Dan and Jane get married.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The title sounds like a kids book doesn’t it.  Well Dan and Jane were as much fun as kids to work with.  Lots of laughing all day long and lots of fun.  Sherry monitors the grooms wireless during the ceremony and said they were laughing all the time during the ceremony at St. Maria Goretti.  

Dan and Jane’s photographer, Julie Zahn, sent us a few photos to use in the blog so thanks Julie for the photos shown here. 

When the ceremony was over it was off to the reception at Nakoma CountryClub.  Once the reception started the Todd, DJ from Celebrations Entertainment, ran a great party as they always do.

Since Dan and Jane had one of our movie packages I built a movie trailer for them.  After dinner there were a few minutes for Julie and I to get a couple of pretty shots on the golf course.  I set up a really nice shot of the Dan and Jane walking away down the cart path and figured it would be perfect for the end of a movie trailer.  When going through the clips for the day to build the trailer I found something even better for the ending.  You will just have to watch the trailer to see it.  As for the walkaway on the cart path….well who knows how the full edit will unfold.

Click below to view the movie trailer.

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Allow me to brag a little.

No I don’t want to brag about myself but about my wonderful wife, Sherry.  You see about 5-6 years ago she decided she wanted to establish a healthier lifestyle and I was more than happy to join her.  Fast forward to now and between the 2 of us we have lost more weight than either of us weigh right now.  That is pretty cool.

One of Sherry’s goals when she started working out was to walk in the Syttende Mai walk that takes place on Saturday of the Syttende Mai festival here in Stoughton.  The walk is a 17.5 mile walk from Madison to Stoughton through the countryside.  Lots of hills and pretty views.   The pretty views are a treat.  The hills….well let’s just say they do add to the scenic views when you are walking. 

We awoke this morning and the temps were in the 40’s with strong gusty winds.  Not the best setup for a 17+ mile walk.  As we rode to the starting line we realized the wind would be at our back for most of the way. Sure enough there was only one small stretch where we walked into the wind.  Thank goodness.  It would not have been much fun walking straight into a brisk wind all morning.  I am sure the cool temps and the tailwind really helped the runners record great personal times.  Not the best conditions be we made it in pretty good time. 

I can’t tell you how proud I was of Sherry when it was over.  She has worked so hard to be healthy and it shows.  She looks great as you can see in the picture and she absolutely loves working out.  She has become a fitness nut in a good kind of way.  I’m not quite as crazy about working out but know I need to do it to remain healthy and to keep up with her.  I enjoy working out just not quite as much as Sherry.   Her new goal….run (not walk) the 5K Crazy Legs run in Madison next year.  I’m up for that.  Part of my training was some light running and I was up to 2 miles so I’m in for the run.  When it comes to being healthy my wife is my idol. 

I had a little cheap $100 video camera laying around so I hauled it along and created the following little video showing some of the fun we had on the walk.  We were lucky enough to walk with some friends from church, George and Cindi and some of their friends, the Wilsons.

Here’s the little video I made up.  Nothing fancy but fun.

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How we get inspired.

Have you ever wondered how we get inspiration for edits, how we come up with fresh ideas?  Well there is nothing we as editors will ever do that hasn’t already been done somewhere in a movie somewhere.  Lots of my ideas get inspired by things I have seen in other wedding videos and often times from a movie I have seen. 

I was recently editing Jason and Marla Kolbeck’s wedding video and had a movie inspiration for their highlights.  You see, Jason used to be a golf pro so I knew he was a huge golf fan.  Just turns out Sherry and I have recently fell in love with a great movie that was recently released telling about a great historical figure from the golf world.  It is set in the early 1900s.  When you put first play the movie there is a small video preview that plays leading up to the main menus for the DVD.  As I watched portions of the movie for some ideas to work into Jason and Marla’s highlights I realized this introduction to the DVD menus was perfect.  I set out to use that feel and look to start their highlights.  It starts with some sepia toned footage and slowly starts getting more color.  When Marla walks in the church we are at full color resolution.  It subtly builds from sepia to full color at the peak of the video.  There are some graphical elements in the beginning that could have been done much more “movie like” but would have taken extensive amounts of time to create.  I used more simple techniques to give the same feel. 

