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<!--Generated by Squarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/) on Mon, 28 May 2012 07:46:14 GMT--><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><title>Blog</title><subtitle>Blog</subtitle><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/</id><link rel="alternate" type="application/xhtml+xml" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/"/><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/atom.xml"/><updated>2012-03-22T01:01:13Z</updated><generator uri="http://www.squarespace.com/" version="Squarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/)">Squarespace</generator><entry><title>March 13, 2012 Meeting Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/3/21/march-13-2012-meeting-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/3/21/march-13-2012-meeting-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-03-22T00:58:32Z</published><updated>2012-03-22T00:58:32Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<div class="column">
<p><span><strong>REWIND - MARCH 13, 2012 LIVA MEETING<br />by Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong> </span></p>
<p><span>I guess -no, I know-that LIVA is still the pre-eminent professional videographers&rsquo; association in the Tri-State area. How do I know this?? Guests come-and the next meeting they become members (Welcome, Hope Inelli!). Members rejoin, because they just can&rsquo;t live without us (Hello again, Tony Dias!) Meetings that push the envelope and stir up controversy (that was in February) have even more people return to discuss solutions to those problems. (See below). Videographers (or cinematographers, if you prefer) join us-network-learn-and their businesses and personal growth take off to the point where we can ask them to come back and give great presentations (I&rsquo;m referring to the </span><span>April pre-meeting conference </span><span>and </span><span>meeting presentation </span><span>that will be given by </span><span>Adam Forgione of Pennylane Productions. </span><span>His four hour workshop will be held from 1-5 p.m. at the Marriott, and the cost is determined by whether you are a LIVA member or not. </span></p>
<p><span>Speaking of April, we will also have a Creative Competition, the theme of which is &ldquo;Pre- Ceremony&rdquo;. Kaipo Schwab, last month&rsquo;s First Place winner of the Concept Video Competition, presented a very concise review of his winning video at the March meeting. It was a &ldquo;Proposal Video&rdquo;(check it out on his web site, <a href="http://www.15MinutesOfFrame.com" target="_blank">15MinutesOfFrame.com</a>). Kaipo has found a way to shoot and edit concisely to give the finished product to the client for good money-on both sides. </span></p>
<p><span>We had two guests- Nicholas Giaquinto and his friend, Noam. </span></p>
<p><span>Harry Freedman, one of our newer members, who admits his shooting and editing need improvement, showed a Tribute Video that is his forte. He asked if there would be any member willling to partner with him in these ventures to make the production values top-notch. Any takers?-talk to Harry! </span></p>
<p><span>Bill Schneider, a long-time LIVA member, stepped up to the plate and demonstrated an audio program by Smart Sound-Sonic Fire Pro5. It can work as a stand-alone program, and also export and ally to other programs. Basically, using their music, which can be bought directly from inside the program, one can manufacture an instrumental piece of music to quickly fit into a video-with the ability to change many parameters of the music immediately (style, tempo, length, etc.). Bill&rsquo;s comment on the program was that &ldquo;it&rsquo;s cool when it works, but it cut out on me after using it for five hours.&rdquo; </span></p>
<p><span>Then to the Forum for the evening: </span><span>&ldquo;The Silver Lining&rdquo;-Solutions to the statement presented at the February meeting by Tim Ryan&ndash;&ldquo;Independent Wedding and Event Cinematography, as a Business, is Coming to an End&rdquo;!! </span><span>Well. Lots of discussion ensued. Here is my take on the solutions presented (in no order of importance):<br /> </span><span>S: </span><span>Diversify. Pay attention to young trends. </span><span>S: </span><span>Quality work-that combats &ldquo;McDonaldization&rdquo;.<br /> </span><span>S: </span><span>Selling your product more-new angles-sales training. </span><span>S: </span><span>Streaming video and getting on the web. </span><span>S: </span><span>Define yourself and WHAT YOU DO. Then find the clients that fit to you. Define your niche and WORK IT. </span><span>S: </span><span>Maximize your workflow. </span><span>S: </span><span>Attract brides to the LIVA web site-put out good video on it and advertise to brides. </span><span>S: </span><span>Create a &ldquo;PR&rdquo; pool from the country to aggressively market videos. </span><span>S: </span><span>Do the math right. Understand what you REALLY are getting paid for a job. </span></p>
