St. Cloud Man Wins Emmys For Drone Videography

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A St. Cloud man can now add Emmy Award winner to his resume.

Steve Fines is the owner of Fines Aerial Imaging. One of his main jobs is working for Twin Cities Public Television. They recently won Emmys for two projects titled "Bring Her Home" and "Remembering Places".

Fines says he's been working with PBS for about six years now.

Twin Cities Public Television wanted consistency and also a degree of competence and quality and so they've hired me as their drone photographer. For all of their different production teams, I do the drone photography.

Fines says, to his knowledge, these were the first nominations and first wins for any of the projects he's worked on.

He says about six years ago he started working for Twin Cities Public Television as their main man for overhead shots in their documentaries and series.

The drone shot really didn't exist 10 years ago.  This is a new addition to filmography.  it has become pretty much a required shot or two in just about every kind of story.

His next project for Twin Cities Public Television is a special on hockey up in the town of Warroad.

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When he's not working for PBS, Fines' business does about half commercial advertising and about half industrial work using a thermal camera.

You might remember back in 2019 one of Fines' drones equipped with thermal imaging was used to help find a little boy who was lost in a cornfield by Clear Lake.