Steve Wernick Updates

Hoosier Wants To Play. Or Sleep.

2011-11-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Russell at Joe Canal's

2011-11-04T05:16:00.001-07:00

Joe Canal's Jerry Benziger

2011-10-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

DP Camp in Hallein, Austria

2011-10-23T13:07:00.001-07:00

My grandfather was a photographer, and one of my influences in imaging. There are 31 photos in this set, all from the Post-World War 2 era. He, my grandmother, father and aunt were war refugees, living then in a Displaced Persons camp in Hallein, Austria. These photos, and many other that I'll post later, survived to tell the story. My family took any number of side trips while they were in Austria. I don't know how commonplace that was. There was a death camp nearby, where these first few photos were taken. The caption on the back reads: "Ebenze March 1947 crematorium + mass graves Austria".

Unfortunately, too few of the photos had captions. This one had no caption.
UPDATE: My cousin, David Kessler, tells me that he has seen this photo in his grandfather's house. He notes that it "depicts a kaddish ceremony at the site of a mass grave of Holocaust victims. There's a rabbi in the photo who led the services."

My grandmother, Liza Rak Kessler, and my Aunt Ina Gershenson.

My grandparents are second and third from the right, with my Aunt Ina fourth. From seeing other photos, they may have been on a visit to a salt mine. There's a stamp on the back of the photo, and what I can still read says this: "Salzbergwerk Hallein. Foto Sch(can't read) Mercner"

My grandfather, in the DP camp at Hallein.

My Aunt Ina, probably at the age of 13 or 14, at the DP camp in Hallein.

My grandfather, outside his photo studio in Hallein.

David Kessler also helped with this: It's a card for the Jewish New Year תש’'ח, which corresponds to 1948. Also note "Kieslowicz", our grandfather's original Polish names (they were from Bilgoraj), and "Hallein."

The stamp on the back of this photo reads, "Lud. Mich. Schmidt, (23) Bremen-Vegesack, Poststr. 56, Eingang, Breite Str."

My grandmother is second from the right.

My Grandfather, Stanley Kessler. His birth name, and as his was known then: Shaia Kieslowicz. The photo is from the DP camp in Hallein, Austria, after WW 2

"A Part of My Childhood Died"

2011-02-07T16:17:00.001-08:00

If you know classic rock, you'll recognize that as a line from a song by the Kinks. What I'm going to discuss was from my college years, but the point remains valid.

During 2010, my fraternity chapter was transitioning from Tau Epsilon Phi (TEP) to Tau Delta Phi (TDP). TEP national was in disarray, and we disassociated, and, in what appeared to be a happy circumstance, TDP was trying to organize a group at Penn State. Since our TEP chapter grew from a defunct TDP chapter, it looked like a return to our roots.

Unfortunately, the TDP group never became a chapter, and the men basically abandoned the house. The house needed work, and could not attract enough pledges and new brothers to sustain it financially, and that created a kind of negative feedback loop. This weekend, I was one of a small group of Brothers who came back for something of a final work session. We were cleaning the house in preparation for its sale.

Adding to the mess that the former residents left behind was damage from a break-in. Broken windows had been boarded up, but other damage remained. Lots of old, junk furniture needed to be removed, and the debris needed to be cleaned as best we could. In an unheated house that didn't have running water.

There were about eight of us performing this labor of love, hauling trash and old furniture, sweeping and vacuuming, and sharing some old stories along the way. Being in the house for (probably) the final time, I could hear the voices of my Brothers and Sisters, could see us all when we were young and invincible, could smell and taste some of the incredible times of growing up.

I'm forever grateful for my time at the TEP house. Since graduation, whereever I've lived, 328 East Foster Avenue always remained my house and home, and State College, my home town.

One of the great features of both town and campus is the vitality, the constant change. Some of the places I loved as an undergrad are long gone. Sadly, the TEP house has joined that list. So we ended our night with one final beer and a toast to the happy memories of the home we all shared.

What Do You Wanna Do? I Don’t Know, What Do You Wanna Do?

2010-09-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

Below is my latest post for the CNJ ROAR, the newsletter from my chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association. This month's topic was what to do while visiting Penn State. As an alumnus, the list is a little different than it would be for an undergrad.

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We’ve all faced that discussion, whether we were sitting in our room at State, hanging out with friends back home, or even while trying to plan a date night. Since we’re back into Football Season, where being in the Top Ten is a season-long goal, we’ll pay homage by listing our Top 10 things do while visiting Penn State. Like the AP Top 25, this is a largely subjective list that’s built around a few objective criteria. Naturally, we welcome your personal favorites that we somehow omitted, with special citations for the best of what has passed from the Penn State scene (like the Train Station or Chicken Cosmo).

1. Enjoy ice cream at Berkey Creamery. Its new location is bigger, and some undergrads never even knew the old site.
2. Watch a football game at Beaver Stadium. Will it eventually become Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, or Beaver Field at Paterno Stadium? And now that Michigan added more seats, will our stadium expand again?
3. Climb Mt. Nittany. Although it’s no longer visible from Beaver Stadium, it’s a dynamic icon.
4. Have grilled stickies at The Diner. Eating at The Diner after the bars closed is still a graduation requirement, right?
5. Have your photo taken while sitting on the Lion statue. It’s a busy place during home game weekends, but your camera is safe in the hands of the next group in line.
6. Buy something Blue & White. Whether you prefer the campus stores or the downtown merchants, none of us have enough Blue & White on our cars, in our offices, or in our wardrobes.
7. Attend something other than a football game. Penn State hosts lots of other events: the full NCAA sports program (3-time National Champion Women’s Volleyball, vocal supporters at men’s basketball, etc.), Thon, and Arts Festival are just a few available options.
8. Visit Wine Country. It’s Happy Valley, not Napa Valley, but Mount Nittany Vineyard & Winery in Centre Hall has a tasting room that’s open every day but Monday, and offers some nice selections.
9. Visit the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens in The Arboretum at Penn State. One of the University’s new additions, located at Park Avenue and Bigler Road, the Arboretum is 370 beautiful acres.
10. Check out where you used to live. Maybe your spouse or kids have never seen the place, or maybe it’s time to put a brick and mortar punctuation mark to the stories you’ve been telling for years. Just be warned: where you lived, or your favorite place to eat, just might not be there any more.

Higher Ed Bubble: Coming Soon?

2010-09-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of months, I've been working on blog posts for the local chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association. The post below was included in last month's newsletter, and was a topic I selected. The subject has been discussed all around the Internet, so I wanted to add my own thoughts, especially as it might impact PSU. Here's the post:

Over the last 15 or so years, we’ve become used to hearing terms like the “dot-com bubble” and the “real estate bubble.” You can find detailed definitions of these “bubbles” at Wikipedia, among other resources. At the core (and for the purposes of this post), a bubble exists where the price of X increases rapidly, to the point where that price cannot be sustained relative to other economic elements (think income).

Our question for today: are we in the midst of a Higher Education Bubble?

It’s a question being asked with increasing frequency. An internet search for “Higher Education Bubble” yields dozens of articles in places like the Wall Street Journal, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Forbes.com, and the Boston Herald. And after our experiences with the most recent bubble (real estate), we ought to learn the issues before the bubble bursts.

When Penn State sets its budget every summer, we’re always hearing about the amount of funding provided by the Commonwealth, along with its impact on the increase in tuition and fees. In effect, Pennsylvania is shielding the true cost of a Penn state education by providing a subsidy. The federal government, to this point, has also made student loan guarantees a relatively simple process. Again, this could be considered something akin to a subsidy. Of course, student loans carry their own issues; Penn State’s For the Future campaign states that upon graduation, a student will have an average loan debt amount in excess of $28,000. An estimated 74% of Penn state students receive financial assistance, mostly in the form of loans. (Source: For the Future, Summer 2010, pages 10-11). Are the state subsidies and federal loan guarantees driving demand to levels that the market would not naturally reach?

The increases in tuition and fees are undeniable. According to the College Board, “Published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities rose at an average annual rate of 4.9% per year beyond general inflation from 1999-2000 to 2009-2010”. (Source: Trends in Higher Education Series, 2009). Over that same time period, the general inflation rate was under 3%. Has the price of a college education increased rapidly, compared to other economic elements? Have American household incomes increased at that same rate, over that same time?

Has the value of an undergraduate degree held up over time? Let’s consider that we’ve lost more than 8 million jobs during the current recession (Source: NASDAQ.com), and Vice President Biden recently stated that many of those jobs are not coming back. At the same time, schools like Penn State continue to graduate large numbers of students. So there’s a large number of people meeting the minimum requirements for most jobs (a Bachelor’s degree), and they’re competing for a shrinking number of open positions. Our experiences in the current recession suggest that, very often, the value of a degree has not help up.

Certainly, there are a lot of entities (like Penn State) and people (like us) who have a vested interest in there not being a burst bubble. Similar interests didn’t prevent previous bubbles from bursting.

Since this is supposed to be a simple blog post, I won’t delve into issues like what might happen if college becomes compulsory, or any of the political issues behind the changes to the student loan programs, or any of the reforms that a modern university might consider. Do you think that we are experiencing a bubble in higher education, and, if so, how can we help Penn State thrive through a period of uncertainty?

BYO Madness

2010-06-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

Three recent BYO experiences, all a bit different.

About six weeks ago, we had dinner at a BYO restaurant in Highland Park that specialized in ethic food. It was graduation season, and the place was crowded and loud. That was fine with us.

When the waitress brought the wine glasses over, I inspected them, mostly out of habit, I think. One glass had lipstick marks that hadn't fully washed off from a prior use. I asked the waitress for a replacement glass, and she told me that they were behind in clean-up, that this was the last clean wine glass, and she suggested that I just drink from the other side of the glass.

Not a really good answer, of course. She finally brought over what she called "traditional" wine glasses from their home country. Basically, it looked like a double shot glass. But it was clean, so we had that going for us.

The next time, we were surpised to discover that the restaurant was a BYO. The really bad news was that the place was in Pennsylvania. The good news/bad news end was that we were in walking distance of a State Store. Not having shopped in one for several years, I'd forgotten (blocked?) how dismal they were. There were few choices in chilled white wines, and none of those were particularly impressive. The best chilled white was Kendall Jackson Chardonnay; not a bad wine, but not interesting. At least there was a decent selection of sake, which is what I wanted anyway.

Last week, we finally found the happy BYO experience at Za in Pennington. It was a small, quiet place with excellent food. There was a group of four men at the next table who were probably part (all?) of a wine club. They opened with a champagne, had another 8-10 bottles of dinner wine, as well as a dessert wine. And one guy even brought his own glasses. That was a very serious group of wine lovers. That was a restaurant that I can recommend highly if you're in mythical Central New Jersey.

The World Can't Be That Small

2010-03-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an industry event in Summit, NJ. I'd never been to that town, and the only people I knew were at that event. Or so I thought. After leaving the event, I stopped outside the downtown office building to make a call. As I was dialing, I heard a woman calling my name. I turned around, and this woman was standing in the doorway of the business next door, waving at me. I totally did not recognize her, so I said "You have to help me here." Her reply wasn't really helpful. She asked, "Where am I standing?" I told her she was standing in a doorway. It turned out to be a salon. Still, I had nothing. She finally gave me enough of a hint that I remembered. It was a woman I worked with at my first "real" post-college job, and she was an aspiring stylist back then. Now we hadn't seen each other is 20+ years, and I never would have recognized her. Now we're talking about what happened to everyone we used to work with, and someone should start a Facebook group from DISC.

Today, I tried out a new hair salon near home. The stylist is a former neighbor. I related to her the story I shared above, and as I finished, a woman came out from the back of the shop, stopping right in front of me, looking me dead in the eye. Once again, I'm at a loss, but this time she didn't make me guess. The salon owner turns out to be an old friend from my SAR days. She named the business after her daughter, and I just never would have known. And this was another person that I haven't seen in 20+ years.

Adelsheim Vineyard Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

2010-02-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of the Joe Canal's experience is tasting so many interesting wines. This was an especially busy week, so between Wednesday and Sunday, I got to sample more than 30 different wines. Now that did include 20 in one evening for a special event, but that was still a lot of wine.

Thursday night was a Walk Around France, and that's where I got to sample 20 wines (and one champagne). Many were very full-bodied, and that continued into the weekend where I tasted, among other wines, a Catena Zapata Malbec. The white wines were mostly light in nature, but the reds generally were not.

All that was prelude to the wine that I bought for Sunday dinner, which was the 2007 Adelsheim Vineyard Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. We didn't coordinate the menu, but Pinot Noir does pair well with a very broad range of food. As it turned out, the baked salmon and the Pinot paired superbly.

The wine was an almost-translucent garnet color, which made it look really alive. I caught bright cherries on the nose and palate, along with a little cracked pepper and allspice. Smooth, fine tannins led to a silky finish.

Since I hadn't had a Pinot at home for a while, it made me break out my copy of Sideways. I hadn't watched it for quite some time, and finishing the bottle of Adelsheim Pinot Noir while I watched the movie was a lot of fun. I did look for a film about the Oregon wine industry, but I couldn't find one.

Unfortunately, I poured my last glass of wine well before the movie ended. Stretching that last glass was a challenge, because the wine was exceptional. The Adelsheim WV Pinot Noir was one of those bottles that I hated to see emptied.

Oregon's Willamette Valley has earned its reputation for producing great Pinot Noir. I think Adelsheim's 2007 effort is a brilliant expression of that terroir.

Disclaimer

2010-01-30T20:19:00.001-08:00

Unless otherwise noted, I have personally purchased all of the wine and alcoholic beverages being reviewed in this blog. This is standard policy, and will apply to future reviews as well, again, unless otherwise noted.

Chateau Ste. Michelle Syrah

2009-12-29T17:32:00.000-08:00

Just the other day, I picked up a bottle of the 2005 Chateau Ste. Michelle Syrah. They're Washington State's oldest winery, and they produce some outstanding wines at tremendous value prices. I've recently enjoyed their Cabernet, and their Riesling as well. Chateau Ste. Michelle is also a big supporter of the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, donating $1 for every bottle sold during an October promotion at Joe Canal's in Lawrenceville.

The Syrah had a nose of lush, ripe fruit, with touches of sweet plum and cherry. There was an enjoyable burst of jamminess, and the fruit stayed on for the finish. With a retail price of around $11, the wine was a very nice choice. It would be a great choice for a party wine, because it should please both Cab drinkers and someone who is relatively new to wine.

In addition to their great wines, the Chateau Ste. Michelle web site has a great feature they call My Cellar. It's a password-protected space where you can store information about any wine you've tasted. It's a great way to keep track (especially via mobile device) of wines you've enjoyed while out somewhere, without worrying about whether there's enough light to take a cell phone picture. Check My Cellar out at http://mycellar.ste-michelle.com/my_cellar_login.php

Cork or Screw Top?

2009-12-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

I recently saw an industry statistic that indicated that up to 7% of all bottled wines are lost annually due to problems associated with the use of cork. That's a whole lotta wine. During his visit to the Joe Canal's in Lawrenceville, winemaker Sean Larkin told us about potential problems with screw-tops, which are often the result of mis-matched parts. But there are lots of outstanding wines that are bottled with screw-tops, so what's a wine lover to do?

Number 61 on the Wine Spectator Top 100 wines of 2009 is a 90-point Italian red blend, Monte Antico, and it's in a screw-top. People are very interested in the wine, especially when Joe Canal's has it on sale for less than $9.00, but some are resistant when they see the screw-top.

One of my favorite wines (The Lucky Country Shiraz) is bottled with a screw-top. And Australia is a leader in the use of screw-tops, which are good economically and environmentally. Yesterday, a customer came in for a particular bottle of Two Hands wine, which was priced around $80, and it was a screw-top. So I struck up a conversation with him about the whole issue, and about the bottle of Monte Antico. He knew he was buying a great bottle of Two Hands wine, and he was totally unfazed by the screw-top. He added three bottles of that Monte Antico to his one bottle of Two Hands, based on the Wine Spectator ratings.

The Lucky Country Shiraz

2009-10-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Lucky Country Shiraz is a refined and sophisticated wine, in vivid contrast to last week’s Boxhead (Boxhead Shiraz was perfectly enjoyable, but in a different way). Although equally young (both are 2008 vintage), The Lucky Country Shiraz has the feel of a mature, fully evolved wine. Equally easy to drink and a pleasure to savor, the Shiraz finishes very smoothly. This is a second label effort from Two Hands Wines, and the anticipated quality was delivered.

This Shiraz carries an opaque black purple color. You’ll get aromas of blackberry, licorice, plum and prune. The tannins are fine-grained and very smooth, leaving an aftertaste of plum, spice and pepper. The Lucky Country Shiraz is ready to drink today –and you’ll be glad you did- or it can be cellared for 2-3 years.