<p><span>And how could we not end a meeting, unless it involved raffle prizes donated by our wonderful vendors and friends?? Winners tonight: the KATA Camcorder Bag (donated via Kelly Mena from B+H) to Tove Abrams, the Petrol Fanny Pack to Tim Ryan, the Focal Press book Plug-in for After Effects to Nicholas Giaquinto, the Focal Press DSLR Cinema book to Tony Dias, the Final Cut Pro book and Class on Demand card (Videoguys.com) to John Zaverdas, the H1 Digital Recorder and Class on Demand card (again, Videoguys.com) to Alex Fazi, and the Sonic Fire Pro5 program from Smart Sound to Joe Palma.&nbsp;</span></p>
</div>]]></content></entry><entry><title>February 21, 2012 Meeting Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/3/21/february-21-2012-meeting-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/3/21/february-21-2012-meeting-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-03-22T00:54:51Z</published><updated>2012-03-22T00:54:51Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<div class="column">
<p>REWIND - February 21, 2012 LIVA Meeting<br />by Tove Abrams&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>The meeting was called to order by President Joe Palma, who introduced guests John Zelenka, and Hope Schwab. New members joining tonight are Kevin Costello and Dennis (Diogenes) Goris. Welcome!! </span></p>
<p><span>Joe explained a new procedure for the Creative Competition, which will be institured this evening. From now on, the 1st place winner will receive $100 and a certificate, to be presented at the next meeting, after the winner discusses the winning video. 2nd and 3rd place certificates will also be handed out at the subsequent meeting. </span></p>
<p><span>Meetings coming up will be very interesting. In March, Bill Schneider will give a demon- stration of Sonic Fire Pro. April will see Adam Forgione presenting and also giving a pre- meeting workshop. This year the Ducks game will be August 7th, with members getting a free ticket and all others paying $13 per ticket. In September we will have another Photo/Video summit-this will be #3! And in October, &ldquo;A Day in the Park&rdquo;-keep tuned for details. </span></p>
<p><span>Tonight&rsquo;s presenter was Tim Ryan, speaking and hosting an open forum on&nbsp;</span>&ldquo;Independent Wedding and Event Cinematography, as a business, is coming to an end!&rdquo; &nbsp;The whole conversation was recorded for LIVA members-take a look, and learn, if you were not at the meeting!</p>
<p><span>The Creative Competition Theme for tonight was &ldquo;Concept Video&rdquo; and the winners were: First Place-Kaipo Schwab from 15 Minutes of Frame,&nbsp;</span>Second Place: Tim Ryan from Treasured Memories.tv and Third Place: Harry Freedman from The Ultimate Tribute Video</p>
<p><span> At the end of the evening we had our great raffle prizes as follows:<br /> Focal Press books: Film Editing to Sal Gambino, and After Effects Apprentice to Robert&nbsp;</span>Palak.<br />Music 2 Hues and 411 Directory to Steve Onderdonk<br />Studio HD Ultimate Collection to Kevin Costello<br /><span>Videoguys,com Final Cut Pro 7 Manual and Class on Demand to David Adderley <br />And the Ever-Coveted , Always Desired Petrol Bag Backpack </span><span>to David Adderley!&nbsp;</span></p>
</div>]]></content></entry><entry><title>2011 Holiday Party Montage</title><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/7/2011-holiday-party-montage.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/7/2011-holiday-party-montage.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-02-07T16:17:51Z</published><updated>2012-02-07T16:17:51Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<object id="vp1F4cWW" width="432" height="240" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1328630201&f=F4cWW3szxyCEDRKjS1Kcxw&d=208&m=p&r=360p+480p+720p&volume=100&start_res=480p&i=m&ct=http://www.videomatters.us.com&cu=&options="></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed id="vp1F4cWW" src="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1328630201&f=F4cWW3szxyCEDRKjS1Kcxw&d=208&m=p&r=360p+480p+720p&volume=100&start_res=480p&i=m&ct=http://www.videomatters.us.com&cu=&options=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="432" height="240"></embed></object>]]></content></entry><entry><title>January 10, 2012 Meeting Rewind</title><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/january-10-2012-meeting-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/january-10-2012-meeting-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-02-06T16:13:29Z</published><updated>2012-02-06T16:13:29Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>REWIND - JANUARY 10, 2012 LIVA MEETING<br />by Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>The meeting was called to order by Vice President David Adderley, since our returning President, Joe Palma, was presenting. We had four <span>guests</span>: Edwad Berch, Michael Cannavaro, Ray Estrada, and Chuck Walker; and three new <span>members!