Changing Times....

Well everyone, it has been a whirlwind for us here at Fat Cat over the last 8 years. We 'officially' began our business back in 2002 but had been doing video work for longer than that. We started out Part Time making "extra money" on the side until the workload got to be so big that we took the business Full Time, trading it in from my employment as a Paramedic after 14 years. What a change that was! We shared a beautiful studio with T&J Studios in Valley Center for almost 2 years...then, economic times changed in the world and we again had to move our business back to Part Time and I had to regain Full Time employment elsewhere back in the medical community.

This lead to another path- I started Nursing School earlier this year and am excited for it to be done at years end! But now the time has come for a change- again. We have been receiving quite a few emails and phone calls lately inquiring about our availability to film weddings in the 2011 season. As much as we have thoroughly enjoyed our time filming weddings and meeting SO MANY wonderful brides and grooms and their families, we have had to make a difficult decision for our business. With our change in our Full Time employment status this year and coming this December/January as well, Fat Cat currently will not be accepting any 2011 weddings at this time. We will still continue with our love for filming and cinematography by completing Love Stories for the wedding day and Baby Stories (a few of which are in the works currently for this fall) and other smaller projects such as our recent work with the Fire Department, local schools and Hutchinson Community College Paramedic Program.

There were several reasons behind this decision and we deeply apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment this may cause to our "future" brides we have not had the pleasure of even meeting! We have a few more weddings this year to attend with some awesome brides still, so a few more prequels to come for you to enjoy in the wedding department. We hope to share other work with you in the future as the business takes on a new change. It has been a huge part of our lives and we are not sure where new roads will lead us, only time will tell. Steph

The Blush Bride and Fat Cat!!

We are excited to announce that Fat Cat Productions is one of the newest members of Blush Brides! Go to www.theblushbride.com to check out all the awesome vendors if you or someone you know is planning an upcoming wedding! Specials for Blush Bride Members to help you plan and save money! We are all into that right!? Check out the Blush Bride Launch Party as well! Fat Cat will be there to document! Come join the fun! Psst! PASS IT ON!!!!!!!

New Year!!!

Happy New Year!

We hope this wish finds you all well after a great Holiday Season celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with your friends and family. We have enjoyed working with each and every bride and groom this last year! We are so lucky to mesh with such wonderful people! Thank you to everyone who has allowed us to be a part of their big day!

The New Year brings many new opportunities this year and we'd like to share just a few things that have been going on here with you...

With the Holidays we are still working on catching up on a few prequels to post from November and December of '09, bear with us just a little bit and we'll get these posted ASAP!

The most recent news is the Bridal Fair coming up FAST on January 9th and 10th at Century II. We will be on the entry aisle along the wall, booth #5 so come and see us! We will be handing out our demo DVD for those who have not made the final decision to hire a videographer yet. For those that have, tell your friends! It's $7.50 for a one day pass or $11 for both days if you don't get all your shopping done in one day. A great value in the scheme of wedding planning!

We also wanted to let everyone know that we have been very happy over the years with our business growing from a "side"/part time job to a full time and professional income. But the last few years we have taken on new projects in life and we are now back to a part time, but professional venture! We are taking only a limited number of events in 2010. So if you have had friends who have showed an interest in having Fat Cat videotape their wedding day, pass the word on. We book only one wedding per day on a first come-first serve basis. We already have a handful of events planned for 2010 and with our newly limited availability, wedding slots are filling fast!

For those that are unable to book us for the wedding day itself, don't forget about those one of a kind videos shot ahead of time that are GREAT hits at the reception- We will still be available for LOVE STORIES, BRIDAL ELEGANCE VIDEOS or SAVE THE DATE VIDEOS, BRIDAL PARTY MUSIC VIDEOS, VIDEO SPOOFS (or anything you can dream up! We get awesome ideas from brides and grooms!) even if you cannot make the wedding day video work.

Or even after the wedding day, consider an eXtreme session or Trash The Dress Session. Baby Stories and Birth Announcements are also becoming popular.