I thought you may be interested in seeing the result of a recent inspiration reflected in our work.  It’s up to you to figure out the name of the movie.  Here’s their highlights.

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An Industry Announcement

On Tuesday, March 17th 2009, EventDV magazine began a three day series of announcements on their internet TV channel found at www.eventdv-tv.com.  The announcements are regarding the results of a recent industry wide vote of readers from all over the world.  The vote was for the Top 25 most influential event videographers.  For the first time Frogman Productions has made the list.  EventDV magazine is distributed worldwide and has a distribution of over 20,000.

Obviously we are very excited about the news.  Over the last few years, we as a company, have been working hard not just making wedding videos for our many happy customers but also helping others learn to be successful business people doing what they love….making event videos.  We have spoke around the upper mid-west at various videographer user groups and made multiple presentations at the national conventions.  We’ve had the pleasure of hosting a few videographers on ride-alongs of a wedding shoot to see what we are up to. One even travelled from Atlanta to join us for the weekend.  It has been a fun few years to say the least.

If you would like to see the episode where Frogman Productions is announced you can at the following link.

An entertaining day

You may remember reading about a fun wedding we shot last year in LaCrosse, WI.  The wedding took place on the Julia Belle Swain riverboat.  Todd and Jennifer kept us laughing and having fun with them all day long.  We delivered their Wedding Movie recently and I got to thinking it was just fun and quirky enough to be different than traditional weddings and thought I would share it with everyone. 

A Wedding Movie is our premiere package level that includes a shortened version of your whole day.  Where a regular package may be 2+ hours a wedding movie shortens it down to about 30 minutes.  The Wedding Movie allows us to be a little creative and tell a story in a little different form than a traditional documentary type of wedding edit. 

Todd and Jennifer, as you will see, did not want to do many things the normal way.  If you have time and feel like watching a full Wedding Movie click below.  It is about 30 minutes long so it may take a few moments to start playing depending on your internet speed.

 

Get some popcorn and enjoy the movie.

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Love is in the air

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What else would you expect on Valentines Day.  Love was in the air.  We don’t get many opportunities for winter weddings so the chance to make a wedding video on Valentines Day was just too good a chance to pass up.  After all it is a day made for love.   Nathanael and Amber took advantage of Valentines Day by getting married.

The day started at the historic Luther Memorial Church in Madison.   It snowed a little on Friday before the wedding.  Of course it did.  It was Friday the 13th.  The skies cleared and Saturday dawned with blue skies and great weather.  It was a beutiful day in Wisconsin.  

A big thank you to Barry Lewis of Lewis Photography for the photos shown above.  After the ceremony it was off to get setup for the reception at Maple Bluff Country Club.  One other person I have to thank for making the day run smoothly was the wedding planner, Bill, The Wedding Guy.  Bill really kept things running on schedule and kept us all organized.

Nathanael and Amber had a beautiful day and I would like to congratulate them on the beginning of their life together.

Here’s a small movie trailer we put together for their wedding.

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Front Page News

As many of you may know, we at Frogman Productions strive to be a leader in our industry not only locally but also nationally and internationally.  We have even won a few awards on an international scale.  One thing we have always enjoyed was how much help we got starting out from leaders within the videography community.  We learned so much from them.  We have attempted to give back to others starting out as my way of saying thanks.

We have had the opportunity over the last few years to establish a reputation for Frogman Productions within the videography community beyond the borders of Wisconsin.  One thing that has helped us is an event video magazine called EventDV.  It is a leading resource for the wedding and event video industry.  It started a few years ago when the staff followed us on a Same Day Edit and documented what we did and how our work flow unfolded during the edit.  The story can be seen here.  Since that beginning we have been fortunate enough to be allowed to write reviews, tutorials and articles for the magazine.  Our latest article was on finding a good light for use at a reception and we happened to make the front page of the magazine.  Now that is cool.  Very exciting for us. 

