This is the area where all of my technical babble and stories are going to be posted.
I find myself working everyday either editing, shooting, planning, networking or any combination of the aforementioned. I am going to give up the details of these daily adventres…maybe someone will find the info helpful in some ways.
So, I was at Blue Mountain this weekend shooting footage for these pretty cool commercialette segments that are going to run on the Resort TV channel at Blue. The shooting was great. Lighting was good, sound was nice, scripts were written and rewritten to perfection…everything was cool. That is until my camera gave me a really weird message… “remove and reinsert tape”. Oh oh!
Well, to make a long story short, there is no footage availible on the tape when I play it, but if I scrub through the footage (play and fastforward together), I can see the video. So wierd!
I shot with my FX-1 by Sony on 1080i30. I am generally very happy with the camera (except it’s lack of XLR and any progressive shooting modes), but this is an issue that I am having trouble figuring out. I am going to run some further testing on the footage at Vistek today, but based on my preliminary tests (which involve a Z1U and a DSR deck), I think that my footage is going to have be reshot.
This only occurred on one tape. Unfortunately it was for 2 entire interviews, but it’ll be nice to get back up to Blue Mountain to shoot again soon. Next time I’m going to use a tapeless recording method, at least I can check my shots easily on site.
My brother told me that I should start a Blog. This talk all started because he was telling me about his blog (I’ll post the link later) and that I should get on the bandwagon and start a Blog for digital video content creators…video guys.
I guess since this is the first entry in my new Blog, I should tell you a bit about me…
My name is Joseph and I am a husband, a dad, a brother, an uncle, a godfather and a digital video producer. 4 years ago I made the jump from full time employee for “The Man” with an education in Digital Media Technical Production and an idea, to a full time “video guy”. It wasn’t easy and it was definitely scary, but it was strategized. I knew that as planned a move as it was, any entrepreneurial venture can fail for any number of reasons. Small business equipment failure and minimal funds to replace gear, low season or too much business without time management skills and a million other reasons. It was bold, but I had too clear of a vision and a plan, so we did it. Well I did it, but I say we because Lex (Alexiis…my wife), and I would both experience a roller coaster of low seasons and high season, new gear and broken equipment, canvasing for business and getting “that phone call”. This occurred over the first couple of years, and still does in some regards. It’s strengthening sometimes, to say the least.
I run a wedding video production company that includes me, a couple of really good videographers and my buddy’s photo studio (I’ll explain that last part another time). A Day To Remember (herein known as ADTR) has been in operation for 7 years (first 5 years as Mista Media) and I’m doing well with this business. Weddings are a good core staple in my multi-stream income, which is what I think all successful entrepreneurs and business owners need to look for…multiple streams of income. Anyways, weddings are really cool. I love the food! I’ll be doing some destination weddings next year! I’ll keep you posted.
I also run a corporate video production company called JS Digital. I’ve got some good accounts with JS Digital, one in particular is Cara Operations…you know, Harvey’s, Swiss Chalet. Milestones, Montana’s and Kelsey’s. This account has been great, as well I’ve got Club Intrawest and Blue Mountain as a new account to do some production with. I’m dealing with the Pita Pit and some other really big restaurants there as well as art gallery’s and clothing stores. It’s all pretty amazing.
Another one of my multiple streams is from teaching. I have been teaching at the post secondary level for the past 5 years. I teach in the field of communications, specifically digital video production and post production. I was teaching at Seneca College – York Campus and am now at the Toronto Media and Film College. Cool gig! I love teaching and the job is 5hrs a day, 2 days a week for 7 weeks at a time. they have even asked me to go to China to teach for 1 month…twice! The last time was just before the weekend. I’ll keep you posted on that too.
I also have a 1-2 day a week part time job at Vistek. I really got this job out of selfishness…I wanted to be able to play with the cameras, get good rates on rentals and employee discounts. Why not?! It will help me to do what I love on a new level because of my access to equipment, I stay on the cutting edge, I get to teach and when I have a low period in my main business, I up my hours with Vistek. Again…it’s a beautiful thing.
Now, I am not by any stretch of the mind the be-all-end-all with video, but I figured that it might be interesting to someone who wants to hear the good the bad and the ugly from a real nose to the grindstone video producer. I test cameras, I edit and shoot almost every day, I’ve made alot of videos, have some good accounts and made alot of mistakes along the way. So far, it’s been really interesting.
I look forward to what every day has to offer because everyday is different than the one before. Happy planning, shooting, directing, producing, editing and delivering.
talk to you tomorow
