More Videographer Education

Fifth Trip: Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix

Since I got home late on a Thursday, leaving early on Saturday meant that there just wasn’t much time to unpack, deal with snail mail, or anything else from real life. Well, this was the path we chose, so it had to be done. I did get to take a quick visit to Chicago again, as I had to change planes at O’Hare. The good news was that with all of my recent travels, I’d accumulated enough air miles to upgrade to first class for the Chicago-Seattle leg of the trip. I have a somewhat large laptop, and the extra room makes working so much easier.

On my only previous visit, the weather in Seattle was Chamber of Commerce perfect: sunny, warm, and dry. That was just a memory, as the weather was cold and rainy for this trip. That simply meant we had more time to record an interview with Laura Randall, for a 4EVER Group podcast.

The association meeting was held in a local library, which is an obviously popular choice among videographers. My topic was the Video Critique, and this was one of only two groups that recorded my presentation. With the meeting being on a Sunday, the late afternoon start meant that the meeting had to be over promptly. Of course, that left us plenty of time to engage in a favorite activity of many videographers: eating.

All too soon, it was time to get back to the airport for my flight to Burbank, as the Tuesday meeting was with the American videographers Association, in the San Fernando Valley.

That Seattle to Burbank flight was on Alaska Airlines, which was my first time using that carrier. Others had suggested that it was a relatively good airline, and I kept an open mind on that. Many of my flights were on Southwest, and the lack of assigned seating can get under your skin, especially when you can’t get that “A” boarding pass.

My experience was that Alaska Air was just ok. Of course, using no less than nine different airlines (American, Continental, USAirways, Southwest, America West, Frontier, Northwest, and Delta, along with Alaska), not counting the “Express” and “Shuttle” divisions for the Baton Rouge part of the trip, means that the experiences will tend to run together.

Jay Stein is the president of the AVA. By happy coincidence, I arrived in the LA area on Jay’s birthday. That meant that we got together with a number of Jay’s other friends (including videographers like Kirk Thompson and Beth Oslander) for a celebratory dinner.

Since the AVA meeting was held Tuesday night, that meant I was ready to spend most of the day locked up in my hotel room, doing computer work, as I had in other cities. But since the weather at home had been tending toward winter, and the weather in LA was so beautiful, I did take a walk to a nearby shopping area for lunch. Of course, I had an ulterior motive: buying the 30th Anniversary “Born To Run” package.

Some readers will know that I am something of a Springsteen fanatic. With the Best Buy being located in that shopping area, it made things easier for me. And it certainly made the afternoon’s work go faster, as I could listen to my kind of music.

The AVA meeting was held in the office of an association member, with pizzas and salads available as a light dinner (no one ever topped Baton Rouge, with their desserts). In addition to the nearly 30 AVA members in attendance, Larry Goldsmith (outgoing President) and Cathy Steffan (incoming President) from the PVN in Orange County were at the meeting. In part, the PVN crew was there to promote their own program with The 4EVER Group.

Some of the most creative videographers in our industry live in Southern California. That they were entertained and impressed by the work presented in the Video Critique is a statement about the quality of the winning work from the 2005 Artistic Achievement Awards.

Another trip to the airport awaited me the next morning, as it was time for the third of three meetings in four days, which meant I had to be going to Phoenix. Although America West was probably the least punctual of all the airlines I used on this outreach, the flight was at least relatively brief.

With a population in excess of 1.3 million people, the city of Phoenix has about the same number of people as the city of Philadelphia. Nearby cities add to that total, and Phoenix is also one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. Given all of that information, it’s still puzzling as to why Phoenix has two local associations, and why neither are doing particularly well.

We had reached out to both groups (CAPVA and PVCR) well in advance of our November 16 speaking date, in an attempt to offer assistance to both groups. In the end, our library meeting drew a crowd of fewer than twenty for the Video Critique.

Unfortunately, other obligations meant that I had to get on out of Phoenix early on morning following the meeting. We departed knowing that more work needed to be done in order to get videographers in the Phoenix area caught up with similar big cities.