Early this morning I received an email with the subject line “Rudy’s House”. The circumstances were such that it clearly was not going to be good news. It turned out that a good friend’s house burned down overnight. Rudy, his wife, and their four daughters (all under 10) got out safely. The house was pretty much a total loss, and he’s not yet sure how much business material he lost as well.
It seemed that a wiring problem with a bathroom fan sparked the fire, which started around 3am. The smoke detectors worked, and they woke my friend and his wife. Each of them grabbed one daughter, and a policeman grabbed the other two. The fire was on the local news (Boston area), and it was pretty surreal to watch the video.
Although the smoke detectors did work, none of the kids woke up. Apparently, that situation is not uncommon. So please check your smoke detectors to make sure they work, and that they are loud enough (and located appropriately) to wake adults. Go ahead and check now; I’ll wait here.
So what do you do for a friend who has lost everything to a fire? Between family and the Red Cross, their basic needs were covered. But we’ve been friends for years, and we’ve traveled together for business many times. Given the business we’re in, the answer was obvious. I was going to enlist everyone else in our inner circle to reprint as many pictures as we could, and copy as many videos as possible. When you speculate about what you’d grab in the event of a fire, pictures and home videos are usually on the list right after people and pets. From there, we’ll see about their needs. For now, it’s something positive.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Adobe Product Launch
The 4EVER Group has built an excellent relationship with Adobe Systems over the nearly three years that we've been active. That relationship led to a pretty cool invitation for me. Yesterday, in what was billed as the largest new product launch in the 25-year history of Adobe, I was among an elite group of 200 at the live roll-out in New York City.
Although I don’t edit video anymore, it was clear that the product upgrades were significant. Adobe also created better ways to maneuver between programs within the editing suite (called ‘bridge’). The one piece of Adobe software that I do use is PhotoShop, and they’ve improved that as well, by significantly reducing the time needed to load the program. As a non-editor, one of the cooler features of the product demo was showing how the program allows you to remove stray audio from a scene. It was like taking an eraser to the audio wave-form.
The product roll-out was simulcast on the Adobe web site. And, as can happen, about half-way through the demo, they experienced an equipment failure. The software was working fine, but the hardware—not so much. In the end, they had to stop the demo for about a half hour, while they made repairs.
Everyone in the room had experienced something similar, at some point in their careers. Stuff does happen. And while I would not have wanted to be one of the team on headsets, trying to trouble-shoot, I did enjoy being part of the audience, because that was when they opened up the bars, and started butlering some specialty drinks. Key lime martini? They were tasty.
In the end, the launch was successful. Adobe has some cool new tools for people in our trade, and everyone in attendance has a new story to tell.
Although I don’t edit video anymore, it was clear that the product upgrades were significant. Adobe also created better ways to maneuver between programs within the editing suite (called ‘bridge’). The one piece of Adobe software that I do use is PhotoShop, and they’ve improved that as well, by significantly reducing the time needed to load the program. As a non-editor, one of the cooler features of the product demo was showing how the program allows you to remove stray audio from a scene. It was like taking an eraser to the audio wave-form.
The product roll-out was simulcast on the Adobe web site. And, as can happen, about half-way through the demo, they experienced an equipment failure. The software was working fine, but the hardware—not so much. In the end, they had to stop the demo for about a half hour, while they made repairs.
Everyone in the room had experienced something similar, at some point in their careers. Stuff does happen. And while I would not have wanted to be one of the team on headsets, trying to trouble-shoot, I did enjoy being part of the audience, because that was when they opened up the bars, and started butlering some specialty drinks. Key lime martini? They were tasty.
In the end, the launch was successful. Adobe has some cool new tools for people in our trade, and everyone in attendance has a new story to tell.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Meeting in Houston
So I took a trip to Houston the other day. I had a presentation scheduled for March 14, to the Houston Professional Videographers Association. As usual, I took an early flight. This allows me to (mostly) miss rush-hour traffic, and allows for some wiggle-room in the challenging world of air travel. I’d been using a particular off-airport parking lot, so I also have to allow a few extra minutes for all that that entails.
The EZ Pass-style frequent parker system they have in place wasn’t working, so I had to use the regular ticket system. No big deal. The transfer was pretty smooth, and I was off to the airport. Since I was flying USAir Express, I went off to Terminal F. Turns out that my flight was in Terminal C. I passed through security in F, where I had to wait behind one person, and took a shuttle over to C, where the security line was considerably longer.