</span>: Calvin Arthur of Calart Video and Music Production, Harry Freedman of The Ultimate Tribute Video, and Tim O&rsquo;Brien of TOB Video Productions. Welcome!</p>
<p>David thanked our business partners who contributed prizes for the Holiday Party (which was great! You should have heard our resident singers, Darrell and David performing!)-Armatos, Videoguys.com, and B+H. The raffles were particularly good, and well spread out among the members-although Tim Smith, Darrell Iucci, and John Miller seemed to do very well for themselves. And Preident Joe won the big door prize, courtesy of Anton Bauer and the Vitec Group. Adobe donated the Premier Prize, which was won by Tim Smith.</p>
<p>Tim Ryan got up and thanked some members of LIVA for stepping in and helping him with a charity function that he tries to do every year- a Toys for Tots concert. Praises went to Carl Redmond for shooting and Fred Tims for editing!</p>
<p>Next month-<span>February</span>-Tim will be moderating an <span>Open Forum </span>meeting. This is always a great benefit to us all; it brings out questions, answers, and opinions which really need to be aired every once in a while. So <strong>BE PREPARED! Come to discuss this topic:</strong></p>
<p><strong>&ldquo;Independent Wedding and Event Cinematography, as a business, is coming to an end!&rdquo;</strong></p>
<p>If you disagree: why?, and how is Tim wrong? If you agree, tell us what to do to change this. In future months we will have <span>Adam Forgione </span>(<span>http://pennylaneprod.com/) </span>and our Past</p>
<p>President, <span>Steven Arecco </span>(<span>http://www.advancedvideopro.com/ </span>) as presenters. One of our members, Kelly Mena, will be presenting a <span>workshop at B+H </span>on January 24<span>th</span></p>
<p>from 1-5 p.m.. It&rsquo;s free, but you have to sign up on line. Hurry, hurry! Our <span>main presentation </span>of the night was by our President, <span>Joe Palma</span>, whose title was,</p>
<p><span><strong>&ldquo;SHORT FILMS MADE SIMPLE&rdquo;</strong></span>. With his particular brand of sincerity and cynicism combined, he set out the salient points of editing a 25-40 minute film, using the concepts of time-shifting, important audio voiceovers, and montages heavy with moments shown live. And why shorten a five hour wedding to 40 minutes?? &ldquo;People want to remember the best parts of the event&rdquo;, and he also has different length options for different people. He spoke about organization of the timelines into specific tracks (giving a nod to Chris Jones for his invaluable advice), listening for hooks and important sound bites (PluralEyes loved by all!), and how to choose music (questionnaires to the B+G). Then he showed his editing procedures in 5 lessons: his editing triage (impersonal officiants, begone!), time-shifting (but keeping the flow of the day recognizable), the Ceremony (made in Heaven for time-shifting!), the Reception (keeping the paid M.C. OUT of the audio as much as possible), and dancing (a montage with closeup work works!). And you can&rsquo;t sell it if you can&rsquo;t show it. So take a long form you have edited and re- edit it for practice!!</p>
<p>At the end of the evening we had a 50/50 raffle (winner was Darrell Iucci), and a great bunch of goodies raffled and won as follows:</p>
<p>Focal Press books: DSLR to Tim Ryan and Producing Great Sound to Joe Palma. A KATA Bag from B+H to Carl Redmond A Petrol Bag to Kursad Yonet A $250 ticket to Adam Forgione&rsquo;s Audio Seminar held at Unique in NJ to Robert Palak A headphone/microphone by Clear-Com to Fred Tims</p>
