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.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
May 10 wedding
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.
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.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
NAB in Las Vegas, 2008
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.
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
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)