In Houston, I stayed at the airport hotel. Since I was being picked up for the trip to the meeting, staying at that hotel made sense. Shortly before I was picked up, however, rainstorms of Biblical proportions started. The storms raged on and off for 3-4 hours, making numerous freeways and surface roads close to impassable, due to the high water. I really did think we were going to have to swim to the meeting.
My presentation was “Do the Math”, which produced the same surprised reactions that it always does. What was a surprise to me was that there were three MBA-holders in the audience, which is three more than usually attend videographers meetings.
After the meeting, roughly half of the group went out to eat at a restaurant (I’ve forgotten the name) that had a giant, mirrored armadillo out front. Now, under normal circumstances, I seem to be a bad service magnet. With a group of 20 people, this was way beyond normal bad service. The waitress was nice enough, but the place was pretty much understaffed. And, being a bar-restaurant in Texas, people were free to smoke inside.
At least the rain had subsided, and the standing water had mostly drained off, making the ride back to the airport relatively easy. It became a very late night, however, due to the slow service at the restaurant.
This is a good time for me to thank the Houston PVA for inviting me to speak before their group. I'll be back there in October with another program, and I look forward to that. I also want to thank Sandy Buller for being my driver, which was made all the more challenging by the weather.
The next day, I was able to catch an earlier flight back to Philadelphia. USAirways was kind enough to only charge me $25.00 for making that change. But since I slept through the middle of the flight, I missed my bag of deluxe mini-pretzels. There was barely enough room to read a book in the seat, so sleeping seemed like a good use of my time.
There were issues with the jetway operation in Houston. I’m not really sure what happened, but the in-bound flight spent about 20 minutes at the gate while they tried to figure out how to operate the jetway. All that made our flight arrive a bit late to Philadelphia. That fact, however, didn’t mean that our gate was clear. We sat on the plane for over 20 minutes, waiting for the gate to clear. Given the troubles that other airlines have had, 20 minutes is nothing, right?
But the final indignity was at the parking lot. Using the ticket system, as a transient, one-time user, my fee would have been $19.90. My AAA membership saved me $2.00 off that. When I compared that to the trip I took in January, which was almost the exact same amount of time in the lot, using my frequent-parker discount, I actually paid more as a frequent parker, $23.90 vs. $17.90. That seemed a little absurd to me. By then, it was after normal business hours, so I couldn’t call to complain. I sent an email to the general manager, who has yet to reply. I will give him some slack, since it was the weekend. Meanwhile, I’m looking at other parking lots for future trips.
And there will be future trips, as I’ve been working on a variety of programming for The 4EVER Group (www.4EVERGroup.org) that will mean more road trips in the next few months. NAB (Vegas) is coming up next month, and there will be others. I plan on having pictures available for some of those trips.
The EZ Pass-style frequent parker system they have in place wasn’t working, so I had to use the regular ticket system. No big deal. The transfer was pretty smooth, and I was off to the airport. Since I was flying USAir Express, I went off to Terminal F. Turns out that my flight was in Terminal C. I passed through security in F, where I had to wait behind one person, and took a shuttle over to C, where the security line was considerably longer.
In Houston, I stayed at the airport hotel. Since I was being picked up for the trip to the meeting, staying at that hotel made sense. Shortly before I was picked up, however, rainstorms of Biblical proportions started. The storms raged on and off for 3-4 hours, making numerous freeways and surface roads close to impassable, due to the high water. I really did think we were going to have to swim to the meeting.
My presentation was “Do the Math”, which produced the same surprised reactions that it always does. What was a surprise to me was that there were three MBA-holders in the audience, which is three more than usually attend videographers meetings.
After the meeting, roughly half of the group went out to eat at a restaurant (I’ve forgotten the name) that had a giant, mirrored armadillo out front. Now, under normal circumstances, I seem to be a bad service magnet. With a group of 20 people, this was way beyond normal bad service. The waitress was nice enough, but the place was pretty much understaffed. And, being a bar-restaurant in Texas, people were free to smoke inside.
At least the rain had subsided, and the standing water had mostly drained off, making the ride back to the airport relatively easy. It became a very late night, however, due to the slow service at the restaurant.
This is a good time for me to thank the Houston PVA for inviting me to speak before their group. I'll be back there in October with another program, and I look forward to that. I also want to thank Sandy Buller for being my driver, which was made all the more challenging by the weather.