<p>Pro-Cuts 8mm to DVD transfers to Stan Kurtz and Darrell Iucci</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>November 15, 2011 Meeting Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/november-15-2011-meeting-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/november-15-2011-meeting-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-02-06T16:09:49Z</published><updated>2012-02-06T16:09:49Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>REWIND FOR NOVEMBER 15, 2011 MEETING<br />By Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>The annual election of officers was held this evening. The slate was presented as a whole, because everyone agreed to continue for the next year in their positions. So the Board was unanimously re-elected for 2012. Congratulations to Joe Palma-President, David Adderley- Vice President, Tove Abrams-Secretary, Fred Tims-Treasurer, Lou Bruno-Sgt.at Arms, and Darrell Iucci-Sgt. At Arms.</p>
<p>The first presentation of the night was from Armato&rsquo;s, with Paul, Dennis and Juan showing off the SONY NEX FS-100UK super35mm NXCAM video camera with lens. And a beauty it is, too. At $5,599 with an F3.5-6.3 lens and up to 16,00 ISO with no noise, you can run out and buy it with a discount from them up until December 15<span>th</span>!! Just in time for the Christmas weddings! More details about the camera can be found on their web site (<span>ww.armatosvideo.com </span>but basically it uses the motion picture film size, with a 1.5 degree angle of view.</p>
<p>Then Rich Topham, audio genius, presented us with a great discussion (as usual) of microphone basics, the psychology of sound, a comparison of prices for good better and best microphones, and the life of a mic (he says they can last through 5 cameras). What you realize, when Rich is speaking, is that your attainment of great audio falls short of what he recommends- and knows-as best. Do you use boom mics??-you should. Do you know about the &ldquo;proximity effect&rdquo;? (You can&rsquo;t make the mic &ldquo;reach&rdquo; farther by turning up the volume.) His sound company sells, services, and rent all audio equipment. So if you EVER have an audio problem, call Rich, day or night, for a solution. And he means it! (Professional Sound Services: <span>www.pro-sound.com </span>and his cell is 1-914-270-1173).</p>
<p>Guests Harry Friedman and Dan Brenner were welcomed this evening by Joe, and then the November Highlights Competition was run. A very high quality of presentations yielded these members as the winners: in third place-Kaipo Schwab, in second place-Robert Palach, and in first place with &ldquo;Max Loves Laura&rdquo;-David Samelman. Congratulations to all who entered!</p>
<p>The Holiday Party will be on Monday, December 12<span>th </span>(7-11) at the Chateau Briand. Once again we will have wonderful Chinese Auction prizes to raffle off, courtesy of our many sponsors, vendors and friends. And LIVA will raffle off baskets to delight the non-video senses: &ldquo;Clean Dreams&rdquo;, &ldquo;Caf&eacute; et Chocolat&rdquo;, &ldquo;Oenophile&rsquo;s Delight&rdquo; and &ldquo;Tea for Two Without the Music&rdquo;. Come join the cameraderie!! Eat, drink, and be Merry with us!!</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>October 12, 2011 Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/october-12-2011-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/6/october-12-2011-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-02-06T16:06:46Z</published><updated>2012-02-06T16:06:46Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>October 12, 2011 Rewind<br />by Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p><strong>Our October meeting consisted primarily of two big parts: the first being Dennis Radeke discussing and illustrating Adobe 5.5 , and Jon Armendariz with his topic of &ldquo;Creating Memorable Highlight Films&rdquo;.</strong></p>
<p>Radeke spoke about the production package, and what it contained (Audition-with one very new piece called the Heat wave, which shows a spectral view of the amplitude-very useful for an audio-heal, but only for about a half-second).(And a warp stabilizer in After Effects) The color correction work space has a very fast and a three-way color corrector. The Media Browser in Premier Pro is very useful, as is the Adobe Media Encoder. The main feature of Premiere Pro CS5.5 is the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, built using the NVIDIA&reg; CUDATM parallel processing architecture. Accelerated by Quadro, you get real-time previewing and editing of native, high-resolution footage, including multiple layers of RED 4K video. In other words, FAST processing! Finally, Radeke mentioned tow other software products useful in conjuction with Adobe: the Red Giant Magic Bullet third party plug-in and PluralEyes for syncing up audio and videoclips.</p>
