Here are three videos I produced over the summer for Weber State's Career Services Center. There will be more videos to come soon. To be updated on what is to come, visit the Career Services Website by clicking here. Be sure to also like their Facebook page! To find out more about the making of these videos, click here.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Monday, September 15, 2014
Call for Actors and Extras
Did you miss your chance to be an extra in the last commercial shoot I did? Well, don't miss your chance now. If you're interested, please fill out this form. Production is going to be on Friday September 19th and Saturday September 20th. Lucas James McGraw is the Producer! It's going to look great. Lucas has Produced YouTube videos (e.g. Mormon Messages) that have gotten hundreds of thousands of views.
Pictures From a Sinclair Commerical
Here are some pictures from a commercial I was a PA (production assistant) for. It was really fun to work on this shoot and I got to keep one of the actors shirts when I was done.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
The Kind of Manager/Producer I Want To Be
I've been thinking a lot lately about organization and planning, creativity and flexibility, deadlines and work hours. Most importantly I've been thinking about people: networking, managing, incentives, rewards, motives, etc. I do not aspire to be in a management position. I'm not writing this post because I want to be in charge of people. I do not. However, I recognize that in most every roll we get put in, we have to learn how to work with people and in most positions how to delegate and organize. There is hardly a position out there where these skills are not useful in someway or another.
The biggest thing I want to articulate here is my personal philosophy on managing people. In the different work environments I've worked in and with the different bosses I've had, I've seen many different philosophies on managing. I've seen people who will do just about anything to develop the highest quality product possible (and sometimes that has meant putting people second in priority to the product). I've seen people that are extremely customer/client oriented (to the point where they treat their employees as second best). It takes a good balance to manage all these things and sometimes we are so pressed for time that it's easy to neglect things that really matter. As I continue to produce video projects and/or get put in charge of people, I want to make sure to treat the people I work with more important than the product or service I'm delivering. It's for sure not a strategy or philosophy that everyone would agree with, but I believe that as you put the people that you work with (fellow teammates and clients alike) above anything else in the workplace, your product/service will naturally improve.
I am not perfect at it and I would like to work harder at treating people with respect, but if I ever run into a situation where someone is struggling to do their best work, I want to lovingly work with them to enhance their abilities, deepen their skills, or give them meaningful things to do. I never want to just let someone go simply because the work they performed was not to the standard I was anticipating. Many disagree. Many people feel that you should stop using someone or fire someone when they are not performing at optimal levels, but I feel like working with someone to help them reach that optimal level is better in the long run than treating many people unfairly. Firing people as soon as they mess up burns too many bridges along the way. I want to be honest with people, but in a loving way. I never want to let someone go unless it's unreasonable not to (for example, if someone was being dishonest, stealing from the company, or consistently not doing the work).
The biggest thing I want to articulate here is my personal philosophy on managing people. In the different work environments I've worked in and with the different bosses I've had, I've seen many different philosophies on managing. I've seen people who will do just about anything to develop the highest quality product possible (and sometimes that has meant putting people second in priority to the product). I've seen people that are extremely customer/client oriented (to the point where they treat their employees as second best). It takes a good balance to manage all these things and sometimes we are so pressed for time that it's easy to neglect things that really matter. As I continue to produce video projects and/or get put in charge of people, I want to make sure to treat the people I work with more important than the product or service I'm delivering. It's for sure not a strategy or philosophy that everyone would agree with, but I believe that as you put the people that you work with (fellow teammates and clients alike) above anything else in the workplace, your product/service will naturally improve.
I am not perfect at it and I would like to work harder at treating people with respect, but if I ever run into a situation where someone is struggling to do their best work, I want to lovingly work with them to enhance their abilities, deepen their skills, or give them meaningful things to do. I never want to just let someone go simply because the work they performed was not to the standard I was anticipating. Many disagree. Many people feel that you should stop using someone or fire someone when they are not performing at optimal levels, but I feel like working with someone to help them reach that optimal level is better in the long run than treating many people unfairly. Firing people as soon as they mess up burns too many bridges along the way. I want to be honest with people, but in a loving way. I never want to let someone go unless it's unreasonable not to (for example, if someone was being dishonest, stealing from the company, or consistently not doing the work).
Monday, August 25, 2014
Weber State's Career Services Commercials
I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to work at the Career Services Center at Weber State. This summer I've been working hard to produce some commercials for them. These commercials will be released on their website, shown around campus, and played at football games, etc. The idea is to market the Career Services Center to the students.
