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Video Biography

April 7th, 2009

In February I received an e-mail asking if my video production company in Olympia did “video biographies.” At that point, I hadn’t, but I was very excited by the opportunity to try something new. Wedding videos and web commercials are great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m always wanting to branch out and experience different things, broaden my range, expand my portfolio, and learn. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. So I was candid, and replied that I had not done any, but would be eager to give it a shot. I recommended another company that I know specializes in such things if the client didn’t want to take a risk with a type of project I had not done before. I offered a fair price and waited.

She got back to me and had decided she’d like me to do the video biography for her mother, who was soon to be turning 80. The video biography would be shown at her birthday party, and copies given out to the guests. Here is about an 8 minute excerpt from the video.

I was very happy with the finished product. Quite pleased. The project in it’s entirety was a pleasure to work on. The shoot was fun, it was nice listening to Iona’s stories, and as usual, by the time I was done editing, I felt I knew Iona really well.
After everything was said and done, I found that Tammy, (Iona’s daughter) and Iona had left a great review on a vendor listing site I utilize.

I hired Ken, at Kinetic Vision Media, to do a video biography of my mom for her 80th birthday. He was extremely patient with her, respectful throughtout the process, and we couldn’t be happier with our end product. I showed the DVD at her birthday party and I had 43 people agree with me that the DVD was amazing. I gave Ken some photos and my mom’s favorite music at our shooting and he implemented them and added so much richness in the creative way he put them and his own ideas all together. He allowed us to do some final editing to make it exactly to our liking and he met our deadline without a problem. I found Ken easy to work with and extremely flexible to our schedule. Prior to hiring Ken, I did much research within a reasonable distance to view the industry standards and try to decide how I wanted this to turn out. Ken offerred his own ideas and assisted us with coming up with a wonderful product and copies that we were able to distribute to our family members as a life-long momento. His pricing is extremely fair and lower than many other places around. Very good value all around. We would recommend Kinetic Vision Media without hesitation and hope many people read this and hire him so they can be as happy as we are with Ken’s work.

Thanks Tammy and Iona!

So I’m hoping to launch a redesigned website soon, and plan on having a section featuring info and pricing on these types of videos, which I hope to be doing more of in the future. Thanks for reading!

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Posted in Video Production Olympia | 1 Comment »

 

Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!

March 12th, 2009

These yellowbook shoots!  I sure do seem to do a lot of them! For anybody who hasn’t seen these on my blog before; I contract with a production company to shoot these 30-60 second web commercials for yellowbook.com.  They’re a lot of fun, I enjoy doing them, they keep me very busy, and they’ve certainly expanded my portfolio!  Even though I can’t actually embed the videos on my site, I can post links to the videos, which I recommend watching, as I’m fairly proud of each piece I’ve shot.

I’ve noticed recently that yellowbook has changed their embedded flash video player.  The new video player seems to be quite glitchy, which is unfortunate, as the videos don’t look as smooth as they could while watching…

Auburn Muffler Brake and Radiator an automotive shop in Auburn (as the name clearly establishes!). This was shot in October, but only within the past few weeks did it make it up. I have no idea why! I don’t edit these, I just shoot them and send the tapes to LA for post.

Seattle Movers/Mountain Movers A moving company! This video went up quick.

Duncan’s Asphalt Inc. An asphalt company that serves all of Washington.

Dorothy’s Angel Haven An adult family home in Auburn.

D&D Recycling These guys don’t have anything to do with recycling old role-playing books. It’s mostly metal. Not the kind of metal you’d listen to while playing D&D… Interesting, this video was shot the same day as the Seattle Movers video, but this one didn’t post until a month later!

Others are in the pipes! A video shot in December has yet to be posted, I’ll be glad to see it when it does. 6 additional videos have been shot in the last 2 months, and I’m shooting one tomorrow. As much as the economy seems to be flailing, I get the impression the little guys are doing all the heavy lifting! These small businesses all seem to be doing well, and they’re keeping me busy. Thanks for reading!

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09 Looks Good

January 29th, 2009

Every morning my alarm clock goes off, waking me to the sound of Dave Ross’s voice on KIRO news radio. There have been times when I think I should change the station.  It seems like every day I wake up to his voice rattling off the number of jobs that were lost that in the days before. I hear him talking about the stock market losses and the overall impression I’m left with is that things are not looking up.  It’s depressing. Sometimes I think I should change the radio station.

It’s terrible to know that things are getting as bad as I hear they are. That’s just it though; I hear. Having not experienced any of this downturn personally, I consider myself very fortunate. In October, when it was big news, I remember hearing talk of it everywhere I went, never saw it though. My schedule in October was busier than it had ever been. Yellowbook shoots, the Sweet Adelines concert, and none of it showed any signs of slowing down. I even booked a wedding for November, something unprecedented for me. As bad as I heard things were getting, I still didn’t see it.

Toward the end of November and the beginning of December things slowed down. The Yellowbook shoots fizzled to non-existence. Weddings stopped. There were no gigs forthcoming. I was fine with that because I was prepared for the reality that November through March are my slowest months. Before December was out, I had booked two more weddings. January enters, and 2009 is upon us. I’m taking it slow, starting to crunch my numbers for taxes. I purchased my first print advertisement in The Olympian’s Bridal guide. With one purchase, ’09′s advertising budget had already surpassed ’08′s.

