Photo Videos and Photo Montages

A photo video is a simple way to protect and bring to life your family's precious memories. We'll edit your photos to music and create a customized unique keepsake on DVD.Photo Video Keepsakes make wonderful gifts for family members. They are a fantastic and creative way to preserve your family's history for generations to come. Everyone can also now have DVD copies of those priceless family moments.

You may want to incorporate videos and home movie film in your Photo/Video Keepsake. View and decide what portions of your home movies you would like to include in the piece. Home Video Studio can transfer that material into a format and include that in your Photo/Video Keepsake

To save time and money prepare your materials before talking to us about your Photo/Video Keepsake.

First make the tough decision -- which photos to choose and which to lose. We suggest you make a "YES" pile and a "NO" pile, putting all the photos that you may want to use in the "YES" pile and all the rest in the "NO" pile. WARNING: This step is way too much fun, so don't get caught looking at each photo for more then a moment! Try to zero in on the photos that will tell your family's story the best. Think of your Photo/Video Keepsake as a story with a beginning, middle and an end,

Gather all of your YES photos together. We suggest you put them in chronological order. Start with the early photos and work your way forward to the present day. You may have some photos or groups of photos that will work better in their own little chronological sequences; such as, career, job or business photos, house photos, lake home photos, vacations, grand-kids, etc. You can even accent these by using a special music theme or select popular songs of the time. for each group and perhaps even giving each group its own title; for instance, you could place the title "Our Babies" before the grandchildren group. Think of your Photo/Video Keepsake as a story with a beginning, middle and an end.

         Number your photos on the back with either a pencil or stickers (post-it notes work well). DO NOT USE a pen as the ink may rub off onto the other photos. This is also the time to start thinking about music and titles. You'll at least want a greeting at the beginning and some closing statement at the end of your video. For example, if you are making an anniversary video, you could simply put "Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad" at the beginning and "With Love, From All Of Us" at the end. Or, if you wish, you can be more personal and creative in your titles. Why not use some poetry or a favorite quotation?

Yeah that's it!

That logo means video!

Are You Ready

Defeeters! Lake Oswego Soccer Club State champions! The parents surprised the team with the video at party celebrating the teams success. Please to enjoy all the videos and watch this space for more.

Think about video for your website. Low cost product demos, training  for your clients or employees or a "how to" segment educating your clients and the public at large. Produce from your ideas and footage or start from scratch with a production company. Video is not something "extra" when thinking about a website it is as vital as your logo and your contact information.  It does not have to cost a lot to look cool. Think about your clients and what they need. Think about your product or service and create a video that will illuminate, educate, entertain and inform. Create. "The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." Linus Pauling said that and he's from Oregon! You can even put a monkey in the video!

On the Verge

We are on the verge of something, of what we are not sure. Starting a business during these economic times is daunting at least and challenging at best. My timing is questionable but I have to say in my darkest times I feel secure in the fact that I won't be laid off. The dynamics of being self employed are well known, the employees are lazy and the boss in an asshole. The journey has been one of self discovery, educational, enlightening and what the fuck was I thinking. I am wearing three hats, technician, manager and entrepreneur. The problem is I have just the one head.

A new favorite product has been Keepsake Videos, photos and video put to music for anniversaries, birthdays and the general celebration of life set to music. I have enjoyed the compilation of milestones and signposts of strangers' lives and my unique ability to manipulate and elicit, I hope, some emotion with these short stories. Sorting through stacks of snaps and slides, digging through digital archives of the past. A voyeuristic endeavor that satisfies the entrepreneur and the technician.

The L.E.S.T.A. project has been mired in red tape and bureaucratic. I long for guerrilla film making, stolen locations and signed releases after the fact. I shall overcome but I am still looking for ideas, any suggestions?

What I am reading : “E Myth Mastery By Michael Gerber
What I am watching: Art of Making the Schedule
What I am listening to: Cable Company hold recording...

Fitting

It's only fitting I post now pledging to post more on this blog o' mine. It seems to be the thing, regurgitating excuses for not blogging. I should start a blog about not blogging.

As I begin my 51st year I ponder the things I know, have forgotten, and simply ignored.

We have been efforting to produce a documentary recently. The project hit a bureaucratic roadblock with a local school district when we requested permission to shoot on school property, I blame the reality TV industry for creating this faux market place for a possible "reality" series. Everyone is positioning for some kind of production deal on The Learning Channel. We will get it done and Jon and Kate Plus 8 be darned.

Here is a brief synopsis.

" The L.E.S.T.A. Story" (working title) is the story of L.E.S.T.A. and Cyndi Turtledove. LESTA’s mission is to engender creativity and discipline through Theatre and all the Arts. To develop and implement projects to help different kinds of community organizations share Spanish and English language learning, cultural exchanges, and social interaction by bringing Latinos and Anglos together. This film examines the process, successes and the challenges of bilingual language and arts education.

It's going to be a lot more fun than it sounds.

What I am reading : “Lush Life: By Richard Price
What I am watching: A New Zealand Childhood
What I am listening to: The whir of the scanner

Holiday Onslaught

I have been inundated with video transfer this holiday season. We have been snowed in with 7 year old twins and that has added a new dimension to the work at home dynamic, to say the least. The snow daze looks as if will continue into the kids holiday break extending it to three weeks. I am in my bunker of a video studio dodging the flak of the skirmishes outside my door. Not entirely successful I might add, I have the scars to prove it.

Some observations on home movies. There is a theme that runs through our lives documented in our home videos. Decades of summer water skiing videos (I mean hours), dance recitals, the endless opening of presents at Christmas and birthdays. The table setting at Thanksgiving and Uncle Leo talking with his mouth full. I too am guilty of this complete lack of imagination when it comes to home movies. I vow to change this and document more of a cinema verite of everyday life and the way we live and the times we live in. Not just some forgotten gifts on Christmas morning, something rich, deep poingant and fulfilling that will be a revelation to those who transfer my home movies onto some future format, 3D, holograms?
Enjoy the pictures of my kids playing in the leaves