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.
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.
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