As director, I cast the actors. We had some professional actors and some amateurs, but all of them did a great job. As director, I also went location scouting and prop hunting. I tried to put as much thought into the emotion of the pieces as possible so that I could get a look and feel that would make people laugh and and inspire students to go to the Career Services center on campus.
This specific project took more coordinating on my part than any other project I've worked on. As the producer, I budgeted (including working with the director of Career Services to get my budget approved), assembled a crew, scheduled the productions, and made sure everything was organized. I am grateful for everyone at Career Services that helped. I'm also grateful for Matt Goff, a fellow student that was brought on as my director of photography (AKA cinematographer).
He just finished a documentary project that he shot in Africa and did a fantastic job at helping me with lighting, framing, and running the cameras. I was the director on this project as well and so having Matt focus on those things freed me up to really help the actors. I would give Matt direction on framing and lighting when needed and I had a shot list for him to follow, but other than that I let him take control.
As director, I cast the actors. We had some professional actors and some amateurs, but all of them did a great job. As director, I also went location scouting and prop hunting. I tried to put as much thought into the emotion of the pieces as possible so that I could get a look and feel that would make people laugh and and inspire students to go to the Career Services center on campus.
We have a Halloween themed commercial that will be coming out in October. Lacy Simmons did a great job on make-up for our zombies! I would highly recommend her to anyone needing a make-up artist.
The editing has been fun too. I really like editing! Adding the sound affects and finding the right pacing is something I keep getting better at every time I edit.
Recently I showed the rough cuts of these commercials to the team at the Career Services Center. They really liked them and the director of the Career Services Center came to me afterward and told me about a few more projects that he had for me to work on. That helped me to know my work was appreciated and I'm excited to work on some of these future projects. (One of which I just filmed the interview for today).
Monday, July 14, 2014
Shoot In Logan
Recently I got to go to a shoot in Logan. I was able to act as the production coordinator for this shoot. I planned the schedule, coordinated with the Producer on what kind of b-roll we needed to get, and contacted everyone involved to make sure things would move smoothly. This is a project I've also been able to help do some assistant editing on.
The project is completely unscripted and is based on interview footage from two young men in Logan Utah. The backbone of the story has been cut together with interview footage. This introduces interesting challenges, but at the same time it is a fantastic opportunity to learn how to do something that is more like documentary editing.
I have a lot of respect for the Producer, Lucas McGraw, and the Director of Photography, Tom Garner. They have both worked on and produced some of my favorite Mormon Messages. Both of these men sometimes spend long hours and even days or weeks away from their families to produce these pieces. They both love their families and spend a lot of their time talking about their families. You can tell that they are dedicated husbands and fathers and yet they still dedicate themselves to their work.
The project is completely unscripted and is based on interview footage from two young men in Logan Utah. The backbone of the story has been cut together with interview footage. This introduces interesting challenges, but at the same time it is a fantastic opportunity to learn how to do something that is more like documentary editing.
I have a lot of respect for the Producer, Lucas McGraw, and the Director of Photography, Tom Garner. They have both worked on and produced some of my favorite Mormon Messages. Both of these men sometimes spend long hours and even days or weeks away from their families to produce these pieces. They both love their families and spend a lot of their time talking about their families. You can tell that they are dedicated husbands and fathers and yet they still dedicate themselves to their work.
Want to be an extra in a commercial or help make one?
As many of you know from my last post, I am making some commercials for Weber State's Career Services Center. If you would like to be an extra or would be willing to help out on the crew, please click here to fill out this form as soon as possible! Our shoot days on July 21st, 2nd, and 23rd.
This commercial has been fun to work on. One of the ladies that works at the Career Services Center recently said to me, "Thanks for teaching us the process. You have brought process to doing these commercials." Looking back at it I have been able to bring quite a bit to the table. At the very beginning I came up with a couple of ideas, we met and discussed the ideas which grew into a script. The script was changed and revised many times before we got the green light. Recently I've been working hard to coordinate location, actors, extras, schedule, budget, camera crew, etc. It's been an amazing opportunity for me too and I have learned a lot.
This commercial has been fun to work on. One of the ladies that works at the Career Services Center recently said to me, "Thanks for teaching us the process. You have brought process to doing these commercials." Looking back at it I have been able to bring quite a bit to the table. At the very beginning I came up with a couple of ideas, we met and discussed the ideas which grew into a script. The script was changed and revised many times before we got the green light. Recently I've been working hard to coordinate location, actors, extras, schedule, budget, camera crew, etc. It's been an amazing opportunity for me too and I have learned a lot.
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