<p>Jon Armendariz creates highlight films, full-length features, 20-25 minutes in length. His company is New York Filmworks ( <span>www.nyfilmworks.com </span>). He puts a great emphasis on finding music (and avoiding mainstream music) that is very romantic or highlights the personalities of the couples he meets. He uses the emotion being conveyed to give directions to his pieces, and tries to customize each piece to the particular couple. Jon went into detail about some of the equipment he uses ( Canon 5D, 70-200 mm lens, 24 p, Frezzi 100 watt light with a soft box) . He figures he may spend 70-75 hours editing, with a 6-8 month turnaround time.</p>
<p>For audio he tendds to use an Edirol lavalier, and a Sennheiser lav of the officiant, with a Tascam on the podium and the H4N to the sound system.</p>
<p>What Jon REALLY does, however, is make superb, short, films for his very appreciative clients, and he was gracious in allowing LIVA members privy to some of his work concepts.</p>
<p>Raffles, raffles, raffles&ndash;the BIG prize tonight was the Adobe Production Suite 5.5, donated so generously by ADOBE. And the BIG WINNER was (drum roll):</p>
<p>Bill Schneider!! Also: David Samelman won a song , a shirt , and a training class on demand;</p>
<p>Kursad won a book and a training class; and Kaipo won a book and a song.</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>September 13, 2011 Meeting Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/5/september-13-2011-meeting-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2012/2/5/september-13-2011-meeting-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2012-02-05T16:17:00Z</published><updated>2012-02-05T16:17:00Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>REWIND FOR SEPTEMBER 13, 2011 MEETING<br />by Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>President Joe welcomed our guest, Kyle Doyle, and two new members, Kelly Mina from B+H, and John Zaverdas. He reminded everyone that there are some great meetings coming up in the future; October 11<span>th </span>will be our own Jon Armendariz, then in November-on the <strong>third </strong>Tuesday-we will have the audio guru, Rich Topham, speaking on advanced audio techniques. Monday, December 12<span>th<span> </span></span>brings our annual fun-filled (trust me!) Holiday Party, and it&rsquo;s not too soon to buy your tickets! $60 for one member or $100 with one guest, and $75 for all non- members.</p>
<p>Nominations were opened for November elections for the Board of Directors. The Board members presently serving all have stated their willingness to continue in their positions, and there were no nominations from the floor . There will be another chance to be nominated in October.</p>
<p>LIVA then had a great &ldquo;HOW DO YOU......??&rdquo; session--Briefly annotated here: HDY use an EX-1 bracket? Joe: can get one identical to Sony&rsquo;s for $138 from Japan</p>
<p>(extremedeals.com). HDY send a large file? YouSendIt, Dropbox, Put it on Vimeo, Exposure Room HDY change the 720p to 1920x1080? Gary: Mpeg stream HDY keep track of your files from different shooters and cameras, and then back up and archive</p>
<p>them? Joe: pencil and paper. Bill: screen grabs of each drive. Carl: Spread sheet template. Archiving: Joe-use Blu-rays. &ldquo;Toast&rdquo; will span the drive across more than one drive (Roxio Creative Pro).</p>
<p>HDY go from Mac to PC to Mac software? Tim: Win7 recognizes the Mac. Gary: all hard drives have to be on fat 32-it&rsquo;s a one-way thing-a 4GB limit. HDY take slides and convert them? Tove: use <strong>Scancafe</strong>- slides are scanned at 3000 dpi and</p>
<p>color corrected for as little as 21 cents/slide. HDY make a Construction video? Carl Redmond showed his wonderful piece!!</p>
<p>Our presenter for the evening , through the miracle of Skype, was Bill Gaff, of HumanStoryFilms.com. He was an editor before a shooter, and approaches his work in wedding films through an interview and story-driven format. He uses Final Cut 10, has three crews and does 20-50 weddings per year, with a turn-around-time depending on the season. He likes to act like a lone journalist (carry all you need with you) and keep the equipment simple. When asked how he delivers his final product, he said that he does not send DVDs, just electronic submissions and raw footage, that can be played on Apple TV, iTunes, set-top boxes-the files he uploads are 2-4GB. A price range of $3000 to show up and shoot,to a high end of $7000 is typical for his work. And to get the word about his business out, he uses blogs, web site, and word-of-mouth. The questions and answers flew, and Gaff was very open and interesting</p>
<p>Raffles, once again donated through the courtesy of our sponsors and friends: Winners were : Bill Schneider ($70) for the 50/50 raffle</p>
