Videographer Education, Part 2

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.