Boxhead Shiraz 2008

2009-10-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

It turned out that clients of mine from the social event video world are the owners of Vine Street Imports, a wine importer. Naturally, I had to try one, so I picked up a bottle of their 2008 Boxhead Shiraz.

This is from the Barossa region of Australia, and is a very fruit-forward wine. The fruit practically leaps to the nose, and the wine is a classic tooth-stainer. There is a bit of spice in this young, full-bodied wine, and the finish was very smooth and tasty.

I think this would be an outstanding wine for tailgating, and it would go really well with burgers or ribs. It would also be a nice fire-side wine.

A 2700-Year Old Beer?

2009-10-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I read about some of the interesting projects under development at Dogfish Head Brewery. One that caught my attention was an ale being created from a 2700-year old “recipe” that was decoded from pottery discovered in a tomb in central Turkey.

The story goes that University of Pennsylvania archeologists discovered what could have been the tomb of the real King Midas. Taking the Iron Age drinking set back to Penn Museum, a molecular archeologist analyzed the reside, providing the formula that became Dogfish head’s Midas Touch ale. I thought that whole process was fascinating.

So the ale includes barley, honey, white Muscat grapes, and saffron. To drink it quickly is to taste a honey beer. To savor it is to find the subtle flavors and the particular soft taste from the saffron. The scent is also very soft, pretty far removed from the hoppy beer that I often prefer.

Dogfish Head also has an ale developed from a 9000-year old recipe. I’ll get to that one of these days.

On the NJ Governor's Race

2009-09-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

A worker for one of the NJ gubernatorial campaigns stopped at our door this morning. He had some literature, and wanted to share the good news about his preferred candidate with me. But he asked for “Yadu”, who was the previous resident. When I explained that basic fact, his comment was that I didn’t look like a Yadu.

I’m conflicted. Was that simply an insensitive comment, or was it racist?

And he was with the Corzine campaign.

Flying Winemaker Zinfandel

2009-09-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been drinking some interesting wines lately. Among the best, with a modest price tag, have been from Cameron Hughes. After trying the Meritage Lot 126, Chardonnay, and Tempranillo, I haven't tasted a bad one yet. Last night, I opened the Flying Winemaker Zinfandel, and that was very tasty.

It was an appropriately dark purple wine, with a very light nose. The taste, however, burst through with cherries, berries, and jam. I tried pasting the official notes from the CH web site, but that didn't work. Instead, here's the link to their web site: http://www.chwine.com/flyingwinemaker/zinfandel/
But if you're looking for a full-bodied Zinfandel, get a bottle of this right now.

One Wedding and a Funeral

2009-05-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

Life cycle events are always fascinating. I’ll start with the happy event.

One of my occasional camera operators got married last Saturday. I was asked to attend the rehearsal, although I’m not really sure why. After all these years, it wasn’t likely that the ceremony would have even one element that I hadn’t seen before.

The church was where Oak Lane and Mt. Airy overlapped, which was something of a treat for me. My mother’s parents lived in Oak Lane for most of their lives, and my father’s parents lived in Mt. Airy for many years. My family lived in Oak Lane when I was very young, and I have many memories of that area. Driving past our former homes was an interesting trip down memory lane, especially since I hadn’t been past our home on North 17th Street in a very long time.

Rehearsal was interesting, what with the cherry-picker inside the sanctuary. The roof had a leak directly above where the bride and groom would be standing, and the cherry-picker was there for the repairs. Ok, so that was something I hadn’t seen before.

I didn’t know exactly what was happening, as all of the participants started gathering in a circle. About the same moment that I realized that everyone was going to pray together, I was “invited” to participate. “You too, sweepea” was the command of the woman in charge. And who was I to argue? We all joined hands and prayed.

It must have worked, because the rain did not materialize on their wedding day, and the roof didn’t leak on them. Kimberly and Shawn had a great and happy day together. Their honeymoon was in Cancun, and they had stocked up on flu-fighting goods.

On Friday, the day between the rehearsal and the wedding, I got an email with a very disturbing subject line. A fraternity brother had passed away suddenly, and the email was the funeral information.

“Passed away suddenly” is, of course, a euphemism. There was a widow with two young sons, one thisclose to his Bar Mitzvah. The rabbi called it a tragedy, and, at least for the survivors, that’s pretty accurate. I certainly know about the kind of madness that leads to such an end, but that doesn’t make it any better.

On Monday, I took the ride to the funeral with three other Brothers, each of whom I’ve know for more than 30 years. We met up with many others at the funeral, some of whom I’ve also known for more than 30 years. I looked around at these guys, my good friends, and realized that we have grown old together.

So there’s no big philosophical conclusion here. This was a glimpse into my world from the last weekend. That will lead into this weekend, where I’m covering a second-generation event. I covered the parent’s wedding, and now it’s their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.

The Wedding Video Business Needs More Challenges

2009-03-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Actually, the newest challenges have the potential to impact photographers, and other wedding professionals as well. Like so many interesting concepts, the business models I’ll discuss here started on the West Coast.

At least one video professional teamed up with roughly a dozen other wedding vendors to sponsor a DIY wedding video seminar. Their mission was to instruct engaged couples, and their friends, on how to shoot and edit their own wedding video. An afternoon of instruction would be followed by a “Meet the Professionals” segment, where the other vendors would be available.

While I know the person who coordinated this program, we have not yet discussed it, so I don’t know the motivation. According to the web site, the scheduled workshop was cancelled.

Places like Home Depot offer free classes because they know that they’ll sell enough product to justify the expense. Here, advance registration for the wedding video workshop was $49, and it was $69 at the door. Granted, that price did include a coffee break and a Wine and Hors d’Ouevres Reception. Regardless of whether the vendor partners made any financial contribution, this was going to be an expensive production. We haven’t seen something like this on the East Coast yet, but it looks like we could.

The other new concept impacts photography, along with video. There is a company offering to rent out digital still cameras, and those cameras are also capable of capturing video and audio. This is being touted as an environmentally-friendly improvement on the disposable cameras that have been so prevalent at weddings.

You can order packages of 10, 20, or even 30 of these digital cameras. They’re shipped to you just before the wedding, along with extra “eco-friendly” batteries. The company then hosts the photos and/or video on their web site, where anyone can access the files, and order copies. The claim is that each camera can hold more than 450 photos, or more than 15 minutes of audio and video. The images are available on the website for a month (included in the basic price), or for a year, for an additional fee of about $45. The photo and video files are then available for download-for free.

The wedding business has always been very competitive. With these two developments, I think that competitiveness ramped up a bit more.

You Can’t Find Everyone On Facebook

2009-01-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, I look for a couple of college fraternity brothers via the Internet. As so often happens, we’d fallen out of touch years ago, when we all went our separate ways. And for as easy as Facebook makes it to connect with old friends, it’s still not perfect.

My first target was Randy Weber, who was one of my best friends at the TEP house. We were last in touch about twenty years ago. I knew that he’d moved to the Erie, PA area, and that he’d started a chimneysweep business back then, but that was about it. So despite my sporadic efforts, I could not track him down. He did not have any visibility on the ‘net.

Around Christmas, the obvious solution finally smacked me in the head. Randy was from a small town in northwest PA. I figured that if I did a white pages search for his home town, I’d find someone he was related to, and I’d be able to connect that way.

The white pages search gave me 5 people with the same last name. I’d stayed at his home back when we were in school, and one of the street names sounded vaguely familiar, so I called. And the person who answered the phone was Randy’s mother. Trusting soul, she gave me Randy’s home phone number in Lake City, PA.

I called him right away, and his wife answered the phone. Randy couldn’t talk just then, she explained, because he was out skinning a deer. That flashed me back to Randy and his roommate trying to tan a deer hide in their bathroom. Didn’t work so well.

It took a couple of weeks of phone tag, but we finally connected. And he did confirm that he rarely uses email, since he does not have a desk job. Now we’re just going to have to find an excuse to meet up back in State College.

Be Alert For Attempted Wedding Scams

2008-12-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

From recent discussions with video professionals in Florida, it’s clear that there are some scammers at work. I’ve posted a full news story at http://www.4evergroup.org/. The current scam is a variation of what many of us have already seen, where we’re supposed to be sent money to distribute to others, while keeping a share for ourselves.

In the new wedding scam attempts, I’ve received reports from about a half-dozen wedding video professionals in both South Florida and Jacksonville. Emails sent to two different video producers were nearly identical, although the names were different. We also have a report of one person being victimized for about $2000.00.

Here’s what one of the emails looks like:

Sent: 9/11/2008 3:10:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight TimeSubj: Wedding planner needed

My Name is Dr Edmund Don, I am looking for an experienced wedding planner who will handle my wedding and arrange dinner for a group of people who will be attending the wedding ceremony.Seven will arrive few days before the wedding day. The wedding is expected to hold on the 10 November,2008 and 25 to 40 guests are expected to attend. As i do not know what the guests might choose for their meals and drinks, i will make a prepayment as initial deposit for this booking via credit card once availability is confirmed by you.All checks and balances will be made with you on 21st October which is the final day of the booking, You are to arrange for a Videography,Music Entertainment,Photography,Officiant/Priest & Church,cake,flowers and hall.If there is any these items that is beyond your capability,you let us know so that another company can handle it. Get back to me with your response as we don't have much time with us so that we can process our accommodation within the region more convenient for you and us. Best Regards, Dr Edmund Don, 109-113 Queen's Gate, South Kensington , London , UK , SW7 5LR.. +447024024468

Although the scammers are currently targeting Florida video professionals, they could easily move into other markets.

Quick Trip to Jacksonville

2008-12-09T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last night, I rolled out a new presentation designed for local video associations, called Business 2.0. The main point of the program is providing information on how to move your business forward in this challenging economic climate.

The presentation seemed to be well-received, which is always a good thing when the program is presented for the first time. Some suggestions offered during and after the meeting have already made the program stronger for the next time out.

If the flights to and from Jacksonville were any gauge, this is clearly a difficult time. Nearly every time I fly on Southwest, the plane is pretty well packed. This time, both flights were about half full.

ABC Conference

2008-11-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

This year marked my fourth time participating in the annual conference of the Association of Bridal Consultants. Like any other professional conference, it’s a great time to catch up with old friends, make new friends, and learn about what’s new in the industry.

The ABC conference drew about 400 attendees, with a number of international consultants participating. Some of the people I’d worked with in the past, like Sandee Monaghan (PA State Coordinator), did not attend this year. Philadelphia was still represented well, with Sheila Corbett, Mark Kingsdorf, Melissa Paul and Haeri Lee among the crowd. Our friends at Weddingvideo.com even produced the official conference video.

We met our goals here, which were to promote professional event video generally, and The 4EVER Group membership in particular. We passed out a bunch of 4EVER Group DVD’s, and had many more conversations about professional video. We heard the concerns of some consultants about some experiences they had with videographers, including poor-quality productions and even camera operators still using tripods, bright lights and AC power during receptions.

In addition to promoting our membership, we will likely be adding a benefit for members of The 4EVER Group Videographers Network. One of the other vendors offers an on-line service that could be very beneficial to our members. We should have the discussions wrapped up shortly, after which we’ll make the announcement.

Conflict of Interest?

2008-09-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

One of the leading video software companies requested that I help coordinate their introduction of a new product to our market. That help was to take the form of suggesting several local videographers association meetings where they would do an in-depth presentation. The association would get reimbursed (by the software company) for certain expenses, and one meeting attendee would win the new software bundle, valued at more than $1500.00. It was a classic win-win-win situation. But things are never so simple.

After discussing the meeting proposal with the president of one particular association, he readily agreed. Later on, however, he took it to the association board for their approval. That’s where it got complicated.

Sitting on the board was at least one person who receives direct compensation from an organization that considers us (The 4EVER Group) to be competition. There’s also one other person who has received compensation from that other organization. Allowed to sit in on the meeting, but not a board member, was another person who receives direct compensation from that organization.

And the association’s president expressed surprise when our proposal was voted down.

In my first job after college, we had ethics training. We were taught about both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. It’s hard for me to see how the situation here represents anything but a conflict of interest.

Video Biographies In The News

2008-09-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've long considered the Video Biography to be truly important. Whether looking at it as a professional, offering the service, or as a DIYer, having your family story on video is just awesome. I actually recorded my first Video Biography back in 1985, before we even had a real name for it.

Earlier this week, I was interviewed for an article about Video Biographies, which appeared in today's (September 26, 2008) edition of the Indianapolis Star. You can access the article through their web site, by following this link:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080926/BUSINESS05/809260402/1003/BUSINESS

Haters

2008-08-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

In my role with The 4EVER Group, we recently announced that we would host a couple of workshops in the Los Angeles area that would be Spanish-language only. One person sent me this email:

“Asking strictly on my own behalf, why is this event Spanish-only?
Did you get a special subsidy from MALDEF or LULAC or, perhaps, Mexico?

As a native-born English-speaking American citizen of Armenian immigrant parents,
I find a professional conference presented Spanish-only in Los Angeles to be offensive,
and inconsiderate of other races and heritages.
There is a HUGE Armenian community in Glendale, a few miles from LA, why not Armenian?
Why not offer Vietnamese? Korean? Chinese? Russian??
Each of these have large communities in L.A.

Or, why not just present it in English, which ALL American citizens and immigrants SHOULD speak?
That way NOBODY would be offended, or singled out for special treatment
to the exclusion of others.

best regards –“

This was my response:

“I appreciate your email. Please allow me to address your concerns.

By offering workshops in Spanish, we are first and foremost fulfilling our mission to provide education, training, and resources to all facets of the event video community. The leadership of the Spanish-language video producers association specifically invited us to work with them in planning this event. This is simply one of the dozens of events that we have run in cooperation with local associations all across North America. When we last hosted a Video Summit in Southern California (Orange County, at Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel), we ran workshops in both English and Spanish. And the next time we run a Video Summit in Southern California, the format could again be different.

Our programming here is merely driven by the market. If the demand would exist for similar programming in English, or any other language, we would work to provide it. Please note that we are not the first, nor are we the only organization to offer programming in Spanish. For example, (name redacted), a Certified Adobe Trainer and a friend of The 4EVER Group, taught programs in Spanish at the recent NAB conference in Las Vegas. (Gender reference redacted) programs were not offered in English.

The national NACE conference just wrapped up here in Philadelphia. After I left the conference the other day, I walked three blocks from the headquarters hotel to have dinner in Chinatown. The signs on many businesses were only in Chinese. I could have gone a few blocks in a different direction and seen signs in Vietnamese, or Spanish, or Italian, or Japanese. The point is that ours is an extremely diverse society, and there is a benefit to everyone if education is provided in a language that the student understands.

We do not set the political or legal agenda. In my keynote speech at VIDEO 08, and in many other speaking engagements across the continent, I do urge video producers to get involved in the political process, because the laws and the rules have an impact on how we do business, and we have a right to voice our opinions. But I also urge everyone to belong to what I call The 4EVER Group’s Green Party, and I do not refer to the environmental movement. The people who might attend these workshops want to learn, so that they can improve the way they do business. That strikes me as a very good thing.

Regards,
Steve”

Back to the blog post:
Living in the Philadelphia area, we’re clearly not on the front lines of the immigration issue. Maybe it’s a sensitive topic for people in areas like Los Angeles. In addition to this email, I also received a phone call with a similar message. I was told that my points were “nice rhetoric” and “bull”. So for at least these two people, it’s a hot-button issue. But it would be great to see a debate that didn’t go, as the emailer and caller did, directly to insults and invective.

Destination Weddings:What You Need to Know

2008-07-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

Note: The following is reprinted with permission. Contact information for the author, Lynda Barness, is at the end of the article.

A destination wedding… whether it is in the mountains, on the beach, or just anywhere that is a bit far from home… can be both exciting and challenging. Here are ten tips to make a destination wedding stress-free:

1. Put everything in writing. You will want to make sure that everyone is literally on the same page, and documenting what you are expecting is one way to make sure this happens. This is particularly important if you are dealing with a venue that is in a place where English is not the only language. You want to be sure that your messages have been conveyed and understood. And, if possible, know some rudimentary words if you are in a place with a foreign language. (This really helps!)

2. Check all room reservations and their locations. Does a child have to have a room near a parent’s? Are there adjoining rooms? Will the hotel deliver welcome bags to guests, and is there a charge for this service?

3. Know your guests’ limitations. What about access for those with physical disabilities? Remember that foreign countries may not have the same requirements for ramps and other means of assistance that you may find in the US. Let the venue know of your guests’ needs, in room assignments, transportation, and any other situation.

