimate the research cost to be $5 million a year for 25 years, which is a small fraction of one percent of the nation’s annual agricultural research investment.
Important questions have been answered and crucial principles explored to the point that we feel comfortable in saying that we have demonstrated the scientific feasibility of our proposal for a Natural Systems Agriculture. Because this work deals with basic biological questions and principles, the implications are applicable worldwide. If Natural Systems Agriculture were fully adopted, we could one day see the end of agricultural scientists from industrialized societies delivering agronomic methods and technologies from their fossil fuel-intensive infrastructures into developing countries and thereby saddling them with brittle economies.
Mission Statement:
When people, land, and community are as one,
all three members prosper;
when they relate not as members
but as competing interests,
all three are exploited.
By consulting Nature as the source
and measure of that membership,
The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture
that will save soil from being lost or poisoned
while promoting a community life at once
prosperous and enduring.
In the 1950s, they perfected the candy coating for M&Ms and developed the first autodrip coffeemaker. Midwest Research Instituteis an independent, not-for-profit organization that performs contract research for government and industry. Founded in 1944, MRI has built a reputation for innovation, technical excellence, and problem solving.
Today, as one of the nation’s leading research institutes, MRI conducts programs in the areas of national security and defense, life sciences, energy and the environment, agriculture and food safety, and engineering and infrastructure.
With headquarters in Kansas City, MRI also has facilities in Rockville and Frederick, MD, and Palm Bay, FL. In addition to operating its own laboratories, MRI operates laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense.
MRI is one of two entities in the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, which manages and operates the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO, for the U.S. Department of Energy. MRI has managed NREL since its inception in 1977.
The Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City recently completed construction on the new “Book Robot.” To celebrate the new addition, students paid homage to the robot in an effort to set a world record. UMKC unofficially broke the Guinness World Record for the most people robotic dancing at the same time and place. At 7:15 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 27 at UMKC’s Stanley H. Durwood Soccer Stadium and Recreational Field, 658 people moved to a robot routine designed by Conservatory of Music and Dance students and emceed by Hot 103 Jamz DJ JT Quick. Within the next several weeks, London-based Guinness World Records Limited will verify UMKC’s record. London’s Whitgift Independent School set the previous record of 429 in May.
In late 2006, while working for an interactive advertising agency, Justin Graves, now Infegy’s CEO, had a vision to develop a system which could collect as much social content as possible and analyze it on-demand to garner a wealth of insight in to consumer thought and opinion. Justin left the agency to begin development work on this concept, and shortly after he partnered with Adam Coomes, Infegy’s President, for his expertise in Web and business development. Infegy, a combination of the words Information and Strategy, was officially founded and work on the project now known as Social Radar was well under way to becoming the powerful yet elegant solution it is today.
Social Radar has continued to evolve at a rapid pace, chasing the original vision of automated generation of as much insight as possible from its enormous and ever-growing collection of content. This philosophy has allowed Social Radar to revolutionize the way companies listen to their consumers, greatly surpassing beliefs about what can be done, and yet this is only the beginning.
Is heart disease a result of our modern lifestyle of fast food and no exercise, or is it genetic? Maybe the mummies know! Using CT technology, cardiologists from the U.S. and Egypt are scanning ancient Egyptian humans searching for evidence of atherosclerosis. After only two expeditions to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt – the results the scientists have found are astounding!
KCPT producer Pam James uncovers what an ancient mummy has to contribute to modern medicine.
The Local Show is designed to highlight artists and entrepreneurs, leaders and overachievers from all walks of life – and in the process, help Kansas Citians discover substantially more about this place we call home.
“The Local Show is really going to allow us to tackle areas of the news that rarely get much television coverage in the metro. At KCPT, we tackle local politics and public policy well, but what about the arts and entrepreneurship, education, health and science? Finally, we have a place to regularly tell those stories.” Nick Haines, Executive Producer, The Local Show
Nick Haines is the show’s host and executive producer. Assisted by Randy Mason (and other guest interviewers from time to time), Nick will sit down for fast-paced chats with people who are making a genuine difference in fields as varied as education, health services, technology, and the arts.
The pilot episode, for example, features Kathleen Collins, retiring this year as president of the Kansas City Art Institute; and Bryan Hansel, whose company, Smith Electric, is manufacturing electric powered trucks right here in Kansas City. KCPT’s The Local Show will also spotlight “difference makers” in the community. In this first program, KCPT goes inside Operation Breakthrough, the nation’s largest low-income daycare facility. More than 600 kids a day are served at the facility on Troost Avenue. But with rising poverty, 1200 children are on the waiting list.
The Local Show will also feature segments showcasing items from the WWI Museum at Liberty Memorial, and from time-to-time, some aptly named “Start-Up Stories.” These profiles will peek behind the scenes at fledgling ventures across the metro, and then with the aid of expert analysts, pinpoint the companies’ strengths and weaknesses.
KCPT President & CEO Kliff Kuehl conceived The Local Show after spending much of his first year on the job meeting business and civic leaders all over town. “I was amazed at how many fascinating stories I heard, and how much of it might not be known by a lot of our audience,” he says.
As The Local Show launches in July and August, each half-hour program will air once a month. Beginning in September, it will have a more frequent presence on KCPT, agile enough to accommodate special editions of Imagine KC and other newsworthy topics as the need arises.
Submissions to The Local Show
If you have a suggestion for a Local Show interview, video segment or if you have some interesting HD video you would like to share, please contact us at thelocalshow@kcpt.org.
125 East Thirty-First Street
Kansas City, MO 64108
(816)756-3580
Branit creates visual effects for major motion pictures, television and advertisements for his company, Branit FX, in the Crossroads Arts District. He opened his business in 2004 after working in Hollywood for 10 years, but Kansas City is his home and he wanted to come back here to raise a family. Branit grew up in Johnson County, graduated from Shawnee Mission East and earned an industrial design degree from the University of Kansas. 
KCPT producer Pam James uncovers what an ancient mummy has to contribute to modern medicine.