<p>Irv Goldberg-Focal Press Book-&ldquo;Reality Check&rdquo; David Adderley-Focal Press Book-&ldquo;Focus on Photoshop&rdquo; Sal Gambino and Tove Abrams-2 free songs from The Music Bed Carl Redmond-Studio HD and More Virtual Studio Irv Goldberg-Ultimate Studio and Virtual Studio<br />Tim Ryan-Sony Vegas 10 and Full Training DVD</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>February - Rewind</title><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2011/2/21/february-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2011/2/21/february-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2011-02-21T20:39:46Z</published><updated>2011-02-21T20:39:46Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>REWIND - February 8, 2011 LIVA Meeting<br />By Tove Abrams<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109437&amp;id=1496957465&amp;fbid=1829979518041" target="_blank">Click Here to View Photos of the Night Courtesy of LIVA Member Tom Markiewicz&nbsp;</a></strong></p>
<p>Extremely well-attended by members, new members and many guests, the special seminar on GlideCams by <strong>Dave Williams of Cinema Cake </strong>was a highlight of this winter. Speaking about what to do and what NOT to do with glidecams, he divided the seminar into both great shots you can do, and the techniques for doing them. Accompanied by <strong>Jimmy Shelton </strong>(who does many of the trailers and weddings with Williams&rsquo; company- <span>www.cinemacake.com </span>), Dave asked people to look for the unexpected and the creative moments in social events. He discussed &ldquo;following shots&rdquo;, &ldquo;establishing shots&rdquo;, &ldquo;dance floor&rdquo; and decor shots. He demonstrated the slow and subtle ways to use the glidecam, and the &ldquo;W-M- D&rdquo; (wide, medium and detail) shots.</p>
<p>When discussing techniques, he showed how to get the &ldquo;happy balance&rdquo; (actually, the dynamic balance) of the camera on the pendulum stick and weights beneath, and the great importance of how to hold the gimbel part of the glidecam (with three magic fingers!) so that one could move elegantly. He demonstrated-and helped many members who had brought their cameras-how to adjust the plate when changing lenses, how to walk, and how to be aware of the baalnce differences that may occur during a shoot.</p>
<p>Later, in the Q+A by Jimmy, things such as &ldquo;auto ISO (for going from outdoor to indoor and not using aperture priority)&rdquo; - and trying not to do auto anything - were discussed. After the break and Q+A, the <strong>Concept Competition </strong>was held. Five entrants sought to create the perfect &ldquo;stand-alone video segment that is organized around a main social event, and that brings into focus, in a short time span, any central theme or concept&rdquo;. <strong>First place went to Jonathan Armendariz of New York Film Works </strong>for a Love Story Documentary, Second Place to Tony Diaz of Tony Diaz Video, and Third Place to Joe Palma of JPI Films.</p>
<p>There were many raffle prizes donated by our great sponsors and supporters. LIVA made a lotof money to go to programming! The winners were:</p>
<p>Greg Appison for the Studio HD book from Focal Press and $100 coupon from Pro-Cuts for editing services; David Adderley for another $100 Pro-Cuts certificate and a $120 Big Bucks certificate; Jon-Michael Onderdonk for a Hoodman from Videoguys.com; Jonathan Armendariz for DSLR Cinema from Focal Press; four Training DVDs from Videoguys.com were won by James Doukas, Bob Troy, Tom Markewitz and David Samelman, Susan Karejwa for Virtual Studio Sets HD vol.1&mdash;and the <strong>grand prize of the evening, donated by Dave Williams-theGlidecam 4000 Pro was won by David Adderley</strong>! Congratulations to all!</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>October - Rewind</title><category term="Rewind"/><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2010/11/1/october-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2010/11/1/october-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2010-11-01T20:53:44Z</published><updated>2010-11-01T20:53:44Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>REWIND - October 13, 2010 LIVA Meeting<br />By Tove Abrams&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>&ldquo;The State of the Industry&rdquo;&ndash;quite a subject for the Open Forum for the evening, but with Tim Ryan at the host&rsquo;s helm, much was talked about, and much was accomplished.</p>
<p>The following is a pastiche of notes-do with them what you will! &ldquo;The stand-alone video business is no longer viable in 2011-true or false?&rdquo;:</p>
<p>Dave S.- False. How you market and position yourself in the industry makes a&nbsp;difference.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Brides want HD??&rdquo; Yes, when they see the quality difference.</p>