If you have been hinting at that special someone to pop the question, or know someone who will be.... don't forget to ask us to VIDEO TAPE THE PROPOSAL. What an awesome addition to your upcoming wedding video! Tell the WHOLE story. We can concoct any good ole fashioned story up with the grooms, even hide a wireless mic to capture it ALL ! Call us! (Or just send him this link....)

We have been very blessed the last year with wonderful friends and brides, a new dog (Murphy), starting our nursing school careers and more, we hope this new year continues to bless you all with love, health and happiness. Steph

In Memory of our Fallen Firefighters...

Several weeks ago I was asked if we could film the 8th Annual Kansas Fallen Firefighters Memorial on South Braodway at the Kansas Fire Museum. It came as a two-part request; Fire Photographer Craig Hacker and the Sedgwick County Fire Chief, whom Barry and I both know through our many years of EMS work. I was available for the shoot and asked our friend Deanna to help out yet again, which she happily agreed to and did a great job! The Memorial consists of a gorgeous slate wall engraved with the names of those killed in the line of duty across the state throughout the years amidst a park like setting. The statue "Final Call" overlooks the reflection area and fountains dance in the background during warmer summer months. It's a very fitting memorial situated immediately next to the Kansas Firefighters Museum. The ceremony started with a processional of bagpipers and honor guard from across the state, guest speakers, the placing of a memorial wreath at the wall, and the reading of the names of the fallen firefighters with the ringing of bells. As each name was read, an empty antique fire bucket was filled one by one with a red rose honoring the firefighter. Family was later encouraged to take a rose in rememberance of their loved one. The video below is the Highlight of the memorial service.

Catching up to do!!!!!!!!

As you can see the blog has pretty much been MIA the last few weeks and I do apologize to everyone for that! To bring you up to speed, our life has been filled with ups and downs recently and we've had to juggle multiple things.

As most folks know Barry is now attending nursing school full-time, and still working full time at EMS (now has 25 years on! YAY BARRY!) and amazingly finds time to help me turn discs in the business. Our awesome friends Jason and Deanna have helped us on more shoots than we can count during times Barry has had clinical work and we thank them SO much! Also, in thanks for them shooting for us, we try to shoot for them if they need help as well.

As for me, I've been finishing the last pre-reqs for nursing school which starts for me in January, I've gone back to work full time at the hospital and between homework, life, shooting weddings, and other events (school programs, montages, EMS videos, Speaker Jared Estes, and the firefighters memorial), have found it difficult to keep up with some of the edit queue lately! We have also had to find time to take care of our immeditate family members and other usual "life" happenings.

So, drumroll please....

Slated to be posted to the blog this week are the write ups for the missing weddings from October through this month! Wow, has it really been that long! Time really flies.

Later this morning, the memorial video for the Fallen Firefighters and tomorrow two prequels for the Sharshel/Crandall and Patton/Blair weddings. Sometime in the next two weeks we hope to build in the remaining prequels amidst the ususal edit queue for those waiting on updates to their delivered videos or those that are still patiently waiting in line for the finished product! We are told it's worth the wait, so we humbly thank you in advance! Bear with us a bit more.

Love and Peace to all as we enter the new Holiday season as Thanksgiving and Christmas SO quickly approach us! More to come- (Wow, do I have to work in Christmas shopping and housework into my to-do list now, ugh)....Ba Humbug.

More gore and carnage!

Ok, ok, so the gore and carnage wasn't real- but it looked like it! Was it REALLY that time again? Yes, it was. We just completed a long, hot, muggy, sunburnt, bug bitten, muscle-aching, and dehydrated two day long shoot this week in Yoder, Kansas for Hutchinson Community College's Paramedic Training Program- Field Operations 2009! This is now the third year we have helped with capturing the event! It is always terribly hot and tiring, but super rewarding. Not your average wedding-fare! This year we gathered additional footage and b-roll to be edited into next year's documentary edition. We are very excited for next year when the number of students grow exponentially and the scenarios get increasingly wild and realisitc! I was grateful again to my friends at Life Team Aeromedical Transport for the wonderful ride along again!!! Thanks guys! Thank you to Deanna for being on stand-by on Tuesday. Maybe next year- it's gunna be a wild ride! Footage is now being captured for edit in several weeks-lots on our plate right this very moment! If we are able to post video, we will- hang in there. But that's what we've been up to lately after a brief vacation to Grand Lake in Oklahoma and now back to school as well for the summer session. It really never ends around here! More to come- stay tuned! SG

