I worked in Cincinnati when periodical cicadas made their once-every-17-year visit to parts of the midwest and east. TV stations hyped their pending arrival so mercilessly I wondered how they could ever live up to their billing.

Yet for all the talk, the cicada invasion was still incredible. It took only the short walk from your front door to the car in your driveway for half a dozen of the large black insects to stick to you. And if you had to stand outside for any length of time, forget it. You were covered.

In between the endless string of stories I reported for the station for which I worked, I took my own camera out to capture one of nature's wonders. It turned out well, I think, and I wasn't the only one to hold that opinion. A local film society called Underneath Cincinnati chose it as one of its best films of 2004. Not bad for a one-person-production, if that one person does say so himself.

Click here to watch it on your Quicktime player.