I Hate Cancer

I know this is more a personal post than a business post but I wanted to share this with my followers.

Before you panic and wonder what happened to me NO I don’t have cancer…..but over the last few months Sherry and I learned 2 of our close family members came down with it and are currently battling the disease.  Our sister-in-law Tammy, in Florida recently finished treatments for Liver cancer and we are hoping for some good news real soon once her operation is completed.  On Christmas day Sherry’s dad told us he had cancer as well.  He actually has a few different kinds with one of them being Lymphoma.  Ahhhh…..it’s going to be a different year for us.

Last year I took up road biking (bicycles not motorcycles) as a great way to exercise and have gotten pretty serious about it.  I have been looking for a ride to benefit cancer that wasn’t for Breast Cancer.  I’m all for curing Breast Cancer but there are already many many fundraisers and recognition for it so I wanted a fundraiser for other types of cancer.  At a recent bike expo here in Madison I learned about the Scenic Shore 150 (www.scenicshore150.org) bike ride to benefit Lymphoma and Leukemia research.  Since Sherry’s dad has Lymphoma I figured it was a good one to get involved in.  I also learned that lots of the things they learn doing blood cancer research also trickles down into other types of cancer treatments.  That was all I needed to hear.  I signed up on the spot.  If you would like to donate to help Lymphoma and Leukemia research I have a small website setup where you can donate online.  Just click on this link and enter your information.  Any amount helps no matter how small.

https://wi.dojiggy.com/pledge/index.cfm?585F22080263797278020A177143245D357E747B0973730006

My goal is to raise $1000 in donations for Lymphoma and Leukemia.  They are asking for 1000 riders to raise $1000 each so I am trying to do my part.  I’m happy to sayI am already 1/3 the way there at $330.  Now I need to get that last $670….or even more.  I have a few things in the works.  If you are in the Madison area on May, 25th at True Coffee Roasters in Stoughton I will be having a fundraiser.  True Coffee is donating a percentage of all sales for the day to my  ride so come by for some good coffee and good treats.  I will be there from 10am to noon to answer questions and drink coffee.  I will also have a laptop along so if someone would like to donate online you can do so on the spot.  I will even have a limited number of gift packs for those that sponsor me onsite.

I have another big fundraiser in the works so keep an eye on the blog or follow me on facebook to see what else is going on.  Think Zumba.

Some other business related fun

As many of you know I have played around the last few years with aerial imagery both photo and video with my RC copters. What a fun thing to incorporate into the business. Last year the local paper here in Stoughton did an article on the 5th anniversary of the tornado that destroyed many homes. One of the homeowners remembered the article and called recently since his home and farmstead is now completely rebuilt and looking good. He had other aerial images of the farm before the tornado and wanted a few shots after the rebuilding was complete.

I got a new little GoPro Hero2 camera and it was the perfect job to test it on and I think it performed pretty well. Here are the final versions of the pics we delivered to the customer. The first pic is the customer’s house. It was rebuilt in a completely new spot. The original house was near the shed on the left.

This picture is actually the customers brother’s house across the field. It was also destroyed and completely rebuilt. It was fun taking these pics as I used to work with the owner in the late 90s and did fitness classes with him as recently as a few years ago.

The last pic is a shot of the backyard and deck over looking the countryside. What a great place to live.

Another Gesu Same Day Edit

It seems over the years we have done more weddings at Gesu Parish on the Marquette campus than any other location.  Our last SDE for the year with Marco and Kristin was of course at Gesu.  The cool part about Gesu is they are pretty good for video with good light and fair rules about what a film maker can do to get a great video.  We’ve had a few weddings over the years from Gesu end up as our demo projects.  Marco and Kristin’s SDE was another of those projects from Gesu that just turned out great.

We had done Marco’s brother’s wedding a few years back so the chance to work with the family again was a great bonus as we had a blast last time.  For the SDE we caught some great action at the Neroli Salon in the Third Ward.  We have been there a few times to shoot some prep and they always do a great job.  Marco got dressed at the Raddison downtown and then it was off to the church.

Kristin picked a song for the SDE that was a little different than what we have worked with recently but the more I listened to it the song started really growing on me.  As soon as I heard it I had a vision for the flow and when I got started on the edit it all fell together easily.  The SDE came out great and I am happy to share it with you here on the Frog Blog. Once again Gesu we had a great edit at Gesu.

A downtown affair

A few weeks back we had the privilege of filming Drew and Tracy Tomczyk’s wedding and creating a Same Day Edit for them. The wedding was held at the picturesque Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Downtown Milwaukee and the reception was at the Chenequa Country Club where Tracy’s dad and brother both work.  We enjoyed working with Drew and Tracy’s wedding party and family and actually felt like we were almost family since we already knew many of them after filming Tracy’s brother’s wedding last November.

Here’s their same day edit we put together and showed at the reception.  Same Day Edits can be pretty stressful and this one had a few technical glitches in the edit but we got it together and played it on time.  Another successful reception debut.

The power of a voiceover.

Often our wedding videos focus on beautiful shots set to music but every once in a while a chance at a great voiceover is presented. Such was the case with Jim and Amanda Lemke’s prep video. There was some special electricity about them. When they were together you could feel the commitment to each other and they weren’t afraid to share it or show it. They understood the ability to use sound and motion to create a memory that will last. Because of this, they were completely willing to share what they wrote to each other.

Jim had purchased a nice engraved glass heart for Amanda to keep in a special place. Engraved on it was a message he wrote. Amanda, being and English teacher, was very well spoken as well. She has won awards for her poetry so you can imagine the words they wrote to each other were something special. They were willing to read their message for the camera and give me some “money” content to emotionally charge their video.

