Okay. Trying to finish up 2009. A few more wedding videos in Olympia, Seattle, Tacoma and outlying areas. Then I moved on to some other really cool projects.
Toward the tail end of summer ’09, I was the wedding videographer for Amber and Justin’s wedding. The wedding was at a beautiful historic house in the Sumner area, and it could not have been a more beautiful day. Here is the Highlight Reel from the wedding.
I did the videography on a couple more weddings that year, but I think it’s about time to move this blog on to what I consider to be my single most monumental achievement of 2009. Next blog – Mutually Assured Productions and The Van Job.
Okay, it’s been well over a year since I’ve written on the blog here. So I’m going to start way back when I stopped updating it, and spend the next few weeks covering everything I missed; bringing it up to date. Sometimes this commercial and wedding video production gig here in Olympia, Seattle, and Tacoma keeps me so busy I don’t always have time to update. Wow, what an understatement!
Starting with Jasmin and Louis. June 27th, 2009. Jasmin and Louis booked early, which is great. Their wedding was at St. Ignacio’s Chapel, which is on the campus of Seattle City U. Beautiful church, really amazing. I loved shooting there, and would love to do it again. The architect of the church described the theme of his design as “7 bottles of light.” It’s really pretty.
Jasmin and Louis’s wedding was the first opportunity I had to utilize the camera I had just purchased; Panasonic’s HMC-150 AVCCAM. This is an HD camera that takes advantage of a relatively new video compression coded called AVCHD. After many months of researching, this was the HD camera I decided to buy. Panasonic had earned my loyalty years before with their DVX-100 line of cameras. Although the final product went out in standard definition, the HD stuff looks far superior, even on a DVD.
Anyway, here’s a couple of video clips from Jasmin and Louis’s wedding! The first clip is the pre-ceremony montage. This was shot exclusively with the HMC-150.
Next is the post-ceremony montage. This portion was shot with a combination of the DVX and HMC. You can actually see the difference between the two cameras when it switches. This is primarily due to adjusting the aspect ratio of the two cameras to match up properly.
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.
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.
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a blog here, since August 19th. Almost a month. Things have been busy!
I’d like to share a few clips of one of the more recent wedding videos I’ve done. Tim and Candice were married July 19th in Edmonds WA. The video is wonderful, I really like it anyways. It surely ranks among my best work, and marks the first implementation of my recently purchased Sennheiser Evolution G2 wireless mics. These things are amazing. I’ll do a post dedicated to them when I get time.
Here is the pre-ceremony montage…
Candice and Tim chose a couple of Jack Johnson songs from their collection to use for two of the montages. I love Jack Johnson’s tunes, it’s hard to find happier more upbeat music. The songs really fit the vibe of Candice and Tim’s wedding. Everyone was so happy!
After the ceremony, this song isn’t Jack, but is equally as awesome in my humble opinion!
There were a lot of shots incorporated into the Highlight Reel that were geared toward the “Documentary” package I plan to start promoting next season. I’ll likely do a blog about that to, time permitting of course!
Here is Candice and Tim’s “Highlight Reel.”
Hearing from clients that they are happy with the work I have done is always a great feeling. Candice had this to say about her video -
“Yes, we received the DVD(s) and I absolutely love it! I am so extremely glad and thankful people were able to talk me into a professional videographer! It is definitely an investment that I will never regret and cherish forever! It scares me to think I was fine to go without a video! I watched them when they first got here with Tim and his parents. Everyone loved the montages and the highlight at the end! The music went perfectly like you said it would and I especially think the part where I was done putting on some lipstick was really neat as the music went “pop” as I smacked my lips! (I think you know what I am talking about).”
Sweet! To quote a famous Hannibal – “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Once again I’d like to offer my congratulations to Tim and Candice! They are great together and I wish them many happy years on whatever roads they travel.
Thanks for reading!
