Fat Cat & the KSPVA Tour

We thought we would take a few moments to let you all know what has been happening again here at Fat Cat recently. Last night we hosted the Kansas Professional Videographers Association August meeting at the studio. About 20 of us met up at the Main Street Grill and Bar here in Valley Center for dinner, conversation and talking shop. Then we headed down the street to the studio to set up with our special guest, Larry Hatteburg, from the ABC affiliate KAKE-TV channel 10.

Mr. Hatteburg has spoken to our group once before earlier this year and everyone learned literally truckloads. Our favorite topic we wanted to pick his brain a bit more about was lighting techniques. So we invited Larry back and he graciously agreed to come back and share a sampling of his wealth of knowledge with us. Larry has been an award winning journalist for 41 years, so we will probably never know as much as he's forgotten over the years!

Larry brought alot of the equipment he uses on shoots for news and his series "Hatteburg's People" and explained how he uses each piece and how he works around difficult lighting situations. Then Barry hooked up a live feed from his camera to a TV monitor for us to view while he set up a typical interview setting for us see the differences in lighting set ups and camera settings and how they work together. It was amazing how such small changes in lighting can make a huge difference in your productions! We'll be sure to put to use many of his tips in future Love Stories, Baby Stories, and documentaries!

Thanks to the KSPVA for coming out for a studio tour, we enjoyed having everyone! And of course a huge thank you to Larry for being so willing to share with us and teach us, we appreciate all of the time you spent with us!

Fat Cat featured again!

We mentioned earlier that we were featured in the August issue of the trade magazine EventDV for our out of market weddings, which make up about 30% of our business currently. We also mentioned that we were going to be featured again about the state of video and the economy in September's issue. As we await the print version of the magazine this coming week, we thought we would post the video version of the article for you to enjoy. We were one of six video companies featured in the article. Each company was asked to submit a short video showcasing their studios and work. We were thrilled to be featured with such great folks in the industry, especially our friends in Southern California, Steve and Laura Moses, who we've mentioned in the previous blog entry! :) Go Steve, Go Laura! Let me know where I can find one of those high tech rapid transport systems! Here is the link if you'd like to check it out!

http://halslifervideo.typepad.com/blog/event-dv.html

More exciting news coming to Fat Cat so stay tuned!

McNeil Prequel Online!

We are finally happy to say that the McNeil Prequel is online now! Sorry for the delay with travel and all the things we've had going! Please scroll down to the Haines/McNeil wedding post to view the prequel, and be sure to drop us a line and tell us what you think! We think it definately shows the happiness and excitement of the day.

Hills-Clark Wedding!

Wow. Another great wedding. We are so lucky to work with such awesome brides and grooms! This last weekend was no different. We first met Allyson a couple years back we think after doing some montages for their family events. When Allyson found out she'd be getting married, she called us up to see if we were available for her date, and luckily we were!

Matt and Allyson tied the knot here in Wichita at St. Mary's Cathedral downtown. But I first met up with Allyson at the downtown Hyatt where she and her bridesmaids prepared in the Suite, getting the hair and make up done. Even though it was a suite, the place was full of activity. Allyson was in a great mood and all smiles! The ladies met up again at the church to get dressed along with Allyson later in the morning. Allyson's dress was unique as many are. It was a Pronovias that she found in Tulsa when on the search for the perfect dress. She found 4 she loved, but the final pick was most unique and comfortable. I had not seen a wedding dress with such a collar.

After Allyson was finished getting ready, she took as many photos before hand as she could so she saved seeing Matt for the first time walking down the aisle. Matt and his groomsmen prepared at his home and Barry followed to get a little bit of the preparations and everyone met up at the Cathedral.

The wedding started right on time and a full mass was celebrated. We had a nice time working with the Clark's photographer from Kansas City, John Siebs. When the couple was introduced as husband and wife, the couple let the guests leave and head across town to the Wichita Country Club for the reception while they finished photos in the church. They also hopped aboard the Party Express Bus and made a few stops in Old Town for photos on the way to the party.

Once arriving at the Country Club, the DJ met the bridal party to arrange the announcements and the couple was welcomed with thunderous applause. They went straight to the cake table to cut the cake and then were given many heartfelt toasts prior to dinner.

After all the guests went through the buffet, it was definately party time. The DJ was Carbon Productions and he did a wonderful job of mixing the dance songs all night long. The dance floor was never empty.

The night ended with the Bride and Groom being escorted to a limo through a tunnel of sparklers outside the Country Club doors! It was a great time for sure.

