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YOUTUBE PIONEER sharing online Stafford man is flying high HOW YOUTUBE SEES THE 'BURG

July 1, 2007 2:01 am

By LAURA MOYER

Stafford County native Joey Neigh was just back from Iraq, living in barracks at Fort Bragg, N.C., in late 2005.

Throughout his deployment he had captured video of civilian life in Iraq and his fellow soldiers' off-hours pursuits of scorpion fights and freestyle rapping.

Back in the U.S., he'd replaced his old Handycam with a Sony digital video camera, and he was constantly shooting something.

He was amassing some great, creative work.

And he had no way to show it to anyone.

Neigh searched the Internet for video upload sites. That's how he found the brand-new Web site YouTube in November 2005.

In Internet time, that was an eon ago. He uploaded a few videos, carving out a place as a YouTube early adopter.

A lot has happened--to Neigh and to YouTube--in the year and a half since.

YouTube became such a success that Google bought it, though its creators still run it.

And Neigh, 25, got out of the Army, moved back to his hometown and got married. He and Emily Neigh, a registered nurse, live near Falmouth in Stafford.

Neigh works as an audiovisual technician for Germanna Community College and takes classes there, too. Eventually he would like to transfer to Virginia Commonwealth University and earn a bachelor's degree in mass communications.

But he's not waiting for a piece of paper or permission to develop his video shooting and editing skills.

His car license says YOU TUBE in tribute to a forum that has taught him more about his vocation than a textbook ever could.

Neigh has 50 or so videos on the site now, and he's constantly working on more--many of them shot high above Virginia from Neigh's perch in a powered paraglider.

The one he thinks turned out best is also one of his most viewed, a 9-minute 57-second bird's-eye journey over downtown Fredericksburg and the Rappahannock River.

"Powered Paragliding in Virginia" is the edited footage from three flights last fall.

One originated from Hartwood Airport. The other two began at Old Mill Park, a takeoff and landing destination Neigh said he was specifically requested not to use again.

As he tells the story, a pizza deliveryman saw his descent over the Rappahannock and concluded that he had crashed into the Falmouth Bridge.

As Neigh packed up his gear, emergency workers came to investigate. Authorities concluded he hadn't broken any laws, but that was the end of flying from a public park without permission.

Lesson learned.

Unauthorized though they were, the Old Mill flights yielded sparkling fall-day video of Fredericksburg and a clip that is among the most distinctively local offerings on YouTube.

"Powered Paragliding in Virginia" is set to music, with minimal narration.

The video soars over river, trees and interstate and swoops above the rooftops and steeples of downtown Fredericksburg.

Some of Neigh's other interests are also represented on YouTube. He's an avid unicyclist and guitarist, and one clip shows him pedaling and strumming at the same time.

He's also a devoted Christian, a member of Stafford's New Life Community Church, and his faith is reflected in some of the videos.

As for feedback, Neigh said, he gets plenty.

There are occasional potshots, which Neigh suspects come from smart-aleck 13-year-olds or from "30-year-old balding men who live in their mothers' basements."

But he also gets constructive criticism from other flying videographers and avid YouTube contributors.

And there's always the advantage of learning from others' mistakes and successes.

"It's broadened my creativity," he said. "I don't have cable and I don't watch TV. YouTube is more interactive. It's a new era of media entertainment."