MARS — A Callery native recently brought home the gold from the 44th Worldfest-Houston Independent International Film Festival.

Gregg Hartung, who now lives in Mars, won the top award in the Music Video category for his interpretation of the beauty and vibrance of Pittsburgh and its surrounding communities.

Hartung, who is the director of Presbyterian Media Mission in Pittsburgh, made the video for the opening of the Federated Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA annual conference, to be held in Pittsburgh in July 2012.

The 10-day conference is held in a different city every two years and brings in 6,000 to 8,000 Presbyterians from across the country.

Hartung, who is an elder at Crestview United Presbyterian Church in Callery, said the conference’s local arrangement committee wanted to make a video for the end of the 2010 conference in Minneapolis. The video would serve to entice attendees to come to the Pittsburgh conference in 2012.

They asked Hartung to take on the project because of his position with the Presbyterian Media Mission, and Hartung grabbed the project and ran with it.

First, Hartung contacted the Pittsburgh Visitor’s Bureau, where staffers offered him use of their library of clips showing Pittsburgh’s areas and features.

Next, he met with his friend David Bailey, a Christian musician who has recorded several CDs. Bailey and Hartung sifted through Bailey’s songs, and one tune in particular, titled “Walkin,” caught Hartung’s ear.

It was then that Hartung came up with the theme for the video.

“Pittsburgh is a very walkable city,” said Hartung. “I listened to the lyrics, about the valleys and the hills, and I said ‘This is going to work really well.’”

Hartung then called his friend David Newell, better known in the ‘Burgh and around the world as Mr. McFeeley from the Mister Rogers show, and asked if his alter ego would provide the lead-in and several other shots for the video.

Newell enthusiastically agreed to help with the project at no charge, but was headed to Mexico for a few weeks. Newell and Hartung agreed to shoot Mr. McFeeley’s part of the video at the end of May 2010.

That gave Hartung time to piece together Bailey’s song and the clips from the visitors bureau. Hartung seamlessly coordinated the lyrics and rhythm to match shots of people walking in Pittsburgh.

Hartung was careful to feature the items and areas that give Pittsburgh its unique flavor, including the convention center, the universities in Oakland, the Strip District and the cultural center as well as the rolling hills of the farms in outlying areas.

Then Hartung met Newell, dressed for “speedy deliveries” in his gray postal uniform, at the statue of Fred Rogers at the North Shore. Hartung taped Newell as he explained the statue to a young mother and her son, who happened to be observing the huge, sweater-adorned statue.

Hartung then taped Newell as he walked through the North Side and “delivered” mail.

“People kept stopping him and saying ‘Mr. McFeeley! Can I get your autograph?’” recalled Hartung.

The end of the video shows Mr. McFeeley handing the viewer an invitation to the conference with a hearty “speedy delivery!”

Hartung said the video took just under three weeks to complete. He first presented his product at the Pittsburgh Presbytery.

“The response was phenomenal,” said Hartung. “People were applauding and they stood up. They felt like it really represented Pittsburgh well.”

When he put the video on YouTube, it quickly took off. Today, Presbyterian churches and presbyteries all across the country are using it.

“It kind of took on a life of its own,” said Hartung.

He then submitted the video to the Houston film festival, and at the end of March of this year, he learned he had earned the festival’s highest honor, a Gold Remi.

Hartung dedicated the video to Bailey, who had waged a brave battle against brain cancer for several years. Bailey succumbed to the disease in October.

“At the beginning of the video, it says ‘In memory of David M. Bailey and the musical ministry he’s provided for years,’” Hartung said.

Hartung played the video for his fellow church members at Crestview in Fellowship Hall one Sunday, and the response was exciting.

“They said ‘That’s Pittsburgh. That’s really what you want to see.’”

Sheldon Sorge, executive at the Pittsburgh Presbytery, presented the video at the 2010 conference in Minneapolis, albeit in a unique way.

Sorge, who is also a piano player, walked onstage at the closing of the Minneapolis conference and removed his suit jacket and wing tips. Replacing them with a cardigan and sneakers, Sorge approached the piano and began playing Rogers’ “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

The video then began, and Sorge faded out as the video took over, complete with Rogers’ voice singing his signature tune.

As the video wound down, Sorge positioned himself so as to appear to take the invitation from Mr. McFeeley at the end. Sorge handed it to the moderator of the conference to the delight of the thousands in the audience.

“The reaction was absolutely awesome,” said Sorge. “It reflects well on Pittsburgh and the justifiable pride we take in the city.”

Hartung isn’t letting his award, which he retrieved from Houston last week, go to his head.

“I’m humbled by the experience because of friends like David Bailey and David Newell and their willingness to donate their names and abilities to the video,” said Hartung. “It was a unique situation to pull those things together and get such a good response.”

The video, “Come Walk With Us,” can be viewed by scrolling down to the video database at the Presbyterian Media Mission’s website, www.pmm4u.org.