<p>John: you will book by referral and word of mouth. Shooting in HD is easier than SD.</p>
<p>Kaipo: I book by photographers and event planners. Video works better on line.</p>
<p>Darrell: I changed my approach and started offering photographers as well.</p>
<p>Gary: Selling yourself is the approach. Show anything that you produce at a wedding-it&nbsp;gets to many eyeballs.</p>
<p>Jon-Michael: something up on a screen brings in more&nbsp;business.</p>
<p>John: Kaipo is tagging his videos (and sending out questionnaires to brides and grooms)&nbsp;on Facebook.</p>
<p>Consensus: put videos on Facebook, on Vimeo, tag everything, put your stuff up in your&nbsp;groups.</p>
<p>The copyright issue: keeping copyrighted material under 30 seconds and you can use it.</p>
<p>Kaipo: can get around the issue by using voices over the music. It&rsquo;s more&nbsp;emotional for brides and the music is not as recognizable.</p>
<p>Presenting your work:</p>
<p>Gary: deliver work to clients on iPads, phones, logos on everything you produce.</p>
<p>Carl: announce your video-or &ldquo;film&rdquo;-using the DJ&rsquo;s mike at your event. Business plans: write one and re-evaluate it constantly. Carl: The recession has changed business plans in past 3 years. Think of what add-ons&nbsp;you can sell to a bridal couple (honeymoon, first anniversary-even first baby).</p>
<p>Joe: Jobs and backlogs- are we creating too long a wait to get a job out?</p>
<p>Tim: Ten years ago there were 23,000 weddings in Nassau/Suffolk. Last year there&nbsp;were only 15,000 weddings. Steve: It&rsquo;s easier today to get the gear, but they&rsquo;re diluting the industry. Tim: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Good Enough&rdquo; seems to be the new motto. Also, people aren&rsquo;t in the parties,&nbsp;they&rsquo;re recording them!</p>
<p>The business part of the meeting: Darrell Iucci was nominated for the opening at Sgt-at-Arms and accepted the nomination. There were no other nominations, so the current slate of officers, including Darrell, was accepted by the membership and will be the new Board for 2011.</p>
<p>President Joe told the members that Chris Jones will be at the November meeting via Skype, and Dave Williams will discuss GlideCams in January. The December &ldquo;meeting&rdquo; will be our annual Holiday Party at Chateau Briand, and members are requested to give any new ideas for vendors for auction prizes to Tim.</p>
<p>Steve Gaines attended the DV Expo in California, and said that HDSLR&rsquo;s were very big, and also 3D cameras by Panasonic (at $22,000) and JVC&rsquo;s 2D to 3D for $30,000.</p>
<p>Carl Redmond demonstrated his slider by Kessler City (-goes for around $1200), and the &ldquo;Think Tank&rdquo; vest, with pouches for photo lenses. You can find it online ($40 for the harness, $40 for the belt, and $25 for each pouch).During the Networking part of future meetings, we will have training videos playing (courtesy of Gary and Videoguys.com).</p>
<p>It was mentioned that member Adam Forgione will be giving workshops in New Jersey at Unique Photo soon.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s New with Lou&rdquo; Bruno gave a brief demonstration of the Sony HVR270 and why he likes it so much-reasons being that it has both a 4.5 hour tape plus a 32GB flash drive-great backup. Plus the features of four channels of audio, large LCD, good in low light, a 12x lens-for around $7200.</p>
<p>A &ldquo;Wish List&rdquo; paper was passed out to all members by Dave A.-to be returned with anything members want to see as programming in the future.</p>
<p>At the end of the night, our famous raffles were won by Tove (&ldquo;Fix It in Post&rdquo; from Focal Press), Tove ($50 gift certificate from Videoguys.com), Angelo (&ldquo;How to Cheat in AfterEffects&rdquo;), and Carl (a laptop Petrol bag).</p>]]></content></entry><entry><title>July - Rewind</title><id>http://www.liva.org/blog/2010/7/28/july-rewind.html</id><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.liva.org/blog/2010/7/28/july-rewind.html"/><author><name>Joe</name></author><published>2010-07-28T23:09:32Z</published><updated>2010-07-28T23:09:32Z</updated><content type="html" xml:lang="en-US"><![CDATA[<p><strong>Rewind - July 13, 2010 LIVA Meeting<br />By Tove Abrams</strong></p>