We are excited with this new first for Frogman Productions.  We love to help others and share our knowledge.  Whether it is speaking at conventions, having other videographers “ride along” with us on a wedding shoot, or providing reviews and tutorials for EventDV magazine.  This is our most recent exciting happening.  We had to share it with everyone.

To see or not to see? My thoughts

I know lots of times one of the things a bride and groom have to decide on right away after they are engaged is will they see each other before the ceremony.  Tradition says NO!  Having done many weddings now over 9 seasons I have grown to appreciate both arguments.  I understand those that don’t want to see each other before the ceremony and those that do.  This blog article explains the argument FOR seeing each other before the wedding.

Many customers don’t want to see each other before the wedding because that magical moment when the bride walks in just won’t be the same.  My experience has been that most of the time the groom’s reaction when he sees the bride walk in is just as emotional when he has already seen the bride before the wedding.  The same with the bride seeing the groom.  There’s just something about the “moment” that emotionally charges you (as well it should).  One way to assure that special moment of seeing each other for the first time is a special moment is to setup a private time for a few minutes when you see each other before the ceremony.  Sometimes that can happen in the church or at a pre-determined location.  The videographer and photographer can cover this as personally as you want or from a distance to honor your quiet time.  It’s your call. 

Another reason to see each other before the wedding and have most of the photos finished, and this is from a wedding planner, is because the brides hair, makeup and dress are still perfect.  After the ceremony your hair and makeup may have slipped a little and your dress may be a little dirty especially if the wedding was outdoors. 

Here’s another benefit of seeing each other before the ceremony.  In June we did Josh and Amy’s wedding at the Olympia Spa and Resort in Oconomowoc.   They chose to see each other before the ceremony and so the photographer, Justine from Justpix could take them off site for some extended time of romantic photos.  We got to go along off site and between the footage at the resort and off site we got some incredible shots.  It also helped that Josh and Amy really wanted these photos and video to be good so they factored in lots of time for us to do all this before the wedding.  Normally our preceremony video is about the bride getting ready, sometimes the groom getting ready and usually some of the individual formal photo session before the ceremony.  Their preceremony clip was so much more than that as you can see below.  This was possible because they saw each other before the ceremony and gave the videographer and photographer lots of time to do what we do best….be creative.

I’m not telling all my customers and potential customers they should see each other before the ceremony.  I just wanted to let you know some of the reasons people opt to see each other first. 

Click below to see Josh and Amy’s Preceremony Video.

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We’re back!

Some of you may have known we were gone for awhile but if you didn’t we just returned from a few weeks in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, FL visiting family and doing some work.  We had a little fun along the way as well.  Some of you remember last year where I created a post in the fun stuff section of the blog chronicling our trip through the eyes of “Tad” our stuffed frog.  Well that was lots of work so I decided to take it easy this year. 

If you are interested here are some highlights from our trip.  Right after arriving my little brother, Steve, hosted a cookout in his back yard.  Below is a picture of his pool and tiki hut where we ate.  Quite a nice little setup and we had a good time.  That’s his crazy dog on the right.  You throw a toy and he will grab it and run in circles around the pools.  Too dumb to know that if he gives it back you will throw it again.  When he is tired of running in circles he usually drops it in the pool so you have to swim after it. Crazy dog.

