Bragging Rights 2007-08:

Hans Rosenwinkel

CAM Professor Immersed in ‘Deep Water’ (reprinted from Center for Faculty Development's newsletter, Latitude)

Assistant Professor Hans Rosenwinkel understands a challenge. He’s come face to face with mountain lions, evaded menacing snakes and dangled out of helicopters to film for National Geographic’s Mission programs and the PBS Wild Chronicles series. Now Rosenwinkel is focusing his lens on another person’s challenge.

In one of his latest films the assistant professor in the Department of Theatre, Film and Video Production, is detailing Denver native and paraplegic Jason Pipoly’s quest to swim the Catalina Channel double—a feat attained by only a few and never by a disabled person. 

“This project, Hiking in Deep Water, is important to my creative activities,” he says. “This subject matter will gain international media exposure, not only for the story that details the life of Jason Pipoly but for the recordbreaking feat that he is able to complete.”

Before age 11, Pipoly was the youngest person to swim the English Channel. Exactly 20 years later, he swam it again, but this time as a paraplegic. Pipoly lost the use of his legs in 1998 in a car accident near Aspen.

The first half of Hiking in Deep Water—interviews and re-enactments filmed locally— is complete. With the help of a faculty development grant, Rosenwinkel is now able to travel out of state to collect the final data: to San Antonio, Texas, where Pipoly’s family now resides, and finally to Long Beach, Calif., to film the record-breaking swim back and forth across the coast to Catalina Island. 

Pipoly’s passion is invested in Hiking in Deep Water—and Rosenwinkel’s as well . . . a passion he is eager to share in the classroom.

“I want students to have big ideas, grand plans. But I also know they have to pay the bills,” says Rosenwinkel, who started in commercial and corporate video production. He earned an MFA at the American Film Institute and, while in California, developed his career as a writer, producer, director, videographer, editor and digital media artist working for a company that produced all forms of nationally broadcast television. He now runs his own independent production company, Evolution Media. 

PBS has indicated an interest in airing the one-hour documentary. “Obtaining the faculty development grant will allow me to complete this very important storyline to complement my creative activities and service to my department,” he says. “It will also benefit my teaching in the classroom based upon the experience gained from being in the field.”

Photo above of Hans Rosenwinkel: Clinton T. Sander, photographer and alumnus of UC Denver's College of Arts & Media, Visual Arts Department.