<p>According to the attendees at the &ldquo;Day with Ray&rdquo; Roman at Planting Fields Arboretum (who also came to the evening LIVA meeting), the hands-on learning was well worth the trip (and the rain!). With a great catered lunch provided, and with willing &ldquo;Bride&rdquo; Nicole (Fred Tim&rsquo;s niece), &ldquo;Groom&rdquo; Sean (friend of Nicole), and &ldquo;makeup artist&rdquo; Destiny Nicole's friend, Ray could demonstrate his winning ways with camera and monopod (and Slider and Steadicam, too). Kudos to Fred Tims for his work in getting the Manor House at the Arboretum for us to use! Then back at the Marriott in the afternoon, Ray&rsquo;s editing skills were demonstrated as well to the attendees.</p>
<p>At the evening meeting, President Joe Palma encouraged members to come to the Long Island Ducks Game on Tuesday, August 10<span>th</span>-tickets at $30 for adults and $24 for children under 9 years can be gotten from Tim Ryan. This is a great social time in the summer for LIVA members to meet, greet&ndash;and eat!!</p>
<p>LIVA&rsquo;s newest member were Jonathan Armendariz, who joined before the meeting, and a returning member in Gerald Sievers were at the July meeting, along with a number of guests. Thanks to the following for coming: Chip Pecere, Jonathan Pecere, Danielle Roche, Julie Radino, Mike Picard, Geoff Boka, Nicholas Razgony and John Bilski.</p>
<p>On September 14<span>th </span>LIVA will sponsor our Video/Photo Summit II-the evening will be explained in more detail in August.</p>
<p>LIVA&rsquo;s good wishes went out to Prem Samaroo, a New Dad-and Jason D&rsquo;Amore, a Dad-to-be!</p>
<p>Tim Ryan then hosted the Brown Bag Review of three non-winning entries from this year&rsquo;s competition. Many comments of positive and constructive substance were contributed by the members there. And even though one doesn&rsquo;t have to reveal one&rsquo;s identity as the video author, two members did -to explain their reasons for the music, the effects, etc. Educationally rewarding with lively discussion!</p>
<p>Jim Kennedy (affectionately-and truthfully-known as Founder) said that there will be a free (to LIVA members) seminar by the renowned photographer Clay Blackmoor on Wednesday, August 18<span>th </span>at the Brentwood Campus of Suffolk County Community College at 6:30 p.m. &nbsp;<a href="http://www.berger-bros.com/page/BBCVD/PROD/Clay_Blackmore_Seminar" target="_blank">Click here for Registration Details!</a></p>
<p>Our main presenter of the evening, eloquently introduced by his friend, Adam Forgione, was Ray Roman of Ray Roman Films (<span>www.rayromanfilms.com) </span>-who, along with his wife and partner, has become an eminent force in great wedding videography in the past four years. The topic that he presented to us was &ldquo;The Art of the Short Form Wedding&rdquo;. It is his belief that applying the basic fundamentals to your work truly separates the men/women from the boys/girls; fundamentals such as solid composition, good lighting, necessary content (speeches, vows, ring exchange), solid audio, and color balance and grading-with the use of the camera and monopod in 70-80% of the work. His DSLR-shot weddings, averaging twenty to thirty minutes, try to show the best of the video in the same manner that a Wedding Photo Album shows the best of the photographs taken. He rates his weddings as &ldquo;R&rdquo;-for Romantic!</p>
<p>Educating the potential clients by showing an actual wedding is one of the best ways to win over the &ldquo;longer video is better&rdquo; people, and he would agree with Mies Van der Rohe that &ldquo;less is more&rdquo;!He takes great pains to make a polished video (grading color, correcting audio if needed using Soundsoap, editing backward with music to make the climactic spots agree with the video climaxes, and cutting the music to appropriate lengths).</p>
<p>Ray customizes all his packages, feeling that, for an artist to be paid well for his talents and time, it is necessary to fully understand what will be happening at the wedding and reception before establishing a price, because so much effort goes into post-production of a short form wedding film. A rock solid contract, a willing client, a talented man with an eye for the beauty, ceremony and unexpected joys of the day&ndash;and you have Ray Roman Films!</p>
<p>Using the new raffle drum to great effect ( to V.P. Dave-the drum does NOT need the overhead shake rattle and roll technique to work!), the raffles were dispersed as fairly as centrifugal and centripetal force can be exerted. The winners were Alex Fazi (Petrol Laptop bag, and Video Essentials 1,2,and 3 from NewBlueFX), Kaipo Schwab (Cinematic Theory and Practice from Focal Press), John Hyland (Video Essentials 1 from NewBlueFX)and Julie Radino (Adobe CS5 Production Premium Focal Press Book). Discount coupons for 25% off were also given to us from NewBlueFX-and thanks once again to all our merchants who provide raffles to help LIVA bring great programs to the video community!</p>]]></content></entry></feed>