The next day, I was able to catch an earlier flight back to Philadelphia. USAirways was kind enough to only charge me $25.00 for making that change. But since I slept through the middle of the flight, I missed my bag of deluxe mini-pretzels. There was barely enough room to read a book in the seat, so sleeping seemed like a good use of my time.
There were issues with the jetway operation in Houston. I’m not really sure what happened, but the in-bound flight spent about 20 minutes at the gate while they tried to figure out how to operate the jetway. All that made our flight arrive a bit late to Philadelphia. That fact, however, didn’t mean that our gate was clear. We sat on the plane for over 20 minutes, waiting for the gate to clear. Given the troubles that other airlines have had, 20 minutes is nothing, right?
But the final indignity was at the parking lot. Using the ticket system, as a transient, one-time user, my fee would have been $19.90. My AAA membership saved me $2.00 off that. When I compared that to the trip I took in January, which was almost the exact same amount of time in the lot, using my frequent-parker discount, I actually paid more as a frequent parker, $23.90 vs. $17.90. That seemed a little absurd to me. By then, it was after normal business hours, so I couldn’t call to complain. I sent an email to the general manager, who has yet to reply. I will give him some slack, since it was the weekend. Meanwhile, I’m looking at other parking lots for future trips.
And there will be future trips, as I’ve been working on a variety of programming for The 4EVER Group (www.4EVERGroup.org) that will mean more road trips in the next few months. NAB (Vegas) is coming up next month, and there will be others. I plan on having pictures available for some of those trips.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Video Tape Does Not Last Forever
I’m just finishing up part 2 of a massive tape-to-DVD transfer project for a client. They had more than 60 hours of home videos of their kids and vacations, another 10 hours of old movie file that I’d transferred to a pro format for them about a decade ago, and their wedding video. That brings me to the point of this post.
This couple got married in 1992, at one of the premier hotels in Philadelphia. They had one of the leading videographers of that time document the day on tape. Although they may have had the choice of buying the Master tape (a professional video version of the VHS tape that they received), they only had the VHS tape to give me for the transfer.
In their wedding, the Best Man’s toast went on for quite a while. This couple did watch their video frequently and often skipped over the toast by scanning on fast forward. The “scan” mode allows you to see the video as you move forward, so that you can go back to play more readily. On occasion, they left the tapein the VCR for a day or two at a time.
I’m not going to give you a technical explanation of what happened, mainly because I’m not an especially technical person. When they dropped the videos off, they told me that they weren’t sure what was going on with the toast segment, but they were concerned that they “wore out the tape.” When I transferred their wedding video from VHS to DVD, I discovered that their concerns were completely justified. The Best Man’s toast had basically vanished. Sure, every few moments you could see something, but you couldn’t hear anything. When I opened the shell, the tape obviously had been damaged over the years. So now an important memory from their wedding is lost.
The problem had obviously been growing for years. Let me offer a few observations:
-Always fully rewind a valuable VHS tape after watching it.
-Always return the VHS tape to its container after rewinding.
-Always store a VHS tape on its narrow end, with the tape side to the bottom.
-Always store a VHS tape away from any electro-magnetic source, like stereo speakers.
Most importantly, get your VHS tapes transferred to DVD immediately. And when I say “VHS”, I’m really referring to any home video format, including Betamax, Video 8mm, and Digital 8mm video. The longer you wait, the greater the chance you’ll have a problem like I’ve discussed here. Remember, that wedding video wasn’t quite 15 years old and an important segment was gone.
If you send me an email (steve@videoccasion.net) by April 15, 2007, you’ll receive a special discount on your tape-to-DVD transfer.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Videographer Education - Series Finale
Sixth Trip: Cleveland
After so many flights in such a short period of time, I decided to drive to Cleveland. In part, airfares were ridiculous for the return flight, since it was just before Thanksgiving. In part, driving meant that I could pick my son up from college on the return trip, since his break was starting.
The drive to Cleveland was pretty uneventful. The highlight probably was passing the marker denoting the highest point on Interstate 80 east of the Mississippi River, which was something like 2200 feet. Considering the time I’d recently spent in the Rockies, that marker left me pretty unimpressed.
Without a doubt, one of my favorite features of this local association outreach was the opportunity to see old friends again. One of my old friends, Rommie Sebo, was serving as President of NOVA, the Northern Ohio Videographers Association. It was in that role that he took me out to a very nice dinner the night I arrived in Cleveland. And in the small world that exists in our trade, Michael Wolkis, who was kind enough to host me in Phoenix, has some connections to the deli where Rommie took me for lunch the following day.