4. Know exactly where to find a doctor, where the doctor’s office is located, what the hours are, and what the costs and means of payment may be. You do not want to wait until there is a mishap to figure this out. Investigate ahead of time!

5. Carry as much as possible with you if you are traveling by air. You will not want to pay mailing or import costs, for example, on gift bags for hotel guests. Check with the airline ahead of time if you have questions. And this includes traveling with a wedding gown.
6. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. If you need a golf cart to help you get around at a resort or need help from the hotel staff to assist in decorating tables, just ask. You may be surprised at the willingness of others to assist.

7. Make sure you have a back-up plan for rain. And for everything else! Think about “what if.”

8. Take a moment to think about climate conditions. If you are going to a warm climate, remember that you may also be in (very cold) air conditioning, and plan accordingly. Think about sun screen, bottled water, and a sweater. And if you are going to a cold climate, think about layers. Conditions vary, and you want to be prepared without overloading suitcases.

9. Carry an emergency kit. Have your hotel/resort’s phone number on your speed dial or at least in your address book. Hire a wedding coordinator at home and, if possible, bring that coordinator to the wedding. If possible, bring your own team of wedding consultants, photographers, and videographers. All of these may be available at your hotel/resort, but you will find that the coordination will be smoother if you have your own team in place.

10. Do whatever you can to have a non-stop flight or at least one where you don’t have to change planes, gates, or terminals. It is not fun to miss a connection due to weather (think about the groom’s children ending up in Detroit instead of Cancun) or the airlines (think about sitting on the tarmac in Atlanta because there is no gate available to de-plane, and thus missing the connecting flight home).

And… enjoy!

Lynda Barness
I DO Wedding Consulting
PO Box 22450
Philadelphia, PA 19110
215-262-8188
www.idoplan.com
lynda@idoplan.com

Starving Artists?

2008-07-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I wan an invited participant in a regional video producers meeting, hosted by the North Jersey Videographers Association. The first part of the meeting was a 90-minute State of the Industry panel discussion, and that included two associates from Boston, one from Dallas, and another from Long Island. With a 3pm start, the meeting drew about 75 attendees.
One of the issues identified by the LI associate is somewhat local to his area i.e. there are a number of photo studios that, as he explained, treat event video as a commodity, not as an art form. They sell fairly basic packages at relatively low prices, and actively do not want artistic-type shots. The Long Island associate talked about his relationship with the couples he worked with, and felt terrible that he could not deliver an artistic video. While this may not be national in scope, there is a terrific business lesson to be learned. The fact is that the photo studio owner is acting like a businessperson. He is selling video for more than the video is costing him, and keeping that client in his studio. One attendee remarked that he recently started offering photography in his video studio, which is a perfectly appropriate action. The point that I made, and others on the panel made, was that we have to act like entrepreneurs, like business people, in order to achieve business success. It's a simple formulation, really.

A Funny Thing Happened In Minnesota. No, Really!

2008-06-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spent a couple of days in the Minneapolis area. I had a presentation to the Minnesota Professional Videographers Association, meetings with vendors, and I also had to shoot some b-roll for a corporate video project. A busy couple of days, in other words.

One of the places I needed to go and shoot video was the town of White Bear Lake. It was a nice little place, and since I was there mid-day, I stopped in a local restaurant for lunch. The place was called the Cobblestone Café, and it was a family-run business.

As I walked in to get seated, a guy came in to deliver a pizza to the owners. I can’t say that I’d seen anything quite like that before. I had to ask the owners if that were a subtle message that I should go elsewhere for lunch. They assured me that they were simply bored of eating from their own menu, after being there for 10 years.

I did stay there for lunch, and it wasn’t bad. I got to sit outside in fairly fresh air, with very little humidity. And I got a good story to tell.

Internet Radio Interview

2008-05-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

I’ll be the featured guest on the May 22, 2008 edition of “The Frazzled Entrepreneur” program. The interview will be heard live at 8pm EDT on Blog Talk Radio, at this web address: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/frazzledentrepreneur/2008/05/23/The-Frazzled-Entrepreneur-Program-Steve-Wernick-Real-Entrepreneurs-Live.

We’ll have the chance to talk about the video production business, as well as about The 4EVER Group. Since the program runs for an hour, there’s plenty of time for a range of topics.

If you leave a comment below, and mention any topic we discuss with specificity, you’ll be eligible for a 10% discount on any new video production. I mention specificity because I want you to listen to the interview.

In addition to the live session, the program will be archived and appear on The Frazzled Entrepreneur Program website, at http://www.frazzledentrepreneur.com/, for many weeks.

May 10 wedding

2008-05-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

May 10 was clearly a big day for weddings. I was working for Jillian and Chris, whose ceremony was at Old St. Mary’s, with the reception at the Radisson Warwick. This was a fairly recent booking, as they had originally contracted with a studio in New Jersey that shut down, unannounced. They came to me on a referral from their photographer, Michael Leslie. (The images here are courtesy of Michael Leslie, from his blog at http://www.michaelleslie.com/blog/?p=264).

Jillian’s biggest trouble was being uncomfortable at being the center of attention. That’s real hard to do when you’re the woman in the big white dress.

Although the day before their wedding was cold and rainy, their day turned out just fine. We had time to stop at the Art Museum after the ceremony, and that’s when we concluded that May 10 was such a big wedding day. There were 5 or 6 other wedding parties at the Art Museum while we were there (I knew one of the photographers, and two of the video producers). There were two other wedding parties near the Water Works, two more at the fountain in front of the main library, and one out front of the Union League (I knew their video producer as well).

Jillian and Chris had a rockin’ reception, with Rio, a band from EBE Talent, and about 150 guests. The wedding ended with Jillian being held up like she was in a mosh pit That’ll be a good wrap to the video.

NAB in Las Vegas, 2008

2008-05-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

I recently traveled to Las Vegas, for the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention. More than 100,000 people come in from all over the world. Despite the questionable economy, the convention was packed.

We ran our first NAB-week event this year, at the Monte Carlo. This was a reception co-sponsored by Adobe, B&H, Canon, Sony Recording Media, and TEAC. The event went well, but the hotel presented us with some interesting challenges, like locking the doors. We won’t be back there again.

We also presented our annual Product Innovation awards, and you can see the whole list at http://www.4evergroup.org/.

I was invited to participate in a meeting with representatives from Canon. There were five or six representatives from Japan in that meeting (see photo), and waiting for things to be translated back-and-forth was somewhat entertaining.

NAB was, as usual, a great opportunity to build and improve business relationships. One of the big players in this industry is Avid. Right after NAB last year, they had a round of layoffs. Our principal contact, Linda Croson, was one of the people laid off. I was standing in line for coffee, and there was Linda, standing in front of me. Turns out that about a month after being laid off, she was hired by Sony. So that worked out fine for her.

Another Corporate Video

2008-05-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

I’m currently in the middle of a fairly big corporate video project. The shoot included two days on location at a conference, brief b-roll shooting at a variety of retail establishments, and a whole lot of editing. We shot testimonials at that conference in early April, and we won’t have the project wrapped until September.

The project was put out for competitive bidding, but the environment was flexible. The low bidder wasn’t automatically getting the contract, because there were going to be some creative opportunities that might mitigate an otherwise higher price.

As it turned out, we were the low bidder, with pricing in line with the company’s expectations (they’d done similar projects for several years, but wanted a new video producer). The company rep told the non-winners what the final bid price was. One of those bidders, whose original price was about double what our price was, offered to match our price. That’s from the school of “too late”. If you have that much padding in your bid, you come off as not needing, or not wanting, the work. If you do want the work, submit a competitive bid in the first place.

The entire project has some interesting dynamics. The client is based in California. The conference where we shot the testimonials was in Boston. We needed to get transcripts of all 20 interviews, so I emailed the audio file to a woman in New Jersey, who emailed the transcripts back. The editing will also be done in NJ, and the retail establishments (for the b-roll) are all over the country. The video segments from the project will be hosted on the company web site, but also will be put on a DVD for trade show use.

Altoona Baseball

2008-04-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

The Altoona Rail Kings were a minor league baseball team that lasted two seasons, starting in 1996. They moved to West Virginia before folding. As I remembered it, the Rail Kings never even played a game, so I have to attribute the facts here to Wikipedia. Although I’m a baseball fan, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Altoona, I never got to see a Rail Kings game. The Altoona Curve baseball team started playing in 1999, and I didn’t get to one of their games until last summer (that’s the photo here).

I have good friends, Joel and Barb, who have lived in Altoona since the mid-1970’s. Whenever I needed a break from the insanity of Penn State, I’d just take a ride down Rt. 220 to what we all agreed was the “Rest Home”.

Since I never got to a Rail Kings game, I never got any branded merchandise. Generally, I’ll only get something (shirt, glass, etc.) if it represents something I’ve seen, or somewhere I’ve been. Nevertheless, getting a Rail Kings jersey became a running joke with Joel and Barb since about 1997.

Once a year or so, I’d check EBay and Craig’s List to see if anyone was selling a jersey. No such luck. And, as it happens, the last time I checked was just a few days ago.

Yesterday, the mailman delivered a small box, and it had Joel and Barb’s return address. My first thought was that the Rail Kings jersey had finally arrived. But when I opened the box, it was actually a Rail Kings jacket! That was a really cool surprise.

Of course, I immediately called Joel and Barb, telling the story about having just checked EBay, and it was probably the day they sent it. Barb asked if there was any time limit on my request, and was 11 years too long to wait.

WPPI Conference

2008-03-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

That’s the Wedding and Portrait Photographers Conference, held in Las Vegas, and I attended to represent The 4EVER Group and our membership. We shared booth space with the conference organizers during the trade show, and we presented a video program during the educational time. In addition, I shot some footage for the highlights video, which was being assembled by a friend.

Our original program presenter asked to be excused, and we had an even better seminar as a replacement. Unfortunately, bad weather prevented LaDonna Moore from leaving Dallas, so I had to step up and replace her. I had a two-hour time slot to fill, which I did with a combination of the Video Critique and an instantly-developed program highlighting the cross-marketing opportunities between photo and video. Our official VIDEO 08 photographer was in attendance, and Sara Frances (http://www.photomirage.com/) graciously provided the images here.

We used four DVD’s in the presentation. Two were ours, and two associates each provided one. An AV technician handled the DVD’s during the program. Immediately after my presentation, while I was talking to several attendees, the tech left the DVD’s on his table and came up to retrieve the microphone. In that 30-or so second time, someone stole those DVD’s. That was a ridiculous blemish on an otherwise excellent experience.

WPPI draws about 10,000 attendees, and more than 350 trade show vendors, so it’s pretty impressive. There are as many as 16 programs going on at once, so that’s really quite an effort to pull together.

Four City Trip Starts

2008-03-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

These crazy few days kicked off with a trip to Boston, for an industry show on March 7 and 8. We (The 4EVER Group) were one of the exhibitors at the Camera Company Pro Video show, which was held on the campus of Stonehill College. In addition to the show, I was a panelist for the Vista Awards, presented by the local video producers group, the National Professional Videographers Association of New England (NPVA-NE).

The show itself was fairly uneventful, and it was run well. They’ve had some practice: this was the 18th year of the show, and the second time that we’ve participated. Unlike the last time we participated, the show has been geared almost totally toward industry professionals. That meant that the foot traffic was lighter than we figured.

Day two of the show, Saturday, figured to be busier. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t really cooperate, as there was quite the downpour. The show was held in the school’s gym, which was next to the main athletic field (W. B. Mason Field), and there was a lacrosse match that morning. That had to be an unpleasant experience, out in the cold rain.

At the show’s conclusion (5pm), I packed up and grabbed a quick dinner with a couple of associates. Then I hit the road, bound for State College. Seven entertaining hours later, I arrived in my old home town for the PA ABC meeting. But you should have already read that story.

The four cities? Boston, State College, Davenport IA, and Las Vegas.

PA ABC Meeting

2008-03-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

PA ABC Meeting

So there will be a couple of posts that are out of order. It happens.

This past Saturday, at the conclusion of the Camera Company event, I drove from the Boston area to State College, PA, for the meeting of the PA chapter of the Association of Bridal Consultants (ABC). This would be my second presentation for the PA ABC, and the last one had been about five or six years ago.

The drive featured some lousy weather, with serious rain from Boston to Hartford, CT, and a mix of light snow and ice for the last 100 miles of the trip. It didn’t help that I left Boston about 7pm, but the program didn’t end until after 5pm, and then I stopped for dinner with a couple of associates. I made it to State College almost exactly at 2am, and that’s when Daylight Savings Time took effect. I figure that simply meant that I lost an hour of awake time, rather than sleep.

Consultants did come in from all over Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. Of course, there were a few from the State College area, as I noted in an earlier post. As a Penn State graduate, I’d be really happy to cover a wedding there, but I haven’t really pushed it before now.

My goal was to give the consultants something of a status update on the state of the video production business. Although two of the attendees had seen my presentation at the 2007 national ABC conference, this was new information to everyone else. We discussed Same Day Edits, Memorial Videos, and HD video, among other topics.

Since I had anticipated arriving so late, I was able to get scheduled to speak after lunch. The ABC did have two other speakers in the agenda, so that worked in my favor. I did get to sleep in a little, and then grab breakfast at the Waffle Shop, a favorite spot in State College. It was spring break, so town was unusually quiet.

On the ride home, I took a little detour through Altoona, to visit with friends there. So after another long drive, I finally got home about midnight.

Penn State Weddings?

2008-03-10T08:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I did a presentation for the PA chapter of the Association of Bridal Consultants. I’ll blog more about that later. First, though, I wanted to mention a useful and fun site for any fellow Penn Staters getting married in the Centre region.

One of the meeting attendees was Kerri Smith, the “quarterback” (their term) for Nittany Weddings. Her business card resembled a sports card, and the photo was of a bride in her gown, with a blue sash, about to throw a football. And she has lamp black under her eyes.

That football theme was consistent in their material, and I liked the branding. I have to figure that it plays well up in Happy Valley. Check them out at www.nittanyweddings.com.

Changes at The 4EVER Group

2008-02-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

4EVER Group Focused on Membership Growth as Co-Founder Departs

Contact: Levi Rabinowitz
Redzone News Management
443-280-1911
levi@redzonenews.com
Or: Scott Broom
Redzone News Management
443-562-0112
s.broom@redzonenews.com

Feb. 26 2008 (Philadelphia, PA) The 4EVER Group, the leader in education and resources for the event video industry, today congratulated co-founder and former Director of Education Tim Ryan as he took leave from the organization.

“All of us who have worked with Tim wish him the best as he refocuses his efforts on growing his already-successful video production business,” said The 4EVER Group’s Director of Development Steve Wernick.

Ryan, along with his wife Lee Ann, own Treasured Memories Video in Massapequa, New York. He announced his leave from The 4EVER Group due to personal and private reasons February 25.

Wernick and Ryan established The 4EVER Group as the premier resource for event video production firms seeking professional development opportunities and access to networks of fellow event producers and the vendors that serve them. Event DV Magazine named Wernick and Ryan of The 4EVER Group to its inaugural Top-25 list of contributors to the industry in 2005. Since it’s founding in 2005, The 4EVER Group has hosted professional events and conferences attracting an international host of video professionals and vendors.

“We appreciate all that Tim has done with The 4EVER Group,” said Wernick. “The 4EVER Group was founded for the promotion and benefit of event video production companies exactly like Tim’s.”

Under Wernick’s continuing leadership, and with the assistance of a strong team that includes Ed Wardyga, Ken Ehrhart and LaDonna Moore, The 4Ever Group remains focused on growing its substantial membership and expanding the events, services, vendors and professional networks critical to assisting members in growing their businesses.

At The 4EVER Group’s most recent annual international conference, VIDEO 08, in Orlando Florida, members indicated expanding demand for newer areas of event production services such as the creation of video biographies and memorial productions for private clients, as well as sports- and school-based productions. Traditional areas of business include wedding video productions, corporate video productions and the production of photo montages for corporate and private clients.

In addition, The 4EVER Group’s 2007 Artistic Achievement Awards attracted global interest with entries from event video producers in Austria, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Canada, and the Philippines.

The 4EVER Group is the leading resource for video producers, especially those in the social event industry. For more information about the events and activities of The 4EVER Group, please visit www.4EVERGroup.org, or call 1-888-4EVERG1.

Why Get A Wedding Video?

2008-02-24T18:15:00.000-08:00

An associate from California posted this Youtube clip;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP0UHCVyvtU&mode=related&search

In it, a couple discusses their wedding, and their decision to not have a video recording of the day. It's worth spending the 5 or 6 minutes there is you're unsure about hiring a wedding video producer.