If you are a potential or upcoming customer of Frogman Productions consider the power of the spoken word to add an emotional element to your wedding movie. Here is their prep video. Enjoy the emotion.

Kendall and Heather’s Same Day Edit

Some 3D coolness

Styles change as the years go by.

No this post is not all about the styles of wedding dresses or tuxedos or the decor of your reception.  This post is about the “style” of video we produce for our customers.  First we are moving away from being known as a videographer since it is a rather generic term not to mention it is frequently mispronounced as “video-ographer” and our favorite the “videotographer.”  Yes it happens, people put a “T” in there.   We will often refer to our company now as film makers or cinematographers.

Anyway, just like styles of wedding dresses change over the years so does the style of wedding films.  When we first started our company over 10 years ago the rage was soft focus and lots of slow motion.  It created a dream like romance but it was really a created romance because of our tools.  If you watch lots of our early work the soft focus is very prevalent.  Soft focus went out of style a number of years ago but slow motion kept hanging on.  Well it hung on till a few years ago when a newer style of more organic and real type of wedding film making started to emerge from some of our industry leaders.

Here at Frogman Productions we like to stay up to date on current trends and styles and be one of the pace setters in our market so we started working toward morphing our style to this new look.  It required a whole different type of shooting and editing so it was a process that slowly occurred over a few years.  It has lots more real time footage with slow motion added only for effect and also has lots of natural sounds of the day giving the viewer a greater feeling of being brought back to the day and immersed in what happened.  As I mentioned it is more organic and more real.

Another part of the new style that I loved was the music selections finally strayed away from big sounding dramatic movie scores to more modern types of fun music.  This was a welcome change for me as an editor but it also meant I had to relearn how to shoot for that sound and also to edit for that sound.  We are still learning and changing with the times so in a few years our work will still look different than today.  Our main website still has many of the older style clips on it and I have been using the blog to showcase more modern, fun and quirky edits.  Our website will be updated to a whole new look soon and the older demos will be replaced with newer more modern edits.  Since the blog gets the most traffic these days I felt it was time to explain the process of how these new look clips emerged.

Here’s a good example of the newer style.  This is the prep footage from a wedding we shot on April 2, 2011  for Brian and Cali Opsahl.  We already knew the couple as Cali was in a wedding we shot back in November of 2010 and also grew up right here in our hometown of Stoughton, WI.  Cali’s mom even works out at the same health club with Sherry and I.  We are debuting our new logo at the beginning of the clip.  It’s a sneak peek into the new fresh look of Frogman Productions.

Brian and Cali were a fun bunch of people to work with and hang out with before the wedding.  Cali was getting dressed at her parents house here in Stoughton and Brian was getting dressed at his parents house in DeForest.  That made for lots of driving for sure.  Of course Brian being the outdoorsman was out “shed” hunting for antlers early on the morning of the wedding.  He texted a picture of one of their finds to Cali and it even appears in the prep video.  It’s all part of their story and part of the new style of story telling for us.

There will also be a fun dance video to come in their edit and a highlight clip as well.  They won’t all be posted here on the blog but you can see those clips, when they are debuted, on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/frogmanproductions along with lots of other fun stuff on the facebook page.

I do want to thank Emily Johnson Photography for the photos shown here on the blog.  She was a blast to work with documenting Brian and Cali’s day and even used a song we recorded from the ceremony in a little sneak peek slideshow she put together for Brian and Cali.

I know you are wanting to see the clip so here it is.

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A new adventure for the Frogman

The week of April 11th to 14th I’ll be on a new little adventure at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention and tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV.  NAB is the biggest broadcast/video/film industry convention in the US.  Many of you know I love training and teaching and recently I became a certified trainer for the company that produces my editing software I use for all my projects.  This year they asked me if I would like to provide software demos at their booth in the NAB tradeshow.  Of course I said yes.

I’m leaving on Saturday, the 9th, for Las Vegas so I can get there on Sunday and check it all out and get prepared before the start of the show on Monday.  I’m really looking forward to the experience of the huge tradeshow even if it will be as an employee in the booth.  If you want to follow some of the things the company will be rolling out you can by following Grass Valley on twitter at @grassvalleylive.

I will be posting some twitter feeds myself on some of the sights and experiences on both twitter and facebook during the week.  You can follow me on Twitter at @frogvideo or you can set me up as a friend on facebook as well if you haven’t already.  It will be a fun adventure for sure.

Moving forward in the year I will also be making a number of trips to do software training for TV stations updating their systems.  Keep an eye out on facebook and twitter to follow some of those adventures as well.  For all our wedding customers and potential clients, don’t worry, weddings are still part of our business plan and we will continue producing the award winning films.   This new adventure is an exciting addition to the arsenal of what Frogman Productions can provide to customers in both events and weddings and now even broadcast TV stations and studios.

Look out Vegas, the Frogman is about to show up.

Come visit us this Sunday

Our fan’s may remember the Bridal Show we were at back in November at the Quality Inn and Suites in Fitchburg.  The spring edition of the Bridal Show will be taking place this coming Sunday, March 20, 2011 and once again we will be in the show ready to show brides (and grooms) the story telling power of video. 

The cool part about this show is around the middle of the afternoon we get to do a presentation in a side room on “Documenting your wedding day.”  We will be joined by Stephanie Natale of Natale Photography to offer attendees tips and trick on how to get the best documentation of your day through the power of photography and videography and why both are important elements of your day’s documentation.   We’ll discuss things like how to work with your documentation team to get the best looking imagery possible and also how to pick the right team to capture the day to match your vision of the day.

If you are getting married or know someone who is planning their wedding let them know about the Bridal Show on 3/20.  If you attend make sure to come by and say hello and let us know you saw our blog post.

See you there.