“Do the Math” was the requested topic in Cleveland. Like many cities in the Northeast and Midwest, Cleveland has some economic challenges. Having a context for pricing and business issues was thought to be a valuable asset for NOVA members. And, like in every city where this program was hosted, the final results (where we calculate the true cost of producing one wedding video) were astounding.
The drive home from Cleveland gave me the first opportunity to buy gas for under $2.00/gallon in quite a while. And the trip through northwestern Pennsylvania also gave me the first taste of snow for the winter. Otherwise, I took the time to have lunch in State College (home of Penn State, my alma mater) before stopping to pick up my son at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Seventh Trip: Orange County, CA and Jacksonville, FL
My final trip for 2005 made for an interesting triangle across the country, flying from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to Jacksonville and back to Philadelphia. For the first time on this outreach, both Tim and I were presenting programs on the same date. The PVN invited us to present all four of our programs in one day, and we were happy to be able to accommodate them.
We arrived two days prior to the meeting, with Tim connecting with family that night, leaving me time to catch up on some email. While we had discussed catching the USC-UCLA football game that Saturday, we spent the day on the road, conducting interviews for The 4EVER Group podcast series.
Our first stop on Saturday was the home of Julie and Alex Hill, which was located to the east of the mountains in Riverside County. The drive itself was beautiful, and the Hills’ live in a very modern subdivision. We conducted the interview in their den, before we all went out to lunch.
When those of us from the east think about California wineries, we think about the Napa Valley. We never knew about the wineries in southern Riverside County. With the cold back on the east coast, having an outdoor lunch at a winery (a first for both Tim and me) was a real highlight of the entire outreach time.
Following lunch, we had to find our way over to a southbound freeway, as we were off to visit with Randy Stubbs. Randy would be the second of three interview subjects for this trip. Since we were nowhere near Los Angeles, the freeway trip was pretty easy, and finding Randy’s house was only a little challenging, set back from the street as it is.
Randy’s Jack Russell terrier had recently had a litter, and he was in the process of selling the puppies. In fact, a couple were in his home as we arrived, inspecting the puppies in their playpen.
Once that inspection concluded (they didn’t buy that day, but they did come back later), we were able to move on into the interview. By the time this article is published, the interview will have been posted as a podcast on The 4EVER Group web site.
Unfortunately, Randy had other plans for the evening, leaving Tim and I to grab dinner in the Gaslamp Quarter, before heading back to Orange County. For Tim, the Gaslamp Quarter has two of his favorite places: The Hard Rock Café and the House of Blues. We settled on Mexican food, which still allowed Tim time to collect his memorabilia.
The PVN had arranged for a full-day 4EVER Group program on that Sunday. Tim and I alternated our programs, with both of us presenting one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The PVN sold something on the order of fifty tickets to this all-day educational event, with lunch included in the price of admission. It was strange, everything considered, for Tim and I to sit in on each others program. And, as in every previous city, the presentations drew focused debate from the attendees.
Following the meeting, Tim joined several PVN members for dinner, while I took the hour-long drive to Riverside, to interview John Goolsby. We spent the better part of an hour at his studio, discussing topics of interest, before wrapping up the interview. After the interview, we took a ride to visit Chip, who was in the hospital. Since we scheduled the interview at the very last minute, John did not have time to tell Chip that I’d be coming along to visit. I have to figure that I was not exactly high up on the list of people Chip was expecting to see walk into his hospital room that night. When we discussed that later, Chip confessed to wondering exactly what drugs they had administered, because my walking in to his room had to be a hallucination.
On Monday morning, I began the arduous trip from LAX to Jacksonville. This required a plane change in Houston, which allowed me enough time for lunch. The Pappas family restaurant chain includes a burger place at the Houston airport, which made for possibly my best airport meal of the entire outreach effort. That chain operates restaurants under no less than nine different names, and I’ve now eaten at three (Pappadeaux, Pappasito’s Cantina, and Pappas Burger), and enjoyed them all. By the time I finally had dinner in Jacksonville, I had one of those quirky days that I enjoy talking about: three meals on that day, each in a different state and time zone.
The Tuesday night Jacksonville Videographers Association (JVA) meeting was held in probably the most unique of locations: the garage/studio for the video department of the Jacksonville Fire Department. One of the JVA members runs the studio for the JFD, making access quite easy. And since we were pretty close to Christmas, the pizza boxes were spread out around a variety of home-baked holiday treats.