Thanks to Matt and Allyson for allowing us to be your official videographers for the day! We really had a wonderful time, we are so happy you have stayed in touch, and we hope we can continue to stay in touch if you need anything else. And if you don't... who cares :) Stop in anytime, we have really enjoyed getting to know you both. You rock!
Just a note to the rest of our readers: Matt and Allyson honeymooned in London, where Allyson has been in touch with us via her cell phones email. Yes, we scolded her for not ignoring the world why they were gone :)

Click below to see the wedding day prequel!

Fat Cat Updates

The last few weeks here at Fat Cat have been incredibly busy. We always say this, but recently, things have been flying at us at a whirlwind pace more so than usual. We'll try to catch you up on the happenings here and leave you with a few words of wisdon if we can.

As you all may have read we were recently featured in EventDV magazine, a videographer trade magazine. Not only were we interviewed for one of the stories, but we happened to make the cover. We received many comments about this and thank you all for your kind and supporting words! About the time the magazine came out, I had been under strict rules and agreements not to share one of my latest projects I was involved in. I had been asked to be a judge for WEVA's Creative Excellence Awards. WEVA is the Wedding and Event Videographers Association and has thousands of members all across the world. Each year they hold a competition to find the most creative videos produced this past year. There are 5 new judges each year and I was humbled to be asked to judge this year after receiving our very first CEA last year, a Finalist Award for The Lane Love Story we shot in Little Rock, Arkansas for Thomas and Jenny!

The judging involved receiving over 100 videos to view in various categories and judge on a point system in multiple categories, both technical and creative, and then choose my top 3 or 4 videos to bring to a final judging with the rest of the judges in Chicago, Illinois in late July.

After this somewhat daunting task, I flew to Chicago July 21st to meet the other judges and we all took nearly 4 days to review all the judges top entries in all the categories. WEVA Education Director John Zale treated us wonderfully and even took us to Navy Pier to hang out, gave us a great tour of the city including a trip up to the top of Sears Tower and I quite enjoyed the "real" Chicago style pizza! As soon as I returned home, there was no time to rest as we prepared for the Bridal Fair July 26th as well as Nate and Andrea's wedding the same weekend! Special thanks go out to our intern Michelle who graciously stayed at the office that week for a few 12 hour shifts!
It was the following week that really knocked the wind out of our sails. One of our very close friends husband had a sudden hospital stay over the next weekend. What was thought to be Crohn's Disease with an overnight hospital stay for evaluation suddenly took a shocking turn with emergency surgery and a resulting diagnosis of cancer. Needless to say we spent several hours with our friends in SICU at the hospital. Please keep our friends in your prayers as they start a rough road of treatments ahead.

Our friend also owns a small business so we travelled to Nebraska to help her with some things during the down time. We spent a day in cornhusker country and after a long drive that Saturday night, we arrived back in town and stopped by the studio at 2:30 am to grab a few items, head home, had enough time to run through the shower and then head out again to the airport for a 7 am flight we had to Florida Sunday morning. I hadn't pulled a 24 hour day in many years. But I wouldn't have changed helping our friend in a million years. (No need to say thanks, D- we love ya! MWAH! )

The Florida trip was for our yearly WEVA conference usually held in Las Vegas. The CEA winners are announced opening night and is followed by three days of various seminars and classes regarding the world of video, business and marketing, etc. When I was asked to be a judge, Barry and I were also asked to be on a marketing panel for one of the classes. We were very excited to be there and I was the judge who was able to hand over the winner of The Gold Award of the Theater Category to my friend and mentor, Danny Sayson from Vancouver, Canada. After attending several classes and gathering up more ideas to grow the business, we were able to take Thursday afternoon to hang out with our great friends Mike and Karleen of Starring You Productions in Richmond, Virginia at Universal Studios. That was definately TOO short of a night, but oh it was so much fun! We needed it. Karleen and I are so similar it's almost scary! We thoroughly enjoyed seeing all our friends from all across the country and meeting new ones! Congratulations To Steve and Laura Moses of Vantage Point Productions in Southern California for winning the Gold in Demo Category, you guys rock! (Thanks for the gift as well, I appreciate it! You are both so gracious)

After that late night at Universal, we headed back to the hotel and packed and had about 2 hours of sleep before heading back to the airport last Friday morning at 4 am to head home in time for a rehearsal that evening for Matt and Allyson (post to follow). Life just never stops, it keeps coming at you about 90 mph. The sleep schedule was eerily familiar to us already :)

In a nut shell it was fitting to end the whirlwind of emotions on a roller coaster at Universal, as this is how life has felt recently. In between all this trying to knock out the upcoming weddings that are due, film Love Stories and weddings and prepare for the upcoming wedding in Denver, Colorado with T&J Studios, Baby Fare and The Chamber of Commerce EXPOVENTURE! All I can say is "wow."

Until next time blogstalkers, take care of yourselves and those around you who you love!