John Deere "Green"

Many years ago one of our first weddings was for a great couple Paige and Jared Estes. They always held a special place with us as they were the "first" to book the new guy in town at the time for their wedding day. We delivered the video (in now record time by todays busy standards) and they loved it. We were completely shocked and saddened to say the least when we heard Paige was killed in a drunk driving accident about 6 months after the wedding. We then got to know the family a little bit more from some private things we had done for them during this horrific time. Then last year we ran into Mr. Estes, Jareds father at Greensburg when we filmed the graduation with President Bush as the featured guest. They were celebrating the one year turning point after the tornado. Mike expressed to us he would like to have us film some things for the family pertaining to the rebuilding 'green' of his dealership that was destroyed in the tornado, BTI Greensburg John Deere. We were proud and honored to -and promised! Greensburg also holds an important place for us as well as I searched with my dog as part of the rescue efforts immediately following the tornado then again filming the graduation ceremonies when the school had been destroyed.

Well time passed and we hadn't heard alot about the project, until I received a call from one of the planners of the Grand Reopening, just a few weeks prior to the Beech-Riffel wedding. They had a date and it was on the wedding day. I scrambled to find a second shooter for each of the events so I could fulfill promises made to both parties! Our friend Deanna helped me at the wedding and our friend Alan was able to help with the corporate shoot with Barry. The bride was very gracious and understanding about my dilemma! (Thanks Jessica) and soon Barry and Alan were headed to Greensburg.

It was a big event during a whole weekend of celebrations and reopenings for many places in Greensburg trying to put their town "back" on the map. A celebration with ribbon cutting, tours of the "green" building itself, musical entertainment, prize drawings, and brief statements of congratulations from area and state dignitaries. We were there with Discovery Channel and other media outlets, but our focus of the story in the edit will be the celebration for the family, as a documentary heirloom piece. We are very excited to have the opportunity! We will also be going back to Greensburg in the coming weeks to finish up shooting for this project.

We were also able to get footage recently in Greensburg of the new Eco-Silo home for a building company out of state. Very interesting and exciting what they are doing in Greensburg.

What a weekend it was! Thanks to everyone from the Estes family for inviting us as well as our bride and groom (see below) for being flexible with us in order to help everyone! Not only are we told "Fat Cat Rocks" but we only rock because our friends, our brides and grooms and our other clients ROCK. Thank you.

RUMOR MILL. . .

Seems the last couple weeks I've been running into folks who have been telling me "So, you aren't doing Fat Cat anymore?" Needless to say I was somewhat shocked, but not surprised. Please let me clear the air for my past, current and future brides, vendors and friends.

Fat Cat is not going away.

Here is how I believe the nasty little rumor started and was contorted to the above statement: This past year and a half we were blessed to have the business doing well and we were very excited about a move into the studio in Valley Center with T&J Studios Photography. It was a great place. Wonderful friends and atmosphere, a killer media room we put together and lots of space to shoot when needed in the back studio. It was great to have the business out of our home where I didn't need to ask my brides and grooms if they were allergic to cats prior to coming for a consultation. During the end of summer of 2008 and well into the fall Fat Cat started feeling the effects the economic situation we hear so much about on the news. Bookings began to slow down for us and in order to keep serving our brides at the capacity we are and turn a great detailed product for them, we decided to move the business back home where it all began. This does not mean we are quitting. Quite the contrary. We are simply moving the location of where I do my work. There are pros and cons to this so bear with me as I readjust again!