Merrill Moore, the President of the JVA, had been a judge during the first-ever Artistic Achievement Awards competition. That made the Video Critique a natural program or the JVA. And for only the second time on the outreach, my presentation was recorded (I’m still waiting for a copy, nearly two months later). After the meeting, we continued the discussion over at a local Denny’s. It was easy to follow Merrill’s SUV, since it had the most outrageous Christmas decorations I’d ever seen on a moving vehicle.
And then, once again, the morning came, and it was time to get on a plane for the trip home. I visited a total of 18 cities over the course of seven trips. We were able to include podcast interviews, a Video Summit, and several other meetings during the time of this local association outreach program. As I detailed earlier, I flew on nine different airlines, and I didn’t bother counting hotel chains or car rental companies. My two different presentations reached hundreds of videographers all across the US. We still didn’t reach every association, which means there’s still more work to be done. That means more time out on the road, as 2006 will bring more local association presentations, more Video Summits, the Artistic Achievement Awards program, and that all will lead up to the 2007 4EVER Group convention. It looks like an exciting time.
After so many flights in such a short period of time, I decided to drive to Cleveland. In part, airfares were ridiculous for the return flight, since it was just before Thanksgiving. In part, driving meant that I could pick my son up from college on the return trip, since his break was starting.
The drive to Cleveland was pretty uneventful. The highlight probably was passing the marker denoting the highest point on Interstate 80 east of the Mississippi River, which was something like 2200 feet. Considering the time I’d recently spent in the Rockies, that marker left me pretty unimpressed.
Without a doubt, one of my favorite features of this local association outreach was the opportunity to see old friends again. One of my old friends, Rommie Sebo, was serving as President of NOVA, the Northern Ohio Videographers Association. It was in that role that he took me out to a very nice dinner the night I arrived in Cleveland. And in the small world that exists in our trade, Michael Wolkis, who was kind enough to host me in Phoenix, has some connections to the deli where Rommie took me for lunch the following day.
“Do the Math” was the requested topic in Cleveland. Like many cities in the Northeast and Midwest, Cleveland has some economic challenges. Having a context for pricing and business issues was thought to be a valuable asset for NOVA members. And, like in every city where this program was hosted, the final results (where we calculate the true cost of producing one wedding video) were astounding.
The drive home from Cleveland gave me the first opportunity to buy gas for under $2.00/gallon in quite a while. And the trip through northwestern Pennsylvania also gave me the first taste of snow for the winter. Otherwise, I took the time to have lunch in State College (home of Penn State, my alma mater) before stopping to pick up my son at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Seventh Trip: Orange County, CA and Jacksonville, FL
My final trip for 2005 made for an interesting triangle across the country, flying from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to Jacksonville and back to Philadelphia. For the first time on this outreach, both Tim and I were presenting programs on the same date. The PVN invited us to present all four of our programs in one day, and we were happy to be able to accommodate them.
We arrived two days prior to the meeting, with Tim connecting with family that night, leaving me time to catch up on some email. While we had discussed catching the USC-UCLA football game that Saturday, we spent the day on the road, conducting interviews for The 4EVER Group podcast series.
Our first stop on Saturday was the home of Julie and Alex Hill, which was located to the east of the mountains in Riverside County. The drive itself was beautiful, and the Hills’ live in a very modern subdivision. We conducted the interview in their den, before we all went out to lunch.
When those of us from the east think about California wineries, we think about the Napa Valley. We never knew about the wineries in southern Riverside County. With the cold back on the east coast, having an outdoor lunch at a winery (a first for both Tim and me) was a real highlight of the entire outreach time.
Following lunch, we had to find our way over to a southbound freeway, as we were off to visit with Randy Stubbs. Randy would be the second of three interview subjects for this trip. Since we were nowhere near Los Angeles, the freeway trip was pretty easy, and finding Randy’s house was only a little challenging, set back from the street as it is.
Randy’s Jack Russell terrier had recently had a litter, and he was in the process of selling the puppies. In fact, a couple were in his home as we arrived, inspecting the puppies in their playpen.
Once that inspection concluded (they didn’t buy that day, but they did come back later), we were able to move on into the interview. By the time this article is published, the interview will have been posted as a podcast on The 4EVER Group web site.
Unfortunately, Randy had other plans for the evening, leaving Tim and I to grab dinner in the Gaslamp Quarter, before heading back to Orange County. For Tim, the Gaslamp Quarter has two of his favorite places: The Hard Rock Café and the House of Blues. We settled on Mexican food, which still allowed Tim time to collect his memorabilia.