NACE Conference

2008-02-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

I recently celebrated my 4th anniversary as a member of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE). To celebrate, national NACE is having its annual convention in Philadelphia this summer. OK, that's not completely accurate, but the conference is coming to Philadelphia.

Since I'm part of the local chapter, and I know a thing or two about national conferences, I volunteered to serve on the committee assisting the national team. I'm serving as chair of the closing Gala. It suits me well, because the national is making most of the arrangements, and I will have little to do until the last month or two before the conference.

The local NACE chapter is an excellent place for industry professionals to meet and share. It's just another way of staying involved in the social event business.

I'm Still Here

2008-01-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

You plan and organize a conference for hundreds of video producers, and you’ll let your blog slip. We just wrapped The 4EVER Group’s 3rd annual conference and trade show, and it was great. The discussions in the industry forums has been all positive, but we’re already working on ways to make the 2009 conference even better.

An important part of the conference was the Iron Videographer competition. It was based on the Iron Chef TV show, and was a compelling, six-month long project. The winner was Terry Taravella, from Studio Vieux Carre in New Orleans. Every part of the competition used video footage from my studio, so it made for a great re-imagining of our clips. The winning entries from the Iron Videographer competition can be viewed at http://4evergroup.org/ironvid.shtml.

If you want to get an idea of what the conference was like, just visit the home page at www.4EVERGroup.org. We had a series of daily vlogs created, and they’re posted on that home page.

Back in the north, we participated in the WPST bridal show yesterday. We haven’t taken a booth at a show in a few years, and they’re just not a place where we get instant gratification. But it’s a good time to remind anyone shopping for wedding vendors that you should make your selections as soon as you can.

Faux Food TV?

2007-11-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

In this line of work, we never know what the next phone call will bring. While I was in Iowa over the weekend (what, isn’t that where everyone goes?) I received a call from the owner of a restaurant in Warminster who wanted to see about having a camera crew out to his establishment on Tuesday, 11/20. Seems that the renowned chef Georges Perrier, along with his Le Bec-Fin team would be cooking up a special tasting menu that evening, and the owner wanted coverage.

Having grown up in Warminster, the concept of fine dining there was completely unnatural. When I lived there in the 1970’s, the boldest restaurant opening was a Burger King, and I’m not at all kidding about that. There was also the Sambo’s restaurant, until that racist name put that chain out of business. That place became a Denny’s.

Augusto’s of Madison Avenue is a Zagat-rated restaurant located, surprisingly, on Madison Ave., between Street Road and County Line Rd. Augusto, the owner, once worked for Chef Perrrier (there were four Chefs at the restaurant last night, so everyone is calling everyone else ‘Chef’) at Le Bec-Fin, so this was a pretty special evening for him. The tasting menu was limited to one seating, so fewer than 100 people got to enjoy the classic French cooking that is the Le Bec-Fin specialty.

So I’m not a French cooking guy, what with snails, sweetbread, and squab on the tasting menu. From the individual choice perspective, it was good to see that foie gras was on the menu. Nonetheless, I could still appreciate the great discipline that it takes to work in the kitchen. It’s really hot, there’s not much room, it’s loud and there all kinds of pressure. All of the staff, whether the regular Augusto’s team or the Le Bec-Fin crew, were completely professional and disciplined. And, according to every diner, they were incredibly skilled as well.

Chef Perrier was a celebrity on duty. He did some cooking, but he also did a lot of schmoozing. Twice, he opened champagne bottles using a saber. Apparently, that evokes some pre-French Revolution grandness. It seemed like he knew a lot of the patrons, who seemed to have at least one bottle of wine per person.

I don’t yet know what Augusto will want to do with the video, but I’ll make sure to link to it here.

Interview with Rebecca Mead

2007-11-14T04:53:00.000-08:00

We routinely do podcast interviews with industry people for the 4EVER Group's web site. Earlier this year, a book was released about the wedding industry. Called “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding,” the book was an unreasonable and scathing look at the wedding industry. The author went on a book tour, but I was successful in landing an interview with her in October, at her NY office. You can download the interview here: http://www.4evergroup.org/podcast_page.shtml

In our conversation, her question was “why do we even need a wedding industry”. That’s the kind of question most often asked in college dorm rooms, at 3am, after a whole lot of beer, when you’re going to solve all of the world’s problems.

Please go and download the interview, which runs about 35 minutes, for a glimpse into the mind of the author.

Bridal Consultants Conference

2007-11-14T04:51:00.000-08:00

This week, I’ve been in Orlando, representing The 4EVER Group in the annual conference of the Association of Bridal Consultants. This is the third time that I’ve been a part of the conference, and the first time since 2003. With about 400 consultants attending, it’s a great show.

I was included in much of the agenda, along with having a booth at their trade show. They do feed the attendees quite well, I’ll give them that. The conference was also held at the Wyndham Orlando Resort, which is where we’re holding our own conference in January. That made it a great opportunity to see what the hotel was like, in action.

Because I’ve been involved with the ABC for so long, I knew quite a few attendees. The 4EVER Group had a couple of different DVD’s to share with the consultants, aimed at promoting professional videography. A couple of hundred DVD’s got distributed during the show. I also made new contacts, which will help move the relationship, and our two trades, forward.

Like most conferences, this was a whirlwind affair. I left home about 5am on Sunday, because the trade show started at 1pm that day. After the show wrapped for the day, it was time to grab a quick dinner off property, before calling it a night. The trade show ran from 9:30am to 5pm on Monday, with an official breakfast and lunch included. I then had a dinner meeting with a sponsor for our conference, before getting back to email.

Yesterday, I caught the official breakfast before heading off to two other meetings. I got back just as lunch was being served (perfect timing, right?), which led to the roundtable discussion that I hosted. The conference wrapped up with an off-premises dinner event.

So I’m off to two more meetings today, over in the Tampa area. I fly home tonight, shoot a corporate video in NYC tomorrow, and then head off to Iowa on Saturday for a weekend presentation. It’s another full, well-rounded week.

Watchin' TV

2007-10-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we weren’t exactly watching TV; we were watching videos in The 4EVER Group’s Artistic Achievement Awards competition. I moderated the panel of five judges, all of whom were experienced, professional videographers.

This was the second and final round of judging. The judges, who remain unidentified until the awards are presented in January, all gathered at a New York-area hotel to review the videos together. In the first round, the judges watched the videos in their own studios.

We had fifteen different categories in the competition, so that meant that judges had several long days of work. We started each day with an 8am breakfast meeting, so we could start work around 9am. The earliest we ended for the day 10:30pm, and we went to 12:30am one night. The judging went from Monday morning to Thursday morning.

There were some great videos in the competition, which will make for an outstanding banquet program at VIDEO 08, on January 21.

A word about the venue. This was the third year we’re hosted the final round near JFK airport. Tellingly, this was the third different venue we’ve used. We would return to a property if they met our needs. For a meeting with 6 people, you would think that the process wouldn’t be too complicated. Next year, we’ll be selecting our fourth venue in four years.

I believe that we run a pretty low-maintenance meeting. We have the room available all week, and we get breaks served at scheduled times. We ask for water pitchers, and that they get checked every 3-4 hours, along with the trash. We have lunch and dinner brought into the room as well. Even with the specific instructions I prepared for the hotel (having run this specific event several times, I know the routine), the hotel staff could not meet our needs.

Our meeting was held at the Hilton Garden Inn near JFK airport, in Jamaica Queens. While it was a clean and pleasant environment, my experience as a meeting planner was terrible. I outlined for the hotel staff, in detail, every day what the challenges were, and how to make our experience better. Even with daily coaching, they still could not get the details right.

That’s it for meetings that I’m running for this year, I believe. I hate to end up with a lousy venue, but the hotel industry has some clear challenges that they’re not meeting.

Am I Getting Old?

2007-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

I think my son would answer the question by saying that I’m already old. Anyway, since I’ve been recording social events professionally since 1984, I’ve worked within the same family, or same circle of friends, many times. Over the last 5-7 years, some work has been what I call “second generation”. By that, I mean that I’ve worked with this specific guest of honor before (like a Bat Mitzvah), and now they’re coming to me for the next life cycle event, usually a wedding. Hopefully, there’s at least a 10-year gap between a Bar or Bat Mitzvah and a wedding.

Last weekend featured a different kind of second generation event. About 15 years ago, I recorded the wedding of Joan and Steve. That’s them in the synagogue photo above (Photos courtesy of Casual Candids, http://www.casualcandids.com/), with their daughter, Claire. I’d have to check, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve done the wedding of the parents, and then the Bar or Bat Mitzvah many years later.

To illustrate how we often work within a circle, there were several other clients in attendance. There were two couples whose weddings I had recorded within the last 10 years or so-along with their children, and the parents of another couple. That’s a nice environment in which to work, especially because I’m also friendly with their photographer and DJ.

You Can't Get There From Here!

2007-10-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

Had things run smoothly, I was in for a layover of about 5 hours at LAX on my way from Anchorage. However, with airlines these days, things just don’t run smoothly.

The Anchorage-LAX flight was pretty close to on time, and was blissfully about 60% full. I had packed pretty tightly on the way to Alaska, but I included a bunch of stuff that I was giving away at the association meeting. What I forgot to factor in was a) the stuff that I was going to buy, and b) the unexpected gifts from the association. So it was just dumb luck that my bag weighed in at exactly 49.5 lbs.

One side note about the Anchorage airport: I had not experienced an airport with so many dogs on hand. These were pets, or maybe hunting companions, not service animals. It’s was pretty surreal to see a woman just walking her dog through the concourse.

Here’s a good word about Alaska Airlines: I ended up with an exit row seat on all four legs of this trip. And another good word: they got me and my bags safely and intact to the same place at the same time.

With that being said, the layover at LAX was a miserable experience. At least my good friend Jay Stein was kind enough to meet me at about 8am on a Saturday to get me out for a while. We ended up taking a ride to Santa Monica for breakfast (I don’t do brunch, you see).The contrast between Friday at the glaciers and Saturday near the Santa Monica Pier could not have been more extreme.

Jay had me out of the airport for a bit over two hours. If the schedule had held, that would have left me with a little over two hours until the flight to DC boarded. That didn’t happen.

In hindsight, Alaska Airlines clearly knew that the plane had a mechanical issue before it even landed at LAX. Like most passengers, I’m in favor of them solving mechanical issues before flying. But, like most passengers, I also appreciate honest communication. Alaska Airlines failed on that account. It was a good two hours past the scheduled departure before they owned the mechanical problem. That came after we were told to go get lunch. Only when we returned did they offer lunch vouchers (a $6.00 value!).

Anyway, we kept killing time. We watched some football. We worked. We made phone calls. We got dinner vouchers ($8.00!). And then, finally, after about 6 extra hours (remember, that was on top of a scheduled 5-hour layover after a redeye flight), we got to leave LAX on a replacement plane.

There was a young couple on the Anchorage-LAX flight with me that also continued on the LAX-DC leg. They had their seven-month old baby with them. The TSA team at Anchorage made them open the food they had packed for the baby, contrary to current TSA policies. They were in danger of running out of food before the flight from LAX, and there was no place in the airport to buy formula. Fortunately, after they raised enough of a stink, the airline did send someone out to buy them formula. And the baby was great for the entire trip, including that extended wait.

The other challenge was that the plane landed in DC a little after 2am. Considering that I’d been on the go since about 8am Friday in Anchorage, I thought that safety demanded that I get myself into a hotel asap. And I did just that, because I was driving on to Chicago the next morning, for a corporate shoot on Monday.

Final Day in Alaska

2007-09-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

One of the quirks about dining out in Alaska is that there is no sales tax. I didn’t notice it until my last dinner in Anchorage, which means I scored high on the “duh” meter there. I also didn’t have a chance to explore the reasons behind that feature, but one might guess that the tax revenue from oil just might have something to so with it. Or the desire to be a business-friendly city.

My plan for the final day in Anchorage was to get out of town. I checked out of the hotel about 8am and drove to Whittier, to cruise on the Prince William Sound. The drive has some amazing scenery (no shortage of that in Alaska), and an interesting transportation choke point. Just outside of Whittier is a one-lane tunnel that’s shared by road AND rail traffic. For much of the day, road traffic gets through in one direction for a half-hour, and then switches to the other direction for the following half-hour. Late in the day, the schedule starts making room for the trains. Driving through a 1500 foot-long narrow tunnel is challenging enough, but add rails to the road bed, along with water (it had been raining), and you have one crazy ride.

Whittier is, from certain perspectives, just beautiful(see the photo). But it’s a remote town, and many workers live in dorms that look like they were designed by the Soviets. The cruise that I took ran about 6 hours, and the boat had about 75 people on board. There was a group of Korean tourists (ok, that’s redundant; we were all tourists) that arrived on a bus, and they made up more than half of the passengers. Nearly every passenger had at least one camera, and one couple had extra long lenses, a tripod, and a stylish garbage bag camera cover. That proved useful, as we were rained on a bit.

If you ever have the chance to take a glacier cruise, I recommend it highly. That’s just breath-taking. Some of that is because of the cold, so dress appropriately (I didn’t exactly). One of the cool moments was seeing a small black bear grab a fish from the water and snack on it. We also saw lots of birds, sea lions, and sea otters. And small icebergs.

After returning to shore, you have to decide quickly whether to see the small town, or get on the road. The cruise is timed so that you can get back through that one-lane tunnel if you depart quickly. Otherwise, you’re stuck waiting for a train to pass, plus opposing traffic. I chose to head on out, back to Anchorage for dinner, and last-minute photography.

One of the other cool features about Alaska (unnerving to those of us from the Northeast) is the overall friendliness of people. I had dinner alone that last night, and I was wearing a Penn State hat. The couple at the next table used that as an excuse to start a conversation, as they were from the Pittsburgh area. They were on a two week vacation, which included Alaska, British Columbia, and Seattle. And a ridiculous return flight, which took them from Seattle to Las Vegas to Phoenix to Philadelphia before finally getting them to Pittsburgh.

That’s a good way to segue into an essay about my return trip, which included a scheduled five hour layover in Los Angeles. But that’ll have to wait for another day.

Alaska: Day 2

2007-09-16T06:12:00.001-07:00

If there’s a good thing about the time zone difference and body clock issues associated with being in Alaska, it’s this: when you’re up at 4 or 5am, you can get a lot of work done and still have much of the day to enjoy Alaska.

That’s how it went for me. I’d get up very early, do the usual morning routine, and work at my computer for a while. I took the afternoon and evening off on Thursday, and drove to the town of Talkeetna. Supposedly, Talkeetna was the inspiration for the town in the old TV show “Northern Exposure”. From Anchorage, it was a drive of roughly two hours.

Talkeetna has what can be best described as a smattering of businesses. There are a few restaurants, a number of souvenir shops, a couple of small grocery stores, a couple of eco-tour operations, and rooms to rent. It’s apparently home base for people looking to fish and hunt. Town was a good place to grab lunch (salmon quesadilla) and walk around while deciding whether to do an eco-tour.

The decision was more like which among the several to choose. You can’t go that distance and not venture into the woods. I did a jet boat tour (no propellers), where I accomplished one goal: I saw a bald eagle in the wild. On land, the tour took us to recreations of a Native American encampment and a trapper’s lodge. It was weird (as a city guy) to see the tour guide, a woman of about 20, toting a shotgun through the woods. It seems that the bears aren’t really tame.

Wildlife on this trip was scarce. We saw the eagle, and a few river otters. I still had live salmon on my checklist, but that would have to wait. After the tour, it was back to Anchorage for dinner and a little more work before it was time to call it a night.

Alaska: Getting There & Day 1

2007-09-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

Because I had a complimentary ticket on Alaska Airlines, I was limited on choices for my departure. With the tight window for travel, I ended up with only one choice: flying out of Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. Alaska Airlines also flies out of Newark, but that was not an option on this trip.

I had a 5pm flight to Seattle, where I’d connect on to Anchorage. Given the three hours or so that it would take to drive to National, I decided to meet up with my friend Ed in Baltimore, for lunch. Ed’s an old newspaper guy, and is currently the managing editor of the daily record, a business newspaper. Ironically enough, Ed and his family had just returned from an Alaskan cruise.

National Airport wasn’t hard to find or navigate through, but the Alaska Airlines ticket counter was all by itself, in a hard-to-find corner. Walking the entire concourse almost got me sweaty enough for the full TSA search that I had on my Philadelphia-San Diego trip.

The flight to Seattle took off a bit late, but was otherwise uneventful. It actually landed early, which gave me time to buy a real sandwich before boarding the flight to Anchorage. Unfortunately, that flight left late and arrived late.

There was no midnight sun when we arrived in Anchorage, although it was about 11:45pm local time. So, same as in so many other cities, I got the car and drove to the hotel. Given that my body clock registered 4am, and that it was dark, and I’d never been to Anchorage, getting to the downtown Marriott was quite simple.