Although many of you know Barry and I are both taking our pre-reqs for nursing school, but the business remains full time for me at this time. We are just going through those growing pains of life and business and moving back home was the best choice for us at this point in time. If you need to contact us, we are now moved back home and I can be reached via email or cell phone.
I continue to work to get the edit queue turned around eventually, but in the meantime for our current brides I am taking care on each wedding to assure it is the product you paid for when you booked us and not rush through them. My assitant editor, Allyson, continues to help me keep my head above water with the pile of weddings I have sitting before me :)

We are still booking into summer and fall of this year and are starting to book into 2010. So if you or someone you know are looking for a great wedding video, look no further than Fat Cat. If anything to do with our status changes, our customers, friends and brides will be the first to know. Thank you all for your support of Fat Cat and allowing us to do what we love, spending the day with the best brides and grooms on the planet! Until next time- Steph

Thank You!

Spring has sprung! Is it not beautiful out today everyone?! It has definitely put alot of brides in the mood for planning their upcoming weddings and getting their videographer booked early.

I wanted to send a shout out to our most recent brides and grooms who have booked our services for this year or next and say thank you!

Jessica and Chris -Bridget and Ryan - Trish and Daniel - Emily and Luke - Bibi and Wade - We are looking forward to working with all of you. I do not mean to leave out our other fabulous brides who have booked earlier in the year or last year. THANK YOU!

If you or someone you know is getting married, pass the word along about Fat Cat, we still have some great dates for this year available. We are also booking into 2010!

The blog will start rocking again soon, so stay tuned. Robbin and Richard's wedding is this weekend, so we will be excited to get the prequels up and running!

New Years Pulse Check!

Hello one and all! HAPPY 2009!
We apologize for the slow blog at the end of 2008 but its been an extremely busy time just as it is for everyone. So we figured we'd better do a pulse check to let everyone know we are still here!

Just to get everyone up to date we'll fill you in briefly on all what's been going on the last month of '08.

After Tia and Tim's wedding in early November, we had no more weddings to shoot the remainder of the year and so are trying to take time to try and unravel the edit queue black hole.

In the meantime, home life has spun crazily out of control it seems with a new puppy arriving mid November from Florida. Rudy the Rottweiler is our newest addition to the canine pack and that made for 11 critters in the house. He was the replacement to the Rottie we lost about a year ago (Bruno) that we blogged about in the fall of '07. Having a new puppy around is always hectic, many nights of interrupted sleep and the usual chewing anything in sight and trying to keep up with NASCAR laps around the couch. Rudy gets to come to the studio with me since we are still potty training and he has gotten to meet many people! Stop in to see him!

Over the last several months, Hannibal, our German Shepherd had taken a turn for the worse with some health issues he had dealt with for some time. It got so bad that on a Friday, we had planned on taking him to the vet the following Monday to say goodbye. He didn't quite make it and we ended up making an unscheduled trip to the emergency vet clinic around midnight that Saturday to let him go. It was just horrible but the right thing to do for my best buddy. He was 11.5 years old and was an amazing animal. He was my first real dog when Barry and I were married and we spent insane amounts of time together training for Search and Rescue missions locally. Those are my fondest memories and I will always be grateful to him teaching me just about everything I know about dogs right now. He was always forgiving and always willing to do ANYTHING I asked of him. Never fearful, always a go getter and noble guy. So we are back down to 10 critters sharing our home.

So as the tears began to dry from losing my boy, the new puppy kept us so busy it seems we didn't hardly have time to grieve and then Clarice, the Australian Shepherd became ill and we spent more time at our vets office. She is slowly on the mend! :) Boy, when it rains it pours.

Then the Holidays arrived and it was time to finish up as many weddings as possible for delivery for the festivities! We had a nice time with our families and got to see my sister and her husband in town from North Carolina! Allyson is my Assistant Editor for weddings as some of you might remember and she's doing a great job. She works remotely for me from her home and it has been wonderful to finally start catching up in the queue a little bit. We are gaining a few months on delivery times this winter if all goes well! More info on her later and we will post some of her edits here (as time allows!)