The PVN had arranged for a full-day 4EVER Group program on that Sunday. Tim and I alternated our programs, with both of us presenting one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The PVN sold something on the order of fifty tickets to this all-day educational event, with lunch included in the price of admission. It was strange, everything considered, for Tim and I to sit in on each others program. And, as in every previous city, the presentations drew focused debate from the attendees.
Following the meeting, Tim joined several PVN members for dinner, while I took the hour-long drive to Riverside, to interview John Goolsby. We spent the better part of an hour at his studio, discussing topics of interest, before wrapping up the interview. After the interview, we took a ride to visit Chip, who was in the hospital. Since we scheduled the interview at the very last minute, John did not have time to tell Chip that I’d be coming along to visit. I have to figure that I was not exactly high up on the list of people Chip was expecting to see walk into his hospital room that night. When we discussed that later, Chip confessed to wondering exactly what drugs they had administered, because my walking in to his room had to be a hallucination.
On Monday morning, I began the arduous trip from LAX to Jacksonville. This required a plane change in Houston, which allowed me enough time for lunch. The Pappas family restaurant chain includes a burger place at the Houston airport, which made for possibly my best airport meal of the entire outreach effort. That chain operates restaurants under no less than nine different names, and I’ve now eaten at three (Pappadeaux, Pappasito’s Cantina, and Pappas Burger), and enjoyed them all. By the time I finally had dinner in Jacksonville, I had one of those quirky days that I enjoy talking about: three meals on that day, each in a different state and time zone.
The Tuesday night Jacksonville Videographers Association (JVA) meeting was held in probably the most unique of locations: the garage/studio for the video department of the Jacksonville Fire Department. One of the JVA members runs the studio for the JFD, making access quite easy. And since we were pretty close to Christmas, the pizza boxes were spread out around a variety of home-baked holiday treats.
Merrill Moore, the President of the JVA, had been a judge during the first-ever Artistic Achievement Awards competition. That made the Video Critique a natural program or the JVA. And for only the second time on the outreach, my presentation was recorded (I’m still waiting for a copy, nearly two months later). After the meeting, we continued the discussion over at a local Denny’s. It was easy to follow Merrill’s SUV, since it had the most outrageous Christmas decorations I’d ever seen on a moving vehicle.
And then, once again, the morning came, and it was time to get on a plane for the trip home. I visited a total of 18 cities over the course of seven trips. We were able to include podcast interviews, a Video Summit, and several other meetings during the time of this local association outreach program. As I detailed earlier, I flew on nine different airlines, and I didn’t bother counting hotel chains or car rental companies. My two different presentations reached hundreds of videographers all across the US. We still didn’t reach every association, which means there’s still more work to be done. That means more time out on the road, as 2006 will bring more local association presentations, more Video Summits, the Artistic Achievement Awards program, and that all will lead up to the 2007 4EVER Group convention. It looks like an exciting time.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, February 23, 2007
More From The Road
Fourth Trip: Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Appleton and Madison, WI
This was one trip that I had been especially looking forward to taking, as I’d never been to either city. One thing that has always made business travel interesting was the opportunity to spend time with friends in different cities, seeing and doing things I may not otherwise. The first leg of the trip, to Denver, was perhaps the best mix of business and pleasure during this outreach time.
My visit to Denver just happened to coincide with a Broncos home game against my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Literally thousands of Eagles fans made the trip to Denver, so everywhere we went, we shared the town with lots and lots of Philadelphians. The picture on the bottom is me outside of the stadium, prior to the game.
Henry Mares, president of the local association in Denver, and Jay Wren, took turns showing me around Denver. Our first stop was lunch in the town of Black Hawk, which is at an elevation of about 8000 feet. Never having been at that kind of altitude before, I did find myself huffing and puffing as we hustled through town.
After lunch, a tour of the Coors brewery in Golden was on the agenda. As expected, there were a lot of Eagles fans sampling the variety beers on tap in the lounge. Since Henry had some business obligations, Jay and I spent the late afternoon and evening together, including dinner among dozens of other Eagles fans.
Although I did attend the football game, the less written about that the better, since, as I said, I’m an Eagles fan.
The Denver association is one of the few that have a daytime meeting. The meeting time schedule is designed to appeal to those videographers who prioritize their business in a way that allows them to attend such a meeting. That does present some obvious challenges, but it also makes for an enthusiastic group of attendees. And with a fairly limited amount of available time, it means that the attendees still can get in a pretty full day back in the studio. The meeting ends at about noon, which also gives attendees the opportunity to network over lunch afterward.