Going in to February, I’m getting e-mails and calls about doing weddings and other gigs. The yellowbook shoots came back; with a vengeance. All in one week! Things are seriously blowing up.
I know that economic downturns are a chance for new and innovative ideas to really make their marks, and I feel like I have some of this within that I want to bring to the table. Trouble is, what I thought was going to be a slow time is turning out to be much busier than anticipated. There are interesting new methods I’ve wanted to implement in my marketing strategy, along with updating my website. Apparently the time I was looking forward to resting on my laurels has come and gone.

Why? Quality? Pricing? I think both. The work I offer is on qualitative par with people charging double what I charge. I didn’t drop my prices for the depression, they’ve been set since spring ’08. I think my quality will show, and my prices will win major points. Because I’m not doing this out of greed. I’m not trying to pay off a Cadillac Escalade, or a similarly ridiculously large and overpriced house. I’m doing this because it’s really what I want to do.

Every day.

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Updates

January 7th, 2009

A couple of updates here in the second week of January are needed.

Like that snow? Ridiculous.  Glad it’s gone, really.  When I plunged a yardstick in to the flattest area of my backyard it read 17 inches.  Seriously.  I’m so delighted that the rain is back, I’m thinking about putting on my dancing shoes and doing a tap number in the middle of my street.

Just a little footage captured during my boredom while snowed in on the 7th day. While it was surely driving me a little stir-crazy, I got a little cabin fever to be sure, it was also a great opportunity for productivity in the editing department.

Nick and Lois had wanted to know if I could get them their wedding video by Christmas.  Well, it would be a little on the narrow side, I told them I couldn’t make any promises, but would do what I could.

Sunday December 21st, 1st day of winter, 5th or 6th consecutive snow day in our region; I agree to meet Nick and Lois to hand deliver their DVD’s, as I don’t know if the USPS could effectively deliver the package in 3 days, with the holiday, and the conditions.

My car being stuck, my friend John drives me to the Kinko’s where I print the DVD sleeves.  Everything is looking good, we stop and buy tubes for sledding while we’re out and about.  I need to get home, insert the sleeves into the DVD cases, with the DVD’s and make the package complete.  Then to a local coffee joint for delivery.

Unfortunately, as we return to my house, John gets his car stuck on a pile of snow in what would be the only area he could really park.  The plow has been piling it up for the last 4 or 5 days.  John ends up staying on the couch that night, getting a ride to work in the morning. The next day after work, we dug him out and he got home.

Nick and Lois ended up meeting me at the bottom of my hill, where I ran through the snow piled up almost 2 feet high, while it was snowing, and hand delivered the DVD’s of their wedding to them, so that they could have them in time to give their parents for Christmas!

Merry Christmas Nick and Lois!

Their video turned out great, and though I like the Pre-Ceremony Montage a lot, I’m going to share the Post-Ceremony Montage here –

So here is what Nick and Lois had to say about their wedding video -

Ken,

WE LOVE IT!! It was just what I wanted… seriously!! I am picky and you pleased me very much.
It was last minute but it was soo needed to create our lifetime memory of that special day :)

Thank you,

Nick and Lois

Once again, I feel I should iterate that the emphasis in quotes from clients is always original, never added! I love it when a plan comes together!  Seriously, not much makes me feel better than knowing a client is happy with the work I’ve provided.

Nick and Lois’s wedding also marks a kind of monumental occasion for me business-wise, in that for the 3 years I’ve been doing video production work professionally I’ve never booked a wedding after September. Theirs was November 15th.  Another good thing is that ’09 is already starting to fill up.  Good stuff!

Here is the Highlight Reel from Nick and Lois’s wedding.

Thanks for reading!

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Cobalt

December 2nd, 2008

My last post dealt with yellowbook shoots, and I briefly touched on how I am contractually not allowed to utilize the videos I shoot for my own promotional purposes.  That is to say I can’t put them up on my website, or my blog.  I wouldn’t be able to put them on a sample DVD or a demo reel that I sent out to prospective clients.

It’s a little frustrating, but there are ways around it.  Like this blog. I write on this blog, and I include a link to a video I saw online.  It just so happens that I shot the video I’m linking to.

Which brings me to my focus. A video shot in October for the company I’ve been doing the yellowbook shoots for. Apparently they like what I’m doing enough to have me do a shoot for one of their own clients in Seattle. They called me up and asked if I would be willing to do this shoot, and I’ll have to admit there was a bit of pressure. Well, that’s an understatement. It was a lot of pressure. I felt like this was a make or break gig.

My reason for mentioning the legality of showing videos is because I feel some small degree of angsty annoyance. I consider the video that I shot for them to be among the finest I’ve ever shot. No. It is the best thing I’ve ever shot. I’m very proud of it. I want it to be the core of my demo reel. It should be my flagship sample.

But I’m not allowed to use it.
Well, maybe in a couple years, I might be able to get rights to use it. By then, I should think, it will no longer be the crown jewel of my accomplishments…

I may have talked it up to the point wherein now, viewing it, you will be thinking “What’s the big deal?” I have no apology. I think it’s awesome.

cobalt.com/acceptable/

That’s just one of the things I need to learn to live with attempting to transform my passion into a successful business. There will be concerns that will not always allow me to keep every piece that I create. I need to think of this more as a business than an art.

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