Barry has been busy taking pre-requisite online courses for his nursing degree and hopes to be into full swing in the nursing Bridge program through Hutchinson Community College and the Kansas Board of EMS by 2010. 1 more year! He's holding an awesome 4.0! YAY! When its all said and done, I just may finish mine as well.

Speaking of Hutchinson Community College, we also finished a television broadcast version of the Field Operations Documentary we did for them in '07 and filmed the Pinning Ceremony of the Class of 2007 at the Kansas Cosmosphere! It was very impressive. The speakers took their places on a replica space shuttle wing high above the guests who were seated in the main lobby underneath the SR-71 fighter jet. Way cool. HCC rocks.

Just as the Holidays were coming to an end, we were busy helping Barry's mother downsize and move to an apartment at a retirement community. That has been an emotional stressor as well as physical, but we are very happy for her and hopefully the remainder of the move will continue to go well.

We are wrapping up time we spent with our college intern, Michelle as she returns for the spring semester. She helped keep our heads above water in the edit queue this fall. We have also updated the website for weddings and corporate work this fall and are also feverishly working on our new demo for the upcoming bridal fair.
It has been such a whirlwind last 2 months, its almost scary to think about! :)
We wish each and every one of you a prosperous, safe and happy 2009! Come see us at the bridal fair January 10th and 11th at Century II!!!

God Bless.

SG

"GO FIND, HANNI!"

Junior Reading Circle

We had a fun afternoon yesterday. We were asked to host one of the meetings for the Junior Reading Circle from Newton. It's president, Barbara Bunting, is the mother of one of our brides, Molly Claassen. She had asked us a few months ago to speak to her group about how our business may be simialr to the theme they had for the year- Madonna. It was an interesting day, we were able to share some of our work, including Molly's Prequel and talk about how music influences our business and such.

The Junior Reading Circle I learned is a group of women that meet once a month to discuss a variety of topics -and they don't actually read! :) The group is 100 years old and it originally began as a reading group but has evolved through the years. There was an awesome variety of members with very different and unique backgrounds. Topics vary for their group and it is a learning opportunity for them, educational and social in nature. I believe the ladies had a great time, and we know we did :) After our talk Barry gave a brief tour of the studio and the ladies then had business minutes to tend to. One of the hostesses provided a great spread of refreshments- and the pumpkin bread was awesome! Thanks, Christine!

The afternoon really was a lot of fun, thanks to Barbara for having the group at our place! Stop in any time!

New FCP Website Goes Live Now!

As promised, the new website for Fat Cat is now finally online! (Sorry it's about a week late as posted previously! We were very busy assisting at a photography workshop here all week!) Several weeks ago you may have noticed our web page taking a slight turn to corporate work, which we do also, and wedding information was a little tough to find- but rest assured we haven't forgotten about our brides! Quite the contrary~ the new web site, which you will need the latest version of Flash to view, can be found at http://www.fatcatrocks.com/ . Your browser will load a splash page allowing you to choose one of four options- wedding, our blog, announce my child or corporate.

The majority of our readers enter through the wedding site. Our corporate site, FCMG, will now be directed to http://www.fatcatmediagroup.com/ and linked through the main splash page. AMC resides on the splash page as well as http://www.announcemychild.com/ !

There are a few minor tweaks that will be taking care of in the coming days, and of course it will always be a work in progress! So go grab a cup of hot cocoa, curl up with a warm blanket and your favorite furry critter and check it out- we even have some new samples in the gallery! (Ya, for real!)

New Info!

Hey everybody! A few bits of info...

Just wanted to drop a line to you to let you know the Pursley-Johnson prequel is complete but won't be online until tomorrow...one more day, boo.... hang in there!

And speaking of online and the internet stuff, after a year long wait and much anticipation, we wanted to let you know that a brand new web site is coming soon to the wedding division of Fat Cat Productions this weekend! You may have noticed our current homepage at http://www.fatcatrocks.com/ has taken a slight business/corporate twist. That's because we aren't just weddings! If you or someone you know owns a small