Faces Profile : Gus Chambers

By Eddie Haver

Montana PBS and UM Broadcast Media Center producer Gus Chambers won an Emmy Award from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences last June. The award was for his historical documentary “Hidden Fire: The Great Butte Explosion.” The program received the highest ratings for a local show in Montana PBS history. Chambers said he usually pays no attention to that sort of thing and attributed the ratings to Butte. “Butte audiences are great,” he said. “If [your movie] is about Butte then you’ve already got a built in audience.”

Chambers’ idea was originally pitched as part of Montana PBS’s “Backroads of Montana” program. The PBS staff felt his proposal had enough information to stand alone as its own 30-minute show, which later became an hour-long film. He developed the documentary over a four-year period. Chambers says he enjoys the luxury of having plenty of time, money, and care to work on a film, a function of working for the university and Montana PBS.

Chambers thinks the effects in his documentary were what won the Emmy. He built small models and packed them with explosives. These models were used in place of computer-generated effects. Chambers said this process alone took weeks.

Chambers’ documentary was nominated for three Emmys. He said he wished he had won an Emmy for writing and jokingly added, “If that happened I would retire on a high and never write anything again, not even a sticky note.” But Chambers said, “everybody’s always happy when you win an Emmy.”

To see “Hidden Fire: The Great Butte Explosion,” visit:

http://www.montanapbs.org/HiddenFireTheGreatButteExplosion/.