(Pictures in order are: 2008 CEA Judges at Navy Pier, Chicago (that's me in the middle- haha :). Chicago's finest horsemen. Me and my mentor and really great friend Danny Sayson receiving his Gold CEA. Me and my homegirl Karleen from Richmond, Virginia- love you girl! Barry and Steph enjoying the Awards dinner at Expo. My awesome friends Belinda and Tom Young from Tennessee whom I met last year at a seminar in California. Tom, Steph and Rolando from Texas- we all met at the same seminar in California! Mike and Karleen getting a first hand look at a working green screen at the After Dark Party (was that not a fun night!? I need some more of that pink wine!) Judy Handley from the Wichita contingent, taking photos of the green screen fun! Me and Tyff in Victoria, Kansas last month in our scrubs before bed (we were watching the CEA entries, ya I know, this picture doesn't really fit, but I thought it was cute. We will be travelling together again at the end of the month to Denver for a wedding and eXtreme session in the mountains!! CAN'T WAIT!)

"A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure."

Bunting-Classsen prequel now online!

The Bunting-Claassen wedding prequel is now online! Scroll down to their post to check it out! Be sure to leave us your comments on this fabulous wedding! The Fat Cats are currently out of the office helping a friend in need and we will post about all our upcoming adventures this week very soon so check back!

Haines/McNeil Wedding

Well, now that it's been two weeks, I figured it was time to catch up in the blog and talk about our last wedding for our friends Nate and Andrea. We've had lots of life curves thrown at us the last few days and it just hasn't happened!

We actually have known Nate and Andrea for quite some time. They, too are friends from EMS. Nate used to work full time for EMS until getting his critical care nursing degree and now only works part-time. We first met Andrea at the EMS Christmas Party several years ago as Nate's date. We, well, BARRY, teased her when we left after a fun night saying, "It was nice to meet you- too bad we won't see you next year!" meaning that Nate would have a new girlfriend by then, this was just to tease him. Way to go Andrea- she dished it right back to Barry! But here we are about 5 years later and they asked us to film their July 26th wedding! We were SO thrilled! It was difficult on timing initially with the Bridal Fair last weekend, but we managed just fine :)

Prior to the wedding we put together a slide show and Love Story for them, which was a hoot in itself. I started the day with Andrea at her sisters home getting her hair done with her bridesmaids and her mother. It was a very fun and relaxed time and I enjoyed the low stress time! I cut out in enough time to grab lunch with Barry and head to the Scottish Rite to start filming all the b-roll we needed and wait for everyone to arrive.

Barry was sequestered to the basement with the guys as they prepared and I met Andrea in the brides room while everyone had lunch and got their dresses on and make up applied.

Andrea loves red. Her roses were red, and the accent color for the wedding was red and she bought a fabulous dress with red accents on it. There was a red border along the bodice and red embroidery through the waistline. We had seen only one other dress with a splash of color last year (but in blue) so it was very unique.

The ceremony itself took place in the auditorium upstairs of the facility with the Cathedral canvas as the backdrop. We also got to see an old friend, Pastor Bruce who officiated at the wedding. The couple started their new life together with a kiss and exiting the room to James Brown's "I feel good!" while the bride High-Fived her Dad while walking out! Go Andrea!

After photos, they were introduced down the grand staircase to the reception hall and immediately went into their first dance and shared dances with their parents as well as a money dance to raise extra funds for the Cancun honeymoon!

Dinner was catered by B&C Creations and the BBQ was as always wonderful. The party continued in to the night as the bride and groom were surrounded by a multitude of friends and family. The bride even serenaded the groom with her bridesmaids with feather boas and all!

We hope to post their wedding day prequel in about a week when we return from an upcoming business trip, so subscribe to the blog on the right and check back soon for lots of new videos!
Nate and Andrea, thank you so much for asking us to film your day, you have always been great friends although we have little time to hang out (we hope to change that one day!) You are wonderful people and we love you guys to death! Your families are wonderful and even though we were working, we enjoyed ourselves alot at the wedding. You are wonderful together and we are SO happy you FINALLY tied the knot! :) We look forward to seeing you at this years Christmas party! HAHA! We hope the trip was awesome. Keep in touch- SG

Click below to see the wedding day prequel!

Updates.

We finally have some new photos up for some recent blogs. Everything just got boring without photos! :) We've just not had time to get the posts updated. So scroll down to the Bunting/Claassen Wedding to see photos from Marcia Morrison Photography (www.marciamorrisonphotography.com ) and some great shots from Mr. Tim Davis (www.timdavisphotography.com ) of the Gillespie/Linck wedding! We will be posting soon on the Haines/McNeil wedding that took place last weekend, as well as a prequel coming for the Bunting/Claassen wedding, so stay tuned! SG