This offers the opportunity to go off on a tangent about local association meeting schedules. What is the best method for planning meetings in a way that will lead to association success?
If we consider the models of other business organizations, then daytime meetings can be effective. Chambers of Commerce and business referral networks often have breakfast meetings. On the other hand, groups that are involved in the social event industry, such as the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE), usually meet during the evening.
Obviously, each local association sets its own agenda and schedule. But our observations over these many years reveal the following;
-Successful associations tend to meet regularly (most often monthly).
-Successful associations tend to meet in the same location every time.
-Successful associations draw contributions from their members, and are able to attract outside presenters.
As we’ve stressed throughout this outreach effort, local associations truly are the backbone of our industry; everything positive starts there. Members trade job leads, share equipment and ideas, and formulate strategies for dealing with the public image of videographers. The 4EVER Group stands ready to continue assisting in the development of local videographers associations.
Following lunch with Henry Mares and Jay Wren, I spent my remaining few hours in Denver at the Mares’ home, trying to avoid the Halloween candy rush. Finally, it was off to the airport for the short flight to Salt Lake City.
Throughout this outreach, I’ve found it fairly easy to get a hotel room that included a Wi-Fi connection. That was a pleasant and important change from other extended road trips, where we considered ourselves lucky to find dial-up service. For both Tim and I, being out of the office for such an extended period of time would have meant missing vital communications, had it not been for the up-to-date internet connections now widely available.
Although I’ve seen many videos involving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), I knew practically nothing about LDS practices. After working on the computer for a few hours, in advance of a diner meeting, I went to the Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. In a compact area, the Salt Lake Temple anchors the history and future of the LDS faith. After taking a brief tour, I finally understood why I was not going to be able to enter a Temple (first, I would have to be baptized in the faith). The architecture is incredible, and the weather cooperated as well. In the ninety-or-so minutes I spent at Temple Square, I also saw two newly-married couples being photographed (no video) outside the Salt Lake Temple.
The meeting was in the rural town of Tooele (if you’re going there, it’s pronounced ‘Twill-ah’), where I got to share a barbecue dinner with Douglas Spotted Eagle, his wife Linda, and business partner Mannie Frances. We finalized the details of Spot’s participation in The 4EVER Group’s January 2006 convention. That we could meet was a happy scheduling coincidence, as Spot and Mannie were off on another leg of their VASST training tour the following morning.
I didn’t need to arrive at the Utah Professional Videographers meeting until late in the afternoon on that Wednesday, so I had plenty of time to work in my hotel room during the day. But I took another brief side-trip before the meeting, so I could get down to the Great Salt Lake.
Right off of a freeway, just past the airport, was a lake-front marina. Although the marina was closed for the season, it still offered access to the lake. The beach was an interesting combination of hard-packed sand and salt, and it was probably 100 yards wide. Set among beautiful, snow-capped mountains, the lake truly was impressive. Videographers from the Salt Lake City area have described the lake as having a rather unique scent. While I can’t explain their reactions, from my perspective, the lake smelled like the ocean, but just a little stronger.
With Salt Lake City being the major metropolitan area, the UPVA routinely draws attendees who drive two or more hours to each meeting. As a supporter of local associations, it’s gratifying to see that happen. The UPVA meets in a lecture hall at a local community college, which was the only such location I’d encountered. Interestingly, the college’s mission was to support entrepreneurial activities. Of course, most videographers qualify as entrepreneurs, making for a sense of belonging.
My presentation was “Do the Math”, and it was as informative for the UPVA as it was for every other association. Salt Lake City, perhaps the smallest market on this tour, had lots of questions about how the numbers might relate to their experiences. The point of “Do the Math” is to offer tools that videographers can use to establish their own true costs of doing business. Those costs do vary from studio to studio.
After the meeting, about half of the attendees went out to dinner, and continued the intense business discussions. Meetings are a great place to build a network of personal contacts within your own market, but the after-meeting meals are often where friendships are cemented.
Early Thursday morning, it was time to head off to the airport for a trip to Los Angeles. This was originally a trip being made in support of the LAPVA, but their meeting was rescheduled as part of a reorganizing effort. Instead, I used the time to continue developing other important business relationships.
