The Iron Videographer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.