Wednesday morning came pretty early for me, what with the body clock thing. After breakfast, the gym, and some email work, it was off to Anchorage. The downtown is pretty small, and very tourist-driven. I took a bus-trolley ride through town, just to get oriented. Later on, I took some time to but the items I knew I’d have to take home. I did meet up with the President of the Alaska Professional Videographers Association (Karl Augestad) for lunch, then it was back to the hotel to prepare for the meeting.

My presentation was well-received, and the meeting drew more than their typical number of attendees. The association generously provided me with a couple of very nice parting gifts of smoked salmon (see photo, with Karl), and one attendee gave me jarred salmon that he had caught. It had been a pretty long day or two, so after the meeting it was time to walk back to the hotel (that was convenient) and call it a night.

There were two more days in Alaska, plus an interesting trip back to Washington. Those stories will be coming up soon.

South to Alaska?

2007-09-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

I know the cliche uses "north" as the correct direction for reaching Alaska. In order to get there using the about-to-expire ticket that I have, I needto fly out of Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. Since that's south of here, I've got to go south to go north. Well, west and north.

I'm off to Anchorage to do a presentation to the Alaska Professional Videographers Association (APVA) on Wednesday. So it's a 3-hour drive to DC, a 5-1/2 hour flight to Seattle and a change of planes, and another 3-1/2 hour flight to Anchorage. That's about 12 hours if travel. Fortunately, there's only a short scheduled layover in Seattle.

That gets me to the Anchorage airport about 11:30pm local time, which is 4 hours behind the east coast. It's a long day of travel (it'll be worse coming home), but it's a first: no outside organization has addresses the APVA before. And another first is that I've not yet been to Alaska.

It should be an interesting couple of days. I'll try to keep current.

An Attempted Scam

2007-08-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

I got a call this afternoon from a translation service, telling me that they were communicating with me on behalf of someone deaf or hard of hearing who was using one of those special machines. Whatever. He’s asking about video for his daughters wedding on 9/1, in Philadelphia. After a brief “conversation” through the translation service, I was asked to send information via email. As you see below, I did that.

His reply, however, is the classic scam spiel. I've shared this with as many industry professionals as I could. My original email is at the bottom.

************************************************************************************

From: daniel collins [mailto:danielcollins777@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:24 PMTo: Steve@SteveWernick.comSubject: special favor needed from you

Dear Steve,Thanks for your response and kind effort,the quote you have provided is okay and i will like to book and make total payment with my credit card,i will like you to know at this point that i also hire the service of a African Traditional dancers who does not have a credit card machine to run my card for his payment,i was billed $3000 for this service and i have been able to send $1000 to him via western union money transfer and i do not have enough raw fund on me at present to pay his balance than paying with my credit card so i will like you to add up the remaining $2000 to your charges and charge my credit card details for the sum of $6000 and forward $2000 to him in return via western union money transfer at the nearest location,the excess fund will be for the western union charges and compensation for your time and effort i want you to get back to me with a response and let me know if you are okay with this arrangement so i can forward my credit card details for the payment,thanks for your co-operation in advance,stay blessed.RegardsDr Collins
Hi Daniel,

Thank you for contacting me regarding your daughter’s wedding. If you haven’t yet done so, please visit our web site at www.videoccasion.net. We have sample videos and more information there.

Our standard programming always includes two camera coverage for both the ceremony and reception. The videos are all fully edited, and you’ll receive three identical copies. My intent is one for the bride and groom, and one for each set of parents, but how you divide them is your decision. Our pricing, if the wedding is in the general Philadelphia area, is $3495.00.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. If you have access to Instant Messaging, you can find me at WernickSteve on AOL IM.

Regards,
Steve Wernick
Videoccasion, Inc.

More Adventures in Travel

2007-08-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

This week I’m in the San Diego area, shooting video for a corporate client. We’re shooting interviews in three cities (Princeton, NJ and Evanston, IL are the others) that the company plans on using as part of their effort in recruiting college grads and MBA-types for their world-wide offices.

The company booked the air travel for me, and that became a bit of an adventure. First, we had the administrative error of flying me out of Philadelphia, but then returning me to Newark, NJ. Driving home after than would have been a bit of a challenge. Then we had the airport challenge.

I was booked on United, flying from Philadelphia to Denver, then changing planes there for the final part of the trip. As I usually do, I checked in at United’s web site the night before my trip, and printed a boarding pass.

When I attempted to check in at the Untied kiosk, in terminal D, I was told that I’d been switched to USAirways, and to go to terminal C to check in there. No big deal, I thought. So I walked back outside, in the hot afternoon sun, dragging my suitcase, with my backpack full of gear weighing me down.

USAirways, remarkably, had a pretty short line at the kiosks. However, once again, I was not able to check in. The customer service rep told me that I had to go back to the United counter and get paperwork from them showing that my reservation was indeed transferred, and then come on back. Oh and that plane is scheduled for 4pm, not the 4:30pm that would have been the departure time with United.

So it’s back to the hot sun hustle between terminals, deal with a United customer service trainee, and her trainer who was clearly having issues with the transaction. Then it’s back to terminal C, where the line is longer and the clock is ticking. I sort-of cut the line, but I’d been told to come right back to the counter. Finally, my papers are in order and I’m off to the security line.

What happens when you have to take several trips between terminals, in the hot sun, with plenty of stuff to carry, and under time pressure? If you’re me, you work up quite a sweat. And someone dripping sweat while going through an airport security line is probably pretty high on the list of red flag behaviors. And I got flagged. That meant full pat-down, and swabbing of all my carry-on gear.
In the end, I obviously got through. The USAirways flight was direct, non-stop, which is always a better way to fly. And although I was in a middle seat, between a father and daughter returning from Switzerland, the fact that I arrived in San Diego about 2-1/2 hours earlier than I expected made up for that inconvenience.

I've Been Busy

2007-08-07T13:32:00.001-07:00

This photo represents the entries from the competition that we’re hosting at The 4EVER Group. They all had to be sorted into the 15 different categories in the competition, and that was after each label had to be removed, and replaced with a control number. These videos will be shipped off to judges, and they’ll select the ones that will go to the final round.

The judges are all professional videographers, and they’re all volunteers. Judging in the upcoming opening round is done at the judge’s own location, and does take a considerable amount of time. We then all get together in one location for the final round, which takes the better part of four days and nights.

Videographers are deadline-oriented people. We accepted entries for eight weeks, but about 80% of the entries showed up on the two business days prior to the deadline. No fewer than 39 packages were delivered to my door on the day of the deadline.

The next couple of weeks will also be pretty busy. I’ve got a wedding, along with a corporate shoot that will take me to Evanston, IL and Carlsbad, CA. I’ll try to keep up with this blog throughout.

One Wedding, Two Firsts

2007-06-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

After nearly 24 years in the video production business, it’s rare that I have the opportunity for one new thing in a day, let alone two. That’s exactly what happened on June 23, with a wedding at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia.

This particular wedding was referred to me by Sheila Corbett, who is a full-service consultant (http://www.elegant-events.net/). Although this was the first wedding where we worked together, I wasn’t counting that fact. This was the first Persian wedding we’d ever recorded, and it was also our first event recorded in High Definition (HD) video.

The photographer (http://www.alwaysandforeverphotography.com/) promised to supply a couple of pictures, and they’ll be posted as soon as I receive them. (UPDATE: They're posted!) It really was a visually interesting wedding, as the bride and groom sat on chairs placed on a riser, with a spread of various items in front of them. Some were clearly non-religious, like the two stuffed animals, and the honey was part of a ritual, where each dipped their little finger in the honey, to share with the other. And with much of the wedding ceremony in Farsi, well, I just hope there was nothing said that we need to bleep out.

Overall, they had a beautiful day. The weather was perfect, so all of their outdoor photography/videography will look great. It turned out that their Persian ceremony was not also a civil wedding, so they scheduled the civil ceremony for earlier that same day. So I guess they were married before they were married.

Oh, yeah, that HD thing. We were using Canon A1 cameras, on loan as part of the Iron Videographer competition. We ran three cameras during the ceremony: manned camera on a tripod at the back, my camera was hand-held at the front of the room, and an unmanned camera facing the bride and groom. As usual, we ran two hand-held cameras during the reception. With only about 60 guests, it was a remarkably fun party. I’ll post a short clip on our main web site (http://www.videoccasion.net/) after we’ve edited the full wedding.

The cameras were fairly easy to use, especially given how thick the manual was. The few adjustments we needed to make (setting the input for external microphones was an important adjustment) were simple changes found in the menu. Both of us had used the camera before, which certainly helped. Still, the cameras offer something like a zillion things that can be adjusted, tweaked, or refined, and it’s easy to make a mistake if you're not careful.

Cheers to Ghazaleh and Jahan, who had a wonderful wedding day.

Wedding Industry Interviews

2007-06-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

For some time now, I’ve been the host of podcast interviews that are found at The 4EVER Group web site, www.4EVERGroup.org. Generally, the content has been directed to professional videographers, as we spotlight the personalities is, and tools used by, our industry.

Because of the ridiculous new book about weddings (no plug for her!), we’ve started to branch out with our interviews, and include other wedding industry professional. When I was recently in California, we had the opportunity to do our first non-videographer interview, and that was also our first Vidcast.

I interviewed a wedding planner named Jeannie Savage, and her company is Details Details (www.aboutdetailsdetails.com). She’s a big proponent of professional video, maybe in part because she didn’t have a video at her own wedding. In the interview, she explains about two really crucial moments that happened (an extemporaneous toast from her father was one) that she just can’t remember fully, as her wedding was five years ago. In addition, she realized what a valuable memento the video would have been for her own children.

Anyway, if you want to take a look, please follow this link:
http://www.elysiumproductions.com/jkh/4egvidcast1selfcontained.html

The Iron Videographer

2007-06-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been a little busy, and I haven’t made the time to attend to my blog. One of the major distractions was my being a part of the Iron Videographer competition that we (The 4EVER Group) hosted.

The Iron Videographer is a send-up of the Iron Chef TV show. We’re doing this bracket-style, featuring eight combatants in four regional competitions in the opening round. I was the host of the program, and our events were in Detroit (June 6), Dallas (June 7), Long Island (June 12), and Orange County, CA (June 13). That meant three different airlines (USAirways, Northwest, and Jet Blue), and four different hotels (Wyndham Garden Hotel, LaQuinta Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, and Fairfield Marriott). Airline service was barely average, although they got us to each destination safely, and the hotels all pretty much seemed the same.

Each combatant in the Iron Videographer competition used the same footage to create a wedding highlights clip. I provided the footage, from a wedding recorded in June 2006. One of the winning clips is posted here: http://blog.elysiumproductions.com/.
Once I’ve collected all of them, the bride will receive all of the clips on a DVD. In addition, they’ll be posted on The 4EVER Group web site, http://www.4evergroup.org/.

In the end, the competition was great fun. In three cities, the crowd averaged about 50, and we had about 100 at the Long Island event. Each competitor was given as much as four hours to edit the footage, and no one took less than 3 hours and 15 minutes. We interviewed each competitor during the session, and then again at the close. There was a panel of three judges in each city as well, but they were other wedding professional, not videographers. As we’ve seen in our Artistic Achievement Awards competitions, videographers and other wedding professionals can see things differently. The judges included wedding coordinators, photographers, and even recent brides.

The over-the-shoulder picture is of Julie Hill, from Elysium Productions in Irvine, CA. She was the winner of the West competition. The other picture shows me interviewing Terry Taravella, from Studio Vieux Carre in New Orleans, the winner of the South competition.

The next bracket in the competition will be the semi-finals, which we’ll host in late September or early October. I’ll blog more promptly then.

SAR Reunion

2007-05-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday featured the 90th Anniversary celebration of Sigma Alpha Rho (SAR), my high school fraternity. I joined in 1974, while at William Tennent High School, and many of the guys I met back in the day are still my friends to this day. I’ll get some photos posted on this shortly. SAR is where I learned how to speak publicly, how to run meetings and events, and, through trips to Montreal, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, and many other locations, sparked my interest in travel.

For a long time, SAR was central to my life. I served on the various boards, and I was the national President in the early 1990’s. I’d been involved on the committees for other reunions, but not this one. There’s just too much going on in my world now to be able to take on another important task, and to do justice to that task.

The reunion was held at the Hilton hotel on City Avenue in Philadelphia. Although I didn’t get involved in the planning, I still accepted the assignment of projecting video at the reunion. There was a really campy film made in the late 1960’s, and we looped that video. One of the producers of that film was Alan Yasni, who went from filmmaker wannabe to a career in the TV industry. I met him at the reunion, and we had great fun deconstructing that film, which he hadn’t seen for years.

You never know what to expect at a reunion. I got to see two guys that I was friends with back in the 1970’s, but hadn’t seen in 30 years. One was a South Philly boy who became a successful lawyer in the Los Angeles. The other actually graduated with me from Tennent, but our lives went in separate directions. He now runs a restaurant in Jenkintown, PA.

I shot a wedding the night before the reunion, so I had less than four hours of sleep after a full, well-rounded Saturday. However, the energy that I picked up there was incredible. Even though I got to the hotel about 8am, and left about 2pm, that time passed all too quickly. We always tell brides and grooms that their wedding day will be a blur, and I had exactly that experience.

So I’m a little behind in blogging, and I need to catch up. I’m in Southern California right now, part of The 4EVER Group team at the Orange County Video Summit. I still have to write about the wedding from before the reunion, as well as this trip. Thanks for reading, and stop back soon.

GraVT Expo in Atlanta

2007-05-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

One of the important missions of The 4EVER Group is our commitment to supporting industry events across the country. That’s what has me in Atlanta right now. One of the important vendors, the DV Shop, is having their Grand Opening today at their new facility. Their new space is in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, across the parking lot from another photo/video source, Showcase.

Together, both companies put together the GraVT Expo, with a combination of regional and national vendors. The Open House part ran from 9am to 8pm, which made for a pretty long day. They were nice enough to have morning coffee, plus lunch and dinner for anyone who stopped by.

Both the DV Shop and Showcase support the event video industry, so we had a table-top exhibit to answer attendee questions. Considering that Friday is an unusual day for an all-day industry event, the show was busy throughout. Maybe it was the food, or maybe it was the outstanding gear and workshops that were on the agenda.

I arrived early enough yesterday to take in the Braves-Padres game at Turner Field, before meeting with another half-dozen members of the Atlanta Videographers Association for dinner at an Italian restaurant that about killed us with the amount of food they served, and that was before the owner threw two giant slabs of dessert down in front of us, along with a huge bowl of strawberries.
We have a pretty busy schedule over the next few weeks, with events in Philadelphia, Southern California, Detroit, Dallas, Boston, and Long Island. Please keep checking back for more updates.

A Look At Other Business

2007-04-30T17:59:00.001-07:00

It’s always fascinating to see how different businesses handle problems. Within the last couple of months, I’ve had problems with two businesses. One involved a significant amount of money, and the other one, not so much.

In late December, I had taken my Montero over to Peruzzi Mitsubishi, which was the closest factory authorized repair facility. I needed some scheduled maintenance, but there was a strange noise that was clearly related to the transmission that needed attention. To keep the story at a reasonable length, I felt that Peruzzi did not do right by me, and I complained. The Service Manager offered me a token amount of “free” service back at Peruzzi. The situation was such that I was never going to do business with them again, so that offer was worthless. When I went up the chain to the owner/GM, I received a reply from their lawyer instead, more or less repeating the offer that the Service Manager had made.

The existential question: what kind of business, when receiving a detailed, written complaint from a customer, replies through lawyers? Nothing they could have done would have better reinforced my decision to never do business with them again. There are lots of places to deal with in the automotive world, and I’d recommend anyone in the lower Bucks County area to find another facility.

When I travel, I usually fly out of the Philadelphia airport. I usually use the Aampco off-airport parking lot, and they’ve recently been bought out by PreFlight Parking. Recently, I had a problem with their service and I wrote out a detailed complaint to their General Manager. He responded with an apology, an offer of a complimentary service, and an invitation to try them again. They were, after all, in the midst of a change-over.

About two weeks ago, I tried the service again. For the longest time, as a frequent parker, I had the charges go directly to a credit card. Earlier this year, I followed their instructions and changed credit cards. That change didn’t make it into their system, leading to another problem as I was leaving their lot –at about 1am. I’d stayed six or seven days, and the charge was under $85.00.

I wrote an email to the GM, telling him about my experience, how I’d gone back to them without asking for any special consideration, and how it didn’t work out. He apologized again, asked me to try their service, and offered a refund of the last charge.