Interestingly, I have a personal connection to with the publisher of an industry magazine called “Trade Show Week”. Through their weekly publication and web site, “Trade Show Week” is arguably the bible of the industry. I think that The 4EVER Group has a compelling story, in that we’re a start-up company taking on the 15-year old established entity in our industry. There are other obvious side issues that could be considered “inside baseball”, but that’s what “Trade Show Week” is all about.
In addition to working on the “Trade Show Week” relationship, I met with the owner and the editor of a major entity in the bridal industry. While this entity will remain nameless as this is written, the story may be very well-known by the time this is published. And the root of my meeting was the lack of growth and acceptance of video within the bridal community.
To date, little more than a token effort has been made to get high-quality video in front of large numbers of brides. Many brides remain convinced that what they saw years ago of both the process and the finished product still applies today. We know better. The 4EVER Group, in cooperation with some of the leading videographers on the continent, and in conjunction with this nameless bridal industry entity, are working together to get quality video in front of huge numbers of brides. In theory, as more and more brides see the outstanding productions that today’s videographers routinely turn out, demand will be created for quality wedding videos in every market. This will obviously lead to more work for many videographers, and provide an incentive for other videographers to improve their productions.
This creates a winning scenario for everyone. The brides get video more often, and learn about quality video. This will also create a buzz in the space where this entity does business, generating more interest in their products and services. If more brides are seeking video, that certainly means more work for videographers. And by being the catalyst, The 4EVER Group cements its role as the leader in this industry.
After three quick nights in Los Angeles, it was time to move on to Chicago, for our Video Summit. Because the Video Summit was not a local association event, we’ll leave that report out of this article. We’ll move on to the association meeting in Appleton, WI.
Appleton is not that far from Chicago, so I rented a car for what turned out to be a pretty routine drive. Passing through Milwaukee, I did take a little side trip to the Harley-Davidson engine plant, catching the last tour of the day (2:00pm). The time spent there meant that I got to Appleton around dinner time.
I arrived in Appleton on Tuesday, and since the meeting was Wednesday, there was not great sense of urgency. I was able to have a relaxed dinner at a local restaurant before heading back to the hotel to catch up on the day’s email pile.
My hotel did not have a restaurant, so I had to go find a place for breakfast on Wednesday morning. Fortunately, I noticed a locally-owned restaurant, called the Machine Shed, just across the highway from my hotel. The décor was sort of a tribute to farming. There were old milk jugs all around, along with lots of farm equipment and hand tools, and the waitresses wore bib overalls and trucker caps. Water and juice got served in Ball jars. But the place was very busy, and there were plenty of business-people there.
In talking with Lance Lewis, the association president, he decided to pick me up for that evening’s meeting. They meet at a restaurant near my hotel, I was assured. And as it turned out, the meeting was also at the Machine Shed restaurant. My presentation that night was the Video Critique, and it had the usual range of attendee reactions. Basically, videographers everywhere have been impressed with the well-done videos, and they’ve also been able to learn from videos that weren’t award-winners. Although the presentation is built around five videos (four excellent, and one that wasn’t), few videographers have been able to participate in a thorough analysis before this program was created.
Unfortunately, since the meeting was held in a restaurant, there was no extended after-meeting session. Of course, some people had a significant drive home, so it just wasn’t going to be a late night.
I was out at a relaxed hour the following morning for the drive back to Chicago. There was, however, another side trip along the way, this time in Madison, WI. The 4EVER Group had been invited to help assist videographers there who were interested in establishing a local association there. In addition, I met with Steve Nathans, the editor of Event DV magazine, to discuss critical industry issues. Because of the magazine’s interest in local associations, having devoted a cover story to the topic, Nathans sat in on that meeting.
Before getting back on the road to Chicago, I had to indulge in one of my quirky interests. Over the years, I’ve walked into many stadiums, and even out onto the field on occasion. Over the years, I’ve sat in the dugout at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia, walked onto the field at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, into Wrigley Field, and onto the field at the University of Michigan stadium, among others. When I was in Salt Lake City, I walked out onto the field there. In Madison, I took Steve Nathans with me to Camp Randall Stadium, and we both took a walk out onto the turf there. Steve took the picture that's on the top of the page. Like I said, it’s a quirky thing.
The rest of the ride back to Chicago was uneventful, except for the traffic. My flight from Midway was in the early evening, which meant that I had to drive across the city in rush hour traffic. You know, those of us that work from home are not missing a thing by not commuting.
After the trip home, I had just over a day to recover enough for the next part of the outreach: a journey that would take me to Seattle, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
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