If you’ve found yourself at the Kinetic Vision Media blog, welcome!

My name is Ken Carlson. I own and operate Kinetic Vision Media, a full service video production company in Olympia.

I will be using this blog to cast meandering musings on things related to my video production business in Olympia. I’ll be writing about upcoming projects, current gigs, past jobs completed. Occasionally I may post hungrily about equipment I am salivating over. There will be posts about anything and everything I can think of related to the work I am doing, and the things I would like to be doing. I’d like to keep it interesting.

My interest in video production began earlier than I can really remember. Stumbling upon an old VHS cassette one day, I was amused to see myself on the video telling my dad (who was running the camera) where to point it and what to film. I think I was 7.

Living in Hawaii in the late 1980′s, my mother purchased a VHS-C (yuck!) camera to film vacations. Sometimes, long after my mother had gone to bed, I would get the camera out, gather my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys, and start creating my own stop motion TMNT movies… getting a little nostalgic here.

Obviously the fascination continued throughout high school and into my twenties. Those of you who know me will remember the years I spent producing/directing/writing/editing and acting in “Dammit This is Stupid.” A sketch comedy show that aired on TCTV from 1996 until I finally retired it in 2004.

Sometime in 2005, after having done nothing video related for over a year, I began to get an itch. It was fueled by dissatisfaction with my job. The desire to do something video related was fanned into a fire when I read “Walking On Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution” by Derrick Jensen. This is my life, and it is ending one minute at a time. If this is it, there is no reason not to spend it doing what I love. Common themes in DTIS were “reckless pursuit of your dreams,” “chasing the vision.”

There was no reason I shouldn’t be able to make a living doing what I loved. Video Production. My skills had honed with years of practice, from high school, to DTIS, there was no doubt about the fact that I was good at what I wanted to do. So I started doing it.

January 2006, after saving money for most of ’05, some friends and I drove to San Francisco on the weekend of my girlfriend’s and my own birthday. I purchased a used Canon XL-1 for $1800 dollars and came back to Olympia to start my business.

Two and a half years later I consider my endeavor to have been quite successful. This summer has been packed full of gigs. As of early 2006 I had done no professional video production work, it had been limited to my high school experience, and 8 years of “Dammit This is Stupid.” July 22nd, 2008; I’ve now done more than 16 weddings, created 2 television commercials, 3 corporate/informational videos, 3 music videos, and 3 live concert shoots, and the schedule is still full! I’ve had a wedding every weekend since July 4th, and one every weekend until September. Woohoo!

So I guess that’s it. I’m doing what I love. I’m doing a good job of it, and I’m loving every minute.
It’s still not at the point where I’ve quit my day job, but the train is rolling.