So here were two businesses where I encountered problems. One business, where I spent over $3000.00 on one transaction, made me feel like they didn’t care at all about my business, and came across like they were doing me a favor. Another business, where the transaction was under $100.00, (and I’d never spent more than maybe $300.00/year there), actively campaigned to keep my business, and made me feel like my business was valued.

NAB Wrap Up

2007-04-20T05:27:00.000-07:00

That week went by incredibly fast. It was an outstanding week for The 4EVER Group, as we met with many vendors and made plans for their participation in our events and activities. We saw old friends throughout the week, and made new ones as well. We even got to watch as vendors punked each other during their presentations.

Let’s start with a couple of random sports notes. Tony Gwynn was at the Sony booth on Monday, autographing baseballs and posing for pictures. Tony was pretty much mobbed during the time he was there. One of our well-known presenters, Randy Stubbs, is a huge Padres fan, so I was able to get an extra autographed ball for him. Last night, we saw Pete Rose at a table in a memorabilia shop. Other than the store employees who were having their picture taken with him, Pete was all alone. It made for an interesting contrast.

Clearly, The 4EVER Group has made an impact with the vendors. Going into our third year, we’ve been sought out by some, and others could not have been more willing to get on board with us. Keep an eye out for those new developments within the next few weeks.

The continuing growth in the relationships we have with the vendors is the best result from this conference. My business card pile is probably smaller than in years past, but it was very targeted: Adobe, Anton/Bauer, Apple, Audio-Technica, Avid Blackmagic Design, Canon, Grass Valley, JVC, NewBay Media, Panasonic, Sennheiser, Sony, the Vitec Group and Zylight were among the many vendors we met with. We can’t count on all of them participating in every part of The 4EVER Group’s programming, we’ll certainly see them involved at some level.

So it’s an afternoon flight home, to be followed by a weekend of catching up on stuff at home. I’m hoping that the airport lines are back to what passes for normal today.

NAB, Chapter 2

2007-04-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

What are the odds? On the shuttle ride from the Las Vegas airport to the hotel, I was talking with the guy sitting behind me. It turned out that he and I graduated from the same high school, although he was a few years younger than me. Today, I was preparing to conduct an interview with a representative of Adobe Systems. During that time, we were making small talk. It developed that he graduated from the school I attended during 9th grade, and we were in the same graduating class. I have to figure that, being this far from home, the odds were pretty long on that.

Today was a combination of meetings and sessions. There was a 90-minute session on venture capital that wasn’t all that informative. The keynote speaker was Bob Pittman, who was CEO of AOL back when that actually meant something. He had a key point about product development, using cell phones and microwave ovens as examples. Cell phone reception is nothing like that of a land line, and a microwave doesn’t cook as well as a conventional oven. However, both products offer convenience. That was the message for product developers: offer more convenience to the consumer. “Better” works when it’s combined with convenience.

One of the big projects we have here at NAB is presenting Product Innovation Awards. You can read about them at www.4EVERGroup.org. Of all the award-winning products, I thought Zylight’s was the most amazing. It was a camera-mountable video light that has the full color spectrum of filters built in. The product demo was just plain cool.

NAB is also the time to catch up with videographer friends, among many others. We’ve run into videographer friends from across the country, and quite a few vendors have sought us out. The 4EVER Group programming will get a big boost from this show. And we still have more important meetings on the agenda for tomorrow.

NAB in Las Vegas

2007-04-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

I’m currently in Las Vegas with more than 100,000 industry associates for the National Association of Broadcasters convention. It’s the best opportunity in our industry to meet the people we need, to see the gear that’s new, and to have some fun with old friends from everywhere.

Before I go further, a quick note about the awful shootings at Virginia Tech. With a son in college, it hits close to home. Although I haven’t been able to take in enough of the coverage to develop any conclusions, our thoughts and prayers go out to the Virginia Tech community.

Back here in Vegas, I’ve already gotten to see some really cool new tools. NewTek unveiled a production switcher that has built-in virtual sets. That piece will be shipping by the summer. Sony introduced a camera that records to a flash card, priced for our market. Sony says the camera will be available late this year. Adobe continued to show its new CS3 suite, which is an amazing editing solution that’s been used in major motion pictures (The Departed) and TV commercials (the Chevrolet ads with the flying trucks).

We’re staying at the Sahara. I won tickets to see The Amazing Jonathan the other night, and he’s still very funny. The Sahara itself has seen better days.

Today will be all about meetings, starting with one at 9am (what was I thinking?). I even have a couple of podcast interviews scheduled for the afternoon. I guess that means I need to get out of here. Stay tuned for more from Las Vegas.

Bad Things Do Happen Sometimes

2007-03-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I received an email with the subject line “Rudy’s House”. The circumstances were such that it clearly was not going to be good news. It turned out that a good friend’s house burned down overnight. Rudy, his wife, and their four daughters (all under 10) got out safely. The house was pretty much a total loss, and he’s not yet sure how much business material he lost as well.

It seemed that a wiring problem with a bathroom fan sparked the fire, which started around 3am. The smoke detectors worked, and they woke my friend and his wife. Each of them grabbed one daughter, and a policeman grabbed the other two. The fire was on the local news (Boston area), and it was pretty surreal to watch the video.

Although the smoke detectors did work, none of the kids woke up. Apparently, that situation is not uncommon. So please check your smoke detectors to make sure they work, and that they are loud enough (and located appropriately) to wake adults. Go ahead and check now; I’ll wait here.

So what do you do for a friend who has lost everything to a fire? Between family and the Red Cross, their basic needs were covered. But we’ve been friends for years, and we’ve traveled together for business many times. Given the business we’re in, the answer was obvious. I was going to enlist everyone else in our inner circle to reprint as many pictures as we could, and copy as many videos as possible. When you speculate about what you’d grab in the event of a fire, pictures and home videos are usually on the list right after people and pets. From there, we’ll see about their needs. For now, it’s something positive.

Adobe Product Launch

2007-03-28T12:35:00.001-07:00

The 4EVER Group has built an excellent relationship with Adobe Systems over the nearly three years that we've been active. That relationship led to a pretty cool invitation for me. Yesterday, in what was billed as the largest new product launch in the 25-year history of Adobe, I was among an elite group of 200 at the live roll-out in New York City.

Although I don’t edit video anymore, it was clear that the product upgrades were significant. Adobe also created better ways to maneuver between programs within the editing suite (called ‘bridge’). The one piece of Adobe software that I do use is PhotoShop, and they’ve improved that as well, by significantly reducing the time needed to load the program. As a non-editor, one of the cooler features of the product demo was showing how the program allows you to remove stray audio from a scene. It was like taking an eraser to the audio wave-form.

The product roll-out was simulcast on the Adobe web site. And, as can happen, about half-way through the demo, they experienced an equipment failure. The software was working fine, but the hardware—not so much. In the end, they had to stop the demo for about a half hour, while they made repairs.

Everyone in the room had experienced something similar, at some point in their careers. Stuff does happen. And while I would not have wanted to be one of the team on headsets, trying to trouble-shoot, I did enjoy being part of the audience, because that was when they opened up the bars, and started butlering some specialty drinks. Key lime martini? They were tasty.

In the end, the launch was successful. Adobe has some cool new tools for people in our trade, and everyone in attendance has a new story to tell.

Meeting in Houston

2007-03-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

So I took a trip to Houston the other day. I had a presentation scheduled for March 14, to the Houston Professional Videographers Association. As usual, I took an early flight. This allows me to (mostly) miss rush-hour traffic, and allows for some wiggle-room in the challenging world of air travel. I’d been using a particular off-airport parking lot, so I also have to allow a few extra minutes for all that that entails.

The EZ Pass-style frequent parker system they have in place wasn’t working, so I had to use the regular ticket system. No big deal. The transfer was pretty smooth, and I was off to the airport. Since I was flying USAir Express, I went off to Terminal F. Turns out that my flight was in Terminal C. I passed through security in F, where I had to wait behind one person, and took a shuttle over to C, where the security line was considerably longer.

In Houston, I stayed at the airport hotel. Since I was being picked up for the trip to the meeting, staying at that hotel made sense. Shortly before I was picked up, however, rainstorms of Biblical proportions started. The storms raged on and off for 3-4 hours, making numerous freeways and surface roads close to impassable, due to the high water. I really did think we were going to have to swim to the meeting.

My presentation was “Do the Math”, which produced the same surprised reactions that it always does. What was a surprise to me was that there were three MBA-holders in the audience, which is three more than usually attend videographers meetings.

After the meeting, roughly half of the group went out to eat at a restaurant (I’ve forgotten the name) that had a giant, mirrored armadillo out front. Now, under normal circumstances, I seem to be a bad service magnet. With a group of 20 people, this was way beyond normal bad service. The waitress was nice enough, but the place was pretty much understaffed. And, being a bar-restaurant in Texas, people were free to smoke inside.

At least the rain had subsided, and the standing water had mostly drained off, making the ride back to the airport relatively easy. It became a very late night, however, due to the slow service at the restaurant.

This is a good time for me to thank the Houston PVA for inviting me to speak before their group. I'll be back there in October with another program, and I look forward to that. I also want to thank Sandy Buller for being my driver, which was made all the more challenging by the weather.

The next day, I was able to catch an earlier flight back to Philadelphia. USAirways was kind enough to only charge me $25.00 for making that change. But since I slept through the middle of the flight, I missed my bag of deluxe mini-pretzels. There was barely enough room to read a book in the seat, so sleeping seemed like a good use of my time.

There were issues with the jetway operation in Houston. I’m not really sure what happened, but the in-bound flight spent about 20 minutes at the gate while they tried to figure out how to operate the jetway. All that made our flight arrive a bit late to Philadelphia. That fact, however, didn’t mean that our gate was clear. We sat on the plane for over 20 minutes, waiting for the gate to clear. Given the troubles that other airlines have had, 20 minutes is nothing, right?

But the final indignity was at the parking lot. Using the ticket system, as a transient, one-time user, my fee would have been $19.90. My AAA membership saved me $2.00 off that. When I compared that to the trip I took in January, which was almost the exact same amount of time in the lot, using my frequent-parker discount, I actually paid more as a frequent parker, $23.90 vs. $17.90. That seemed a little absurd to me. By then, it was after normal business hours, so I couldn’t call to complain. I sent an email to the general manager, who has yet to reply. I will give him some slack, since it was the weekend. Meanwhile, I’m looking at other parking lots for future trips.

And there will be future trips, as I’ve been working on a variety of programming for The 4EVER Group (www.4EVERGroup.org) that will mean more road trips in the next few months. NAB (Vegas) is coming up next month, and there will be others. I plan on having pictures available for some of those trips.

Video Tape Does Not Last Forever

2007-03-05T17:52:00.000-08:00

I’m just finishing up part 2 of a massive tape-to-DVD transfer project for a client. They had more than 60 hours of home videos of their kids and vacations, another 10 hours of old movie file that I’d transferred to a pro format for them about a decade ago, and their wedding video. That brings me to the point of this post.

This couple got married in 1992, at one of the premier hotels in Philadelphia. They had one of the leading videographers of that time document the day on tape. Although they may have had the choice of buying the Master tape (a professional video version of the VHS tape that they received), they only had the VHS tape to give me for the transfer.

In their wedding, the Best Man’s toast went on for quite a while. This couple did watch their video frequently and often skipped over the toast by scanning on fast forward. The “scan” mode allows you to see the video as you move forward, so that you can go back to play more readily. On occasion, they left the tapein the VCR for a day or two at a time.

I’m not going to give you a technical explanation of what happened, mainly because I’m not an especially technical person. When they dropped the videos off, they told me that they weren’t sure what was going on with the toast segment, but they were concerned that they “wore out the tape.” When I transferred their wedding video from VHS to DVD, I discovered that their concerns were completely justified. The Best Man’s toast had basically vanished. Sure, every few moments you could see something, but you couldn’t hear anything. When I opened the shell, the tape obviously had been damaged over the years. So now an important memory from their wedding is lost.

The problem had obviously been growing for years. Let me offer a few observations:
-Always fully rewind a valuable VHS tape after watching it.
-Always return the VHS tape to its container after rewinding.
-Always store a VHS tape on its narrow end, with the tape side to the bottom.
-Always store a VHS tape away from any electro-magnetic source, like stereo speakers.

Most importantly, get your VHS tapes transferred to DVD immediately. And when I say “VHS”, I’m really referring to any home video format, including Betamax, Video 8mm, and Digital 8mm video. The longer you wait, the greater the chance you’ll have a problem like I’ve discussed here. Remember, that wedding video wasn’t quite 15 years old and an important segment was gone.

If you send me an email (steve@videoccasion.net) by April 15, 2007, you’ll receive a special discount on your tape-to-DVD transfer.

Videographer Education - Series Finale

2007-02-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sixth Trip: Cleveland

After so many flights in such a short period of time, I decided to drive to Cleveland. In part, airfares were ridiculous for the return flight, since it was just before Thanksgiving. In part, driving meant that I could pick my son up from college on the return trip, since his break was starting.

The drive to Cleveland was pretty uneventful. The highlight probably was passing the marker denoting the highest point on Interstate 80 east of the Mississippi River, which was something like 2200 feet. Considering the time I’d recently spent in the Rockies, that marker left me pretty unimpressed.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite features of this local association outreach was the opportunity to see old friends again. One of my old friends, Rommie Sebo, was serving as President of NOVA, the Northern Ohio Videographers Association. It was in that role that he took me out to a very nice dinner the night I arrived in Cleveland. And in the small world that exists in our trade, Michael Wolkis, who was kind enough to host me in Phoenix, has some connections to the deli where Rommie took me for lunch the following day.

“Do the Math” was the requested topic in Cleveland. Like many cities in the Northeast and Midwest, Cleveland has some economic challenges. Having a context for pricing and business issues was thought to be a valuable asset for NOVA members. And, like in every city where this program was hosted, the final results (where we calculate the true cost of producing one wedding video) were astounding.

The drive home from Cleveland gave me the first opportunity to buy gas for under $2.00/gallon in quite a while. And the trip through northwestern Pennsylvania also gave me the first taste of snow for the winter. Otherwise, I took the time to have lunch in State College (home of Penn State, my alma mater) before stopping to pick up my son at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Seventh Trip: Orange County, CA and Jacksonville, FL

My final trip for 2005 made for an interesting triangle across the country, flying from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to Jacksonville and back to Philadelphia. For the first time on this outreach, both Tim and I were presenting programs on the same date. The PVN invited us to present all four of our programs in one day, and we were happy to be able to accommodate them.

We arrived two days prior to the meeting, with Tim connecting with family that night, leaving me time to catch up on some email. While we had discussed catching the USC-UCLA football game that Saturday, we spent the day on the road, conducting interviews for The 4EVER Group podcast series.

Our first stop on Saturday was the home of Julie and Alex Hill, which was located to the east of the mountains in Riverside County. The drive itself was beautiful, and the Hills’ live in a very modern subdivision. We conducted the interview in their den, before we all went out to lunch.

When those of us from the east think about California wineries, we think about the Napa Valley. We never knew about the wineries in southern Riverside County. With the cold back on the east coast, having an outdoor lunch at a winery (a first for both Tim and me) was a real highlight of the entire outreach time.

Following lunch, we had to find our way over to a southbound freeway, as we were off to visit with Randy Stubbs. Randy would be the second of three interview subjects for this trip. Since we were nowhere near Los Angeles, the freeway trip was pretty easy, and finding Randy’s house was only a little challenging, set back from the street as it is.

Randy’s Jack Russell terrier had recently had a litter, and he was in the process of selling the puppies. In fact, a couple were in his home as we arrived, inspecting the puppies in their playpen.

Once that inspection concluded (they didn’t buy that day, but they did come back later), we were able to move on into the interview. By the time this article is published, the interview will have been posted as a podcast on The 4EVER Group web site.

Unfortunately, Randy had other plans for the evening, leaving Tim and I to grab dinner in the Gaslamp Quarter, before heading back to Orange County. For Tim, the Gaslamp Quarter has two of his favorite places: The Hard Rock Café and the House of Blues. We settled on Mexican food, which still allowed Tim time to collect his memorabilia.

The PVN had arranged for a full-day 4EVER Group program on that Sunday. Tim and I alternated our programs, with both of us presenting one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The PVN sold something on the order of fifty tickets to this all-day educational event, with lunch included in the price of admission. It was strange, everything considered, for Tim and I to sit in on each others program. And, as in every previous city, the presentations drew focused debate from the attendees.