Below is also a family shot of everyone around the pool.  I won’t try and list everyone out.  Sherry stayed at her brother’s in Ft. Lauderdale that night to see our niece play basketball so she is not in the picture.  My parents are in the chair and my aunt and uncle from Houston were even there so it was a good family time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day while there Sherry’s brother wanted to make a trip to the Bass Pro Shops in Ft. Lauderdale.  Right next to it is the International Fishing Hall of Fame.  Sherry and I decided to check it out later in the week with my parents and make a day of it.   The main entrance showed all kinds of record size fish with plaques on the floor explaining the size and who caught them.  Was quite interesting to see them all.  There were boatloads of other fun things to do there.  One room had virtual fishing where I caught a 126 pound Blue Marlin and Sherry got a 5 pound Bass.  It was very realistic and quite fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the fishing hall of fame we headed to a big park where they have a huge RC Flying park for planes.  I used to mess around with RC planes and have always enjoyed aviation so my dad thought we would have fun there.  Wow is all I can say.  There were some expensive toys at that place and lots of great pilots as well.  Below are a few pics from there.  Yes those are RC jets.  The camo one is an A10 Tank Killer that was absolutely huge.  I have never seen anything like it. Unfortunately we didn’t get to stay long enough to see it fly.  There is another shot of a jet there that we did see fly.  Those things are crazy.  They have real ramjet engines and sound like a real jet flying and they are fast too.  Way cool and I bet very expensive.  The other pic was a nice 1/4 scale stunt plane doing some tricks.  The pilot was excellent and doing some very difficult tricks.  Overall a very fun day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also did lots of fishing from my brother-in-laws back yard and boat.  Sherry and I both enjoyed sitting outside and enjoying the sun and sipping coffee.  We got a little work done as well but took some time to enjoy family and warm weather.  What a shock to come home to -10 degrees and I hear we missed the coldest temps by one day.  Don’t worry, we have no plans to move south anytime soon, but it did cross our minds a few times.

It’s good to be back and ready to get rolling on more wedding edits. 

 

A feel good story

Over a year ago we shot a wedding for another company that did photo and video for customers.  They had accidentally double booked a date and hired us to shoot the video portion of the day.  Unfortunately the photographer studio is now out of business.  The customers, Krischan and Sarah, managed to get their footage back from the closed studio.   They contacted us to edit the wedding since we had shot it.  We were able to help Krischan and Sarah and just tonight we got this nice note from them.

My husband and I cannot express our gratitude to Philip Hinkle and Frogman Productions enough.  Here’s our story-
 
Scene 1- We booked our videographer through our photographer. Turns out that our photographer double booked the videography for our wedding and with only 2 weeks before the big day had to outsource it. Enter Philip and Frogman Productions. They called us ahead of time and made sure that we had everything in order. They were a ton of fun on the wedding day - we were happy to have them there and thankful for the save!
 
Scene 2- Although Frogman was responsible for shooting the footage, they had to give it back to the photographer at the end of the day for editing through his company. Over a YEAR later, we did not have our video and our photographer had packed up and gone out of business without letting anyone know. It was a nightmare and scary to think that we wouldn’t ever see those memories. We called Frogman to see if there was any chance that they had a backup copy but unfortunately they did not. They did however feel awful for the situation and offered to help us if we could get even the raw footage back.
 
Scene 3- Miracle. We were able to get the raw footage back (the story is too long to write in this testimonial…). We called Philip right away and he worked with us on figuring out the best editing options for the right price in the least amount of time (considering we had already paid in full for this once…). Frogman Productions and Philip Hinkle were responsive and kept us in the loop throughout their editing of the video. Everything was on time and everything was great. We were able to get the full video and two beautiful highlight clips as well. They worked with us until everything was “just right”. Philip even made one of the highlight clips into an iPhone version (which we never knew we wanted but we really love)!
 
End of story- we are so thankful for Frogman Productions. Not only did they give us back a day that we thought we wouldn’t ever be able to relive, but they also restored our faith in the wedding industry. It sounds trite, but it’s honest. Philip Hinkle and Frogman Productions have our 100% recommendation- you won’t regret working with them.

It was a pleasure to help Krischan and Sarah have a happy ending to their story.  Good luck to you both and a long happy marriage full of wonderful memories. 

Here is the highlight clip we created for them.

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