Following the meeting, Tim joined several PVN members for dinner, while I took the hour-long drive to Riverside, to interview John Goolsby. We spent the better part of an hour at his studio, discussing topics of interest, before wrapping up the interview. After the interview, we took a ride to visit Chip, who was in the hospital. Since we scheduled the interview at the very last minute, John did not have time to tell Chip that I’d be coming along to visit. I have to figure that I was not exactly high up on the list of people Chip was expecting to see walk into his hospital room that night. When we discussed that later, Chip confessed to wondering exactly what drugs they had administered, because my walking in to his room had to be a hallucination.

On Monday morning, I began the arduous trip from LAX to Jacksonville. This required a plane change in Houston, which allowed me enough time for lunch. The Pappas family restaurant chain includes a burger place at the Houston airport, which made for possibly my best airport meal of the entire outreach effort. That chain operates restaurants under no less than nine different names, and I’ve now eaten at three (Pappadeaux, Pappasito’s Cantina, and Pappas Burger), and enjoyed them all. By the time I finally had dinner in Jacksonville, I had one of those quirky days that I enjoy talking about: three meals on that day, each in a different state and time zone.

The Tuesday night Jacksonville Videographers Association (JVA) meeting was held in probably the most unique of locations: the garage/studio for the video department of the Jacksonville Fire Department. One of the JVA members runs the studio for the JFD, making access quite easy. And since we were pretty close to Christmas, the pizza boxes were spread out around a variety of home-baked holiday treats.

Merrill Moore, the President of the JVA, had been a judge during the first-ever Artistic Achievement Awards competition. That made the Video Critique a natural program or the JVA. And for only the second time on the outreach, my presentation was recorded (I’m still waiting for a copy, nearly two months later). After the meeting, we continued the discussion over at a local Denny’s. It was easy to follow Merrill’s SUV, since it had the most outrageous Christmas decorations I’d ever seen on a moving vehicle.

And then, once again, the morning came, and it was time to get on a plane for the trip home. I visited a total of 18 cities over the course of seven trips. We were able to include podcast interviews, a Video Summit, and several other meetings during the time of this local association outreach program. As I detailed earlier, I flew on nine different airlines, and I didn’t bother counting hotel chains or car rental companies. My two different presentations reached hundreds of videographers all across the US. We still didn’t reach every association, which means there’s still more work to be done. That means more time out on the road, as 2006 will bring more local association presentations, more Video Summits, the Artistic Achievement Awards program, and that all will lead up to the 2007 4EVER Group convention. It looks like an exciting time.

More From The Road

2007-02-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

Fourth Trip: Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Appleton and Madison, WI

This was one trip that I had been especially looking forward to taking, as I’d never been to either city. One thing that has always made business travel interesting was the opportunity to spend time with friends in different cities, seeing and doing things I may not otherwise. The first leg of the trip, to Denver, was perhaps the best mix of business and pleasure during this outreach time.

My visit to Denver just happened to coincide with a Broncos home game against my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Literally thousands of Eagles fans made the trip to Denver, so everywhere we went, we shared the town with lots and lots of Philadelphians. The picture on the bottom is me outside of the stadium, prior to the game.

Henry Mares, president of the local association in Denver, and Jay Wren, took turns showing me around Denver. Our first stop was lunch in the town of Black Hawk, which is at an elevation of about 8000 feet. Never having been at that kind of altitude before, I did find myself huffing and puffing as we hustled through town.

After lunch, a tour of the Coors brewery in Golden was on the agenda. As expected, there were a lot of Eagles fans sampling the variety beers on tap in the lounge. Since Henry had some business obligations, Jay and I spent the late afternoon and evening together, including dinner among dozens of other Eagles fans.

Although I did attend the football game, the less written about that the better, since, as I said, I’m an Eagles fan.

The Denver association is one of the few that have a daytime meeting. The meeting time schedule is designed to appeal to those videographers who prioritize their business in a way that allows them to attend such a meeting. That does present some obvious challenges, but it also makes for an enthusiastic group of attendees. And with a fairly limited amount of available time, it means that the attendees still can get in a pretty full day back in the studio. The meeting ends at about noon, which also gives attendees the opportunity to network over lunch afterward.

This offers the opportunity to go off on a tangent about local association meeting schedules. What is the best method for planning meetings in a way that will lead to association success?

If we consider the models of other business organizations, then daytime meetings can be effective. Chambers of Commerce and business referral networks often have breakfast meetings. On the other hand, groups that are involved in the social event industry, such as the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE), usually meet during the evening.

Obviously, each local association sets its own agenda and schedule. But our observations over these many years reveal the following;
-Successful associations tend to meet regularly (most often monthly).
-Successful associations tend to meet in the same location every time.
-Successful associations draw contributions from their members, and are able to attract outside presenters.

As we’ve stressed throughout this outreach effort, local associations truly are the backbone of our industry; everything positive starts there. Members trade job leads, share equipment and ideas, and formulate strategies for dealing with the public image of videographers. The 4EVER Group stands ready to continue assisting in the development of local videographers associations.

Following lunch with Henry Mares and Jay Wren, I spent my remaining few hours in Denver at the Mares’ home, trying to avoid the Halloween candy rush. Finally, it was off to the airport for the short flight to Salt Lake City.

Throughout this outreach, I’ve found it fairly easy to get a hotel room that included a Wi-Fi connection. That was a pleasant and important change from other extended road trips, where we considered ourselves lucky to find dial-up service. For both Tim and I, being out of the office for such an extended period of time would have meant missing vital communications, had it not been for the up-to-date internet connections now widely available.

Although I’ve seen many videos involving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), I knew practically nothing about LDS practices. After working on the computer for a few hours, in advance of a diner meeting, I went to the Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. In a compact area, the Salt Lake Temple anchors the history and future of the LDS faith. After taking a brief tour, I finally understood why I was not going to be able to enter a Temple (first, I would have to be baptized in the faith). The architecture is incredible, and the weather cooperated as well. In the ninety-or-so minutes I spent at Temple Square, I also saw two newly-married couples being photographed (no video) outside the Salt Lake Temple.

The meeting was in the rural town of Tooele (if you’re going there, it’s pronounced ‘Twill-ah’), where I got to share a barbecue dinner with Douglas Spotted Eagle, his wife Linda, and business partner Mannie Frances. We finalized the details of Spot’s participation in The 4EVER Group’s January 2006 convention. That we could meet was a happy scheduling coincidence, as Spot and Mannie were off on another leg of their VASST training tour the following morning.

I didn’t need to arrive at the Utah Professional Videographers meeting until late in the afternoon on that Wednesday, so I had plenty of time to work in my hotel room during the day. But I took another brief side-trip before the meeting, so I could get down to the Great Salt Lake.

Right off of a freeway, just past the airport, was a lake-front marina. Although the marina was closed for the season, it still offered access to the lake. The beach was an interesting combination of hard-packed sand and salt, and it was probably 100 yards wide. Set among beautiful, snow-capped mountains, the lake truly was impressive. Videographers from the Salt Lake City area have described the lake as having a rather unique scent. While I can’t explain their reactions, from my perspective, the lake smelled like the ocean, but just a little stronger.

With Salt Lake City being the major metropolitan area, the UPVA routinely draws attendees who drive two or more hours to each meeting. As a supporter of local associations, it’s gratifying to see that happen. The UPVA meets in a lecture hall at a local community college, which was the only such location I’d encountered. Interestingly, the college’s mission was to support entrepreneurial activities. Of course, most videographers qualify as entrepreneurs, making for a sense of belonging.

My presentation was “Do the Math”, and it was as informative for the UPVA as it was for every other association. Salt Lake City, perhaps the smallest market on this tour, had lots of questions about how the numbers might relate to their experiences. The point of “Do the Math” is to offer tools that videographers can use to establish their own true costs of doing business. Those costs do vary from studio to studio.

After the meeting, about half of the attendees went out to dinner, and continued the intense business discussions. Meetings are a great place to build a network of personal contacts within your own market, but the after-meeting meals are often where friendships are cemented.

Early Thursday morning, it was time to head off to the airport for a trip to Los Angeles. This was originally a trip being made in support of the LAPVA, but their meeting was rescheduled as part of a reorganizing effort. Instead, I used the time to continue developing other important business relationships.

Interestingly, I have a personal connection to with the publisher of an industry magazine called “Trade Show Week”. Through their weekly publication and web site, “Trade Show Week” is arguably the bible of the industry. I think that The 4EVER Group has a compelling story, in that we’re a start-up company taking on the 15-year old established entity in our industry. There are other obvious side issues that could be considered “inside baseball”, but that’s what “Trade Show Week” is all about.

In addition to working on the “Trade Show Week” relationship, I met with the owner and the editor of a major entity in the bridal industry. While this entity will remain nameless as this is written, the story may be very well-known by the time this is published. And the root of my meeting was the lack of growth and acceptance of video within the bridal community.

To date, little more than a token effort has been made to get high-quality video in front of large numbers of brides. Many brides remain convinced that what they saw years ago of both the process and the finished product still applies today. We know better. The 4EVER Group, in cooperation with some of the leading videographers on the continent, and in conjunction with this nameless bridal industry entity, are working together to get quality video in front of huge numbers of brides. In theory, as more and more brides see the outstanding productions that today’s videographers routinely turn out, demand will be created for quality wedding videos in every market. This will obviously lead to more work for many videographers, and provide an incentive for other videographers to improve their productions.

This creates a winning scenario for everyone. The brides get video more often, and learn about quality video. This will also create a buzz in the space where this entity does business, generating more interest in their products and services. If more brides are seeking video, that certainly means more work for videographers. And by being the catalyst, The 4EVER Group cements its role as the leader in this industry.

After three quick nights in Los Angeles, it was time to move on to Chicago, for our Video Summit. Because the Video Summit was not a local association event, we’ll leave that report out of this article. We’ll move on to the association meeting in Appleton, WI.

Appleton is not that far from Chicago, so I rented a car for what turned out to be a pretty routine drive. Passing through Milwaukee, I did take a little side trip to the Harley-Davidson engine plant, catching the last tour of the day (2:00pm). The time spent there meant that I got to Appleton around dinner time.

I arrived in Appleton on Tuesday, and since the meeting was Wednesday, there was not great sense of urgency. I was able to have a relaxed dinner at a local restaurant before heading back to the hotel to catch up on the day’s email pile.

My hotel did not have a restaurant, so I had to go find a place for breakfast on Wednesday morning. Fortunately, I noticed a locally-owned restaurant, called the Machine Shed, just across the highway from my hotel. The décor was sort of a tribute to farming. There were old milk jugs all around, along with lots of farm equipment and hand tools, and the waitresses wore bib overalls and trucker caps. Water and juice got served in Ball jars. But the place was very busy, and there were plenty of business-people there.

In talking with Lance Lewis, the association president, he decided to pick me up for that evening’s meeting. They meet at a restaurant near my hotel, I was assured. And as it turned out, the meeting was also at the Machine Shed restaurant. My presentation that night was the Video Critique, and it had the usual range of attendee reactions. Basically, videographers everywhere have been impressed with the well-done videos, and they’ve also been able to learn from videos that weren’t award-winners. Although the presentation is built around five videos (four excellent, and one that wasn’t), few videographers have been able to participate in a thorough analysis before this program was created.

Unfortunately, since the meeting was held in a restaurant, there was no extended after-meeting session. Of course, some people had a significant drive home, so it just wasn’t going to be a late night.

I was out at a relaxed hour the following morning for the drive back to Chicago. There was, however, another side trip along the way, this time in Madison, WI. The 4EVER Group had been invited to help assist videographers there who were interested in establishing a local association there. In addition, I met with Steve Nathans, the editor of Event DV magazine, to discuss critical industry issues. Because of the magazine’s interest in local associations, having devoted a cover story to the topic, Nathans sat in on that meeting.

Before getting back on the road to Chicago, I had to indulge in one of my quirky interests. Over the years, I’ve walked into many stadiums, and even out onto the field on occasion. Over the years, I’ve sat in the dugout at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia, walked onto the field at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, into Wrigley Field, and onto the field at the University of Michigan stadium, among others. When I was in Salt Lake City, I walked out onto the field there. In Madison, I took Steve Nathans with me to Camp Randall Stadium, and we both took a walk out onto the turf there. Steve took the picture that's on the top of the page. Like I said, it’s a quirky thing.

The rest of the ride back to Chicago was uneventful, except for the traffic. My flight from Midway was in the early evening, which meant that I had to drive across the city in rush hour traffic. You know, those of us that work from home are not missing a thing by not commuting.

After the trip home, I had just over a day to recover enough for the next part of the outreach: a journey that would take me to Seattle, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.

Videographer Education, Part 2

2007-02-20T04:01:00.000-08:00

Third Trip: Orlando, Tampa, Baton Rouge, and Syracuse

My business trips over the last couple of years have often featured really bad weather at home while I’m on the road. On an earlier trip to Orlando, I was on the last plane out of Philadelphia before the airport was closed due to snow. That storm dumped about two feet of snow on my home town, and I just had to deal with setting up an outdoor registration desk in Florida.

This time, however, I was heading to Florida the very same day as Hurricane Wilma. When I’ve traveled to Orlando recently, the flights are always fairly full. Not this time. This day, there were only about two dozen people, including myself, who absolutely had to be on that flight to Orlando.

As we learned, hurricane Wilma raced across south Florida quite rapidly. Although it caused significant damage in the Miami area, north-central Florida was relatively untouched. The locals took most of the usual hurricane precautions, however, so that the school where the Orlando videographers usually meet was closed. To my surprise, the weather in the Orlando area during my stay was about perfect: cool, with low humidity.

Although the worries over the hurricane, and the eventual relocation of the meeting to a Perkins restaurant did have some effect upon attendance, at least the meeting was held. There were even a few videographers who came up from Tampa for the opportunity to network with their Orlando friends, and to hear the Video Critique (the Tampa program was “Do the Math”).

Since Tampa is reasonably close to Orlando, I decided to drive that night to my Tampa hotel. This was an extended road trip, so two nights in one hotel in Florida seemed to be a better alternative.

Road trip days are interesting in their own right. Since I didn’t arrive in Tampa until around midnight, I took the next morning as an opportunity to sleep in a bit. Then it was time to get back to work. Since I had my office calls forwarded to my cell phone, and I had full internet access, working at my hotel desk wasn’t much different than working from my home office. From there, it was on to the Tampa Bay PVA meeting.

The TBPVA leadership had chosen the “Do the Math” program, feeling that the membership would benefit from the business-oriented nature of the presentation. “Do the Math” gives videographers the tools to determine what their true costs are in producing an event video, and they can use these tools as an aid to properly pricing their services. While it’s a very detailed program, with mathematical formulas and such, the concept is vital to videographers. After all, a huge number of videographers entered the business because of the “cool” factor, and business considerations were often not a factor at all.

As happens everywhere “Do the Math” is presented, the attendees were surprised at the costs associated with producing an event video. It’s kind of fun to watch eyes glaze over a bit in the middle of the program, when costs are broken down into weekly and hourly rates, and to watch those same eyes widen dramatically when the final costs are tabulated.

There seemed to be no direct flights from Tampa to Baton Rouge, so I was out fairly early the next morning for the trip, with a connection through Atlanta.

Traveling into Baton Rouge so soon after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita meant that there were absolutely no hotel rooms available. They were all still filled with evacuees. After checking every national chain, and every local hotel that could be found, I received an offer of hospitality from Eddie Darbone, the association's past president. Eddie and I had been friends for some time, and I had to accept his gracious offer. He unexpectedly upped the hospitality ante by insisting on picking me up at the airport, driving me around town, and taking me back to the airport the next morning.

We went straight to lunch after I arrived in Baton Rouge. Having visited New Orleans many times over the years, I’d developed a taste for Cajun food, so Eddie took me to an excellent local restaurant. As we entered the restaurant, I was reminded of one difference between that area and my home town: there was a display case filled with about two dozen different guns and rifles. You’re just not going to find that at a restaurant in Philadelphia.

Eddie had hosted more than a dozen members of his family for a couple of weeks after the two hurricanes. Having just one house guest was, by comparison, no work at all.

The association in Baton Rouge meets in a local library, so there’s a definite ending time to the meeting. With an arrival time of 6:00pm, I had no idea how they handled eating schedules. Me, I like to have my meals at more or less traditional times. But since I’d had a late lunch, waiting was not an issue. What did catch me by surprise was the several members brought dessert foods. There was a variety of home-made cakes, brownies, and cookies available, and it was all very tempting. And it was all quite good.

Even with all the snacks, we still had a meeting. The “Video Critique” program was on that night’s agenda, and it was an entertaining program. Unlike Orlando, there were no local productions for me to review.

Dinner at a local Italian restaurant followed the meeting, and at least 15 people went there from the meeting. I think this kind of evening speaks to the best of what local videographers associations can do. They held a meeting with networking time and an educational presentation, and then followed it up by spending another hour or so together, sharing a meal. The friendships and business relationships that grow from nights like this are invaluable.

All too soon, it was time to call it a night. That set me up for one of the more challenging
Travel segments of this tour. I had a 6:00 a.m. flight back to Philadelphia, with a plane change in Houston. From Philadelphia, I was going to drive to Syracuse. With only thirty minutes to make the connection in Houston, and a little over five hours to drive from the Philadelphia airport to Syracuse (about 200 miles), there was virtually no room for any delay anywhere in that agenda.

The worst part of the schedule was that I needed to get up at 4:00 a.m., in order to get to the airport and go through the pre-flight process. And if I had to be up at 4:00 a.m., that meant that Eddie Darbone also had to get up at 4. That really was a shining example of Southern hospitality.

Fortunately, other than a little glitch in the directions when I was close to my hotel in Syracuse, I didn’t experience any delays. Let me say this about the flights into and out of Baton Rouge: they were on two very crowded, and very small, regional jets. A standard roll-on bag can’t be brought into the cabin, and there’s not enough room to open up most laptop computers.

Heading through Northeastern Pennsylvania in late October is usually a visual thrill. This ride was no exception. With lots of forest land, I spent as much time focused on the various shades of yellow and red leaves as I did on the road. Fortunately, it’s also not a particularly crowded highway, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only leaf-gazer anyway.

That little glitch in the directions cost me less than a half-hour, and that was about all the spare time available to me. Just a few minutes after I settled into the hotel, Syracuse association President Rod Salvilla was waiting to pick me up. Ironically, Rod served as a video awards judge together with Eddie Darbone several years ago, so I got to spend time with two old friends from different parts of the country on the same day.

Just like the group in Baton Rouge, the Syracuse association meets in a local library. Sadly, unlike the Baton Rouge association, no one at the Syracuse meeting brought any desserts.

Rod felt that the association would be best served by the “Do the Math” presentation. With some member being new to the video production industry, and some part-time videographers as well, this subject was an excellent primer on the important business issues all of us face.

Only a core group went out to dinner after the meeting, at a chain restaurant located in a nearby mall. As always, the talk turned to ways of improving the association by having informative presentations, and how to draw new members.

Videographer Education

2007-02-19T05:58:00.000-08:00

An important part of what I've done in business over the years is educate other professionals. It really started in the late 1980's, when I was a member of the Guild of Professional Photographers of the Delaware Valley. Back then, there were no videographer organizations locally or nationally, and the few video professionals were welcomed into the photographers group.

Since starting the 4EVER Group, that education process has intensified. In 2005, Tim Ryan and I presented programs at a lot of local videographer association meetings. I wrote a lengthy article for a trade publication, but it was never published. Because I now have the ability to publish, this will be the first of several installments of my original article.

Road Trip!

For those of us who like to travel, those are magic words. It conjures up all of the fun we had in college, and beyond. Business travel today, however, is a far cry from the moving party we enjoyed so many years ago.

The 4EVER Group made a commitment to present programs at as many local videographers association meeting as possible during the second half of 2005. This kind of industry outreach was truly unprecedented, and dates quickly filled our schedule.

For this writer, the first trip on the schedule came up on September 19, 2005, with the meeting of the Pittsburgh Professional Videographers Association. With Pittsburgh being about 300 miles from my office, I had the choice of flying or driving. Since my regular GPVA meeting would be the following night, it just made sense to drive.

Most of the distance between the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas is spanned by the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Maybe because I’ve driven it so much over the years, I find the Turnpike to be very boring. Driving did allow me to make and receive plenty of phone calls, but that didn’t make the ride any more interesting.

Late September finds the leaves just at the cusp of changing colors. There were touches of yellows and reds among the leaves as I moved into Western Pennsylvania. And for those of you who drive the Turnpike even on occasion, you’ll have recognized the orange throughout the trip.

One unexpected sight waited for me near Johnstown. Perched on a hilltop was a small windmill farm. Although I’ve seen larger windmill farms in California, this was surprising.

Lately, a common topic of discussion everywhere has been the price of gasoline. Taking a 600+ mile round-trip, while never leaving Pennsylvania, gave an opportunity for an informal gas price survey.

Gassing up in the morning near my office, I paid $2.89 per gallon. The prices varied a bit on the Turnpike, with the higher prices found closest to Philadelphia, and then the next highest were in the Pittsburgh area. I finally refueled at a rural rest stop along the Turnpike, at the price of $2.84 per gallon. In suburban Pittsburgh, near the PPVA meeting site, the prices were down to $2.65 per gallon.

The PPVA meets at a local restaurant (see the photo above), so members can have dinner together, or they can join in later. Enough PPVA members arrived for dinner, and we fell into a conversation on the general business issues of the day in Pittsburgh. By and large, the challenges faced by videographers in the Pittsburgh area are similar to those faced by videographers everywhere: Brides who don’t place priority on video or are under-educated; competitors priced at unsustainably low levels; overall slump in the wedding business, and others. We discussed the obvious solutions to some of the challenges: better networking with other industry professionals; more effective advertising methods; ways to educate the brides directly.

After dinner, the PPVA ran through their routine business issues, and then we moved into my Video Critique program. In this presentation, we review and deconstruct a number of final round videos from the 2005 Artistic Achievement Awards Competition. Everyone agreed that this was one of the best programs the PPVA ever hosted.

Second Trip: Detroit/MIVA

The October meeting of the Michigan Independent Videographers Association (MIVA) was my next trip. For an out-of-town meeting, it was one of the quicker trips: travel there on the day of the meeting, and return home the next.

Air travel was expected to be a consistent challenge during this extensive outreach. Crowded flights, lengthy security checkpoints, and bad weather are among the factors in making air travel difficult. But to cover distances like this, there is no alternative. My flight to Detroit seemed to capture so much of the essence of air travel today. My original flight was delayed due to bad weather in a connecting city. Fortunately, I had arrived at the airport in time (and only had carry-on bags) to switch to the earlier flight, which was close to on-schedule. But I shared the row on a full flight with a woman who was traveling with her 2-year old son. He had an epic melt-down when we boarded the plane, and carried on for most of the flight.

Scott Bert, the MIVA president, had arranged for one of the association members to pick me up at the airport, and take me directly to the hotel where the meeting would be held. The timing was excellent, and we arrived in Farmington Hills, MI with about an hour to spare.

My evening presentation was, once again, the Video Critique. One brave MIVA member had sent me a video to preview, and we deconstructed that at the meeting. In addition, Scott Bert offered one of his Love Story videos for my review.

That video gave rise to the discussion of certain regional differences in wedding traditions. In the Detroit area, lakefront weddings (and other videos) often feature working ships (coal carriers, etc.) in the background. Tradition dictates that a ship passing a wedding party shall blast its horn, as a good-luck wish. Scott’s DVD cover, in fact, featured a still image of the bride and groom walking on the beach, with a freighter in the distance. To my eyes, that was one ugly boat. A sailboat, or a luxury powerboat, might make a more attractive backdrop. In light of the discussion we had, it was clear that such a ship would be a welcome part of the video for many couples in that region.

Another unique feature of MIVA is that there are several Canadian members, making it a uniquely international local association. About a half-dozen videographers from the province of Ontario made the three-or-so hour drive to the MIVA meeting that night. Included in that number were Joe McManus, a member of The 4EVER Group Advisory Board, along with Dennis Marantette, a scheduled presenter at The 4EVER Group 2006 Event Video Convention and trade Show.

MIVA is a well-established local videographers association, and is still growing. At least two new members signed up that evening. With about 40 people in attendance, an agenda that also included a software tutorial, and a great mix of videographers, MIVA stands as a great example of what a local videographers association can be.

More to Come

As I can, I'll publish more of my travelogue, along with some pictures.

Wedding Consultants

2007-02-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

In addition to the meetings I mentioned previously, I've also met with two other consultants. Sheila Corbett (http://www.elegant-events.net) and Lynda Barness (information below) are both skilled, resourceful, and sophisticated wedding consultants. While many hotels and country clubs have staff members that try to fill the role of a consultant, only a consultant can provide the necessary service and attention throughout the wedding process. I highly recommend that you consider retaining a consultant for help with the planning, and running, of the most important day of your life.

When I met with Lynda, we spoke about our roles in providing information to brides and grooms, regardless of whether they chose to work with us. Lynda was kind enough to provide the information below:

WEDDING TALK:
TEN TIPS FROM A WEDDING CONSULTANT

Doesn’t it feel like planning a wedding involves just about a million details? It can seem like they are just endless! Here are a few ideas to help make your planning a little easier:
1. Buy wedding magazines. Yes, of course you do this. However, instead of just cutting out pictures of things you like (which I do recommend), also make a pile of the things you hate. It is much easier to say to the florist (or cake baker, or any other vendor) that I love this and don’t want that. Having the visual example of the two extremes will help ensure that the communication between you and your vendor is very clear.

2. Order an extra boutonniere for the groom. He will get lots of hugs on your wedding day, and if the two of you greet guests before you take photos, his flower may not be so pretty in the pictures. Take a moment to make a quick swap of boutonnieres, and the photos will look even better!

3. Make sure that you physically take your invitations to the post office and have them weighed before mailing. You want to make sure that they get where they are going! You can order personalized stamps (from www.zazzle.com, for instance). The US Postal Service now offers wedding stamps in two denominations; one for the envelope and one for the response card. Remember NOT to pre-stamp response envelopes for those who live in foreign countries, because they will need to have their own postage stamp on the letter.

4. Let your photographer and videographer know of any personal family issues. If Uncle Jack doesn’t talk to Aunt Sally, you don’t want them shoved together for photos.

5. Purchase a new wedding perfume (and a new after-shave for your groom). Every time you wear it, you will remember your wedding day.

6. Take a napkin. Fold it, but not in the regular way. Try some OTHER ways. If you google "napkin folds," you will find more than a half-million entries! There must be something there that will strike your fancy, allowing you to dress up your table without spending anything extra at all. And where you place the napkin can be another choice: on the left side of your plate, across your plate, in a glass, on the back of the chair. These simple napkin adjustments will make a personal, stunning addition to the whole look of your reception room.

7. Be kind to your vendors. Have water bottles at the musicians’ stands at the ceremony, and make sure to discuss vendor meals with your caterer. Your vendors will be so appreciative (they don’t have to eat what the guests are eating, and most will be happy to have a sandwich. They have a long day and are grateful to be fed at some point during the reception.). The best time for the vendors to eat is usually during the cocktail hour.

8. There is a difference between flowers that decorate a cake (they shouldn’t be treated with any chemicals) and flowers that might be on a cake table surrounding the cake. Make sure to discuss with the bakery and also the florist.

9. Personalize SOMETHING at your wedding. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but do something to make your day yours alone. Try a monogram somewhere, or a signature drink, or use a family heirloom.

10. If you don’t own a glue gun, or you don’t want to have to use it on your wedding day, then you should hire a wedding consultant! Lots of little things go wrong, and it is nice not to have to deal with the stress yourself. All of the details are important, and the wedding consultant’s job is to help manage the details, the vendors, and your stress.

Lynda Barness
I DO Wedding Consulting
PO Box 22450
Philadelphia, PA 19110
215-262-8188
www.idoplan.com
lynda@idoplan.com

Art Institute of Philadelphia

2007-02-07T03:41:00.000-08:00

I was invited to be an evaluator in the portfolio review session at the Art Institute last night. Along with several faculty members, I had the opportunity to review the work of eight students in a session that ran from 6:00 to 10:00pm.

The students showed no fewer than three, and as many as five, clips. Some were countdown clips that ran for less than ten seconds, while the longest went for about two minutes. We provided written notes to the students, then spoke to them directly about their videos. Some of the students enrolled in the Art Institute directly from high school, while others were "adult learners", looking to enter the world of professional video as a new career.

One student's work really stood out from the others. Jonathan DeMuth's work was, for the most part, on a par with nearly anything I've seen from professionals. All the other students showed tremendous potential, which bodes well for our industry.

There was one scene in particular that amused me. One student included wedding clips in his montage. There was a scene of a bride coming down the stairs at her parent's home. Because it was shot from a low, side angle, and because the bride wore a strapless gown, we could see beneath her arms. This bride had gone to the trouble of getting a tan, but had neglected the white skin under her arms. So the lesson is that you'll never know the angles from which you'll be seen at a wedding. If you're tanning, make sure that you tan evenly.

The experience overall was not unlike the Artistic Achievement Awards program we have at the 4EVER Group. The production elements being evaluated were quite similar, and opinions were offered by several professionals. In the awards competition, you win or you don't. In these evaluations, you pass or fail.

I want to thank Craig Do'Vidio from the Art Institute for inviting me to participate. It was a real honor.

Wedding Video in Philadelphia

2007-01-30T18:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in the video production business since 1984. It’s been my privilege to have shared a special day with so many families over the years. The part that is making me feel old is that I’m into the second generation of subjects. That is, I’m taping the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs for children whose weddings I recorded 13 (or more) years ago, and I’m now recording weddings for yesteryear’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah children. Of course, my own son is 19, and a sophomore at West Chester University, so that doesn’t help with the age thing.

As a video educator, I’ve met with videographers from all over. In the social event world, video is still not very high on the priority list for many people. That’s too bad, as a professionally-produced video something wonderful to have. So when videographers get together, as we did recently in Jacksonville, we always talk about business. What I’ve noticed (this is anecdotal, not scientific) is that the videographers who are doing the same old thing will continue to get the same old results. The studio owners who are constantly reinventing their businesses are doing very well.

After hearing those stories time after time, coast to coast, I applied the lesson to my business. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been regularly meeting with other industry professionals, as I sought to expand my referral base (and expanding theirs as well). Here are some of the outstanding vendors I’ve met with recently:

-Mark Kingsdorf, Queen of Hearts Wedding Consultant
-Bob Lambsback, Lambsback Florist
-Dale Lieberman, Petal Pushers
-Lindsay Martin, Open Aire Affairs

In the coming weeks, I’ve got several more meetings scheduled. This vendor outreach will be an on-going effort, as I want to keep current with the industry in the Philadelphia area.

Because I’ve had the opportunity to meet and learn from so many exceptional videographers, I’ve been able to implement new shooting and editing ideas, and I’m prepared to offer new services. I’m really excited about these in particular, although the availability is limited:

The Same Day Edit. This video is pre-planned and partially pre-recorded, but many of the scenes are recorded prior to the wedding reception. They’re all edited together in time to play on a big screen that night, or we can burn it to DVD so you can play it at brunch the morning after the wedding.

Sunday Brunch Video: Here, we take some of the video we recorded on your wedding day, perform basic editing, and provide you with a DVD to watch with your friends and family on the day after the wedding.

iPod Video: We can put any of your video choices on your iPod. The Same Day Edit and the Sunday Brunch Video can even go with you on your honeymoon.

Obviously, blogging is another part of the constant change in my business. Next up will be a revamped web site, which is overdue. I’ll be adding more videos to the web site, and updating the photos. My son will particularly appreciate that, since he was about 12 in the photo on the current edition of the web site.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and read this. For more information about my video services, please visit www.videoccasion.net. For specific inquiries, please email me at steve@videoccasion.net.

Conference Wrap and Back to Work

2007-01-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

After spending about a week in Jacksonville, FL, surrounded by the best people in the video industry, I reluctantly returned home. OK, I did get to spend most of one day in St. Augustine, which was great. Like everyone else in attendance, I'm totally energized by the experience. Because I was part of the team that ran the show, maybe I was more energized than most. At the end, I was certainly as tired as anyone else.

It would be crazy for me to describe the convention here. If you want to see what has been described by others at the "best convention in the industry", please visit www.4EVERGroup.org. The home page has direct links to the blogs and vlogs, along with the photos and podcasts.

The conference experience can be summarized in a couple of ways. First of all, if you're in the industry, you really missed something special. Because we have to make VIDEO 08 even better than VIDEO 07, please stay in touch with us at The 4EVER Group, as the 2008 dates will be announced shortly. If you're not in the industry, please make sure your videographer participates in events like this. Advanced industry education is vital.

Finally, we owe our thanks to the instructors, the staff, and every attendee, for their part in making VIDEO 07 the tremendous event that it was.

Welcome

2007-01-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks for stopping by. I need to thank my son, Casey, for setting up this blog for me. Currently, I'm in Jacksonville, FL, in advance of the 4EVER Group videographers conference that I'm running with my business partner, Tim Ryan. It really is an exciting time to be in this industry, and we'll have a great show.

Other people will be able to blog more about the show here, and you can find those blogs at www.4EVERGroup.org and then selecting the blog news story on that home page. Meanwhile, I'll figure out how this works, and how to get signed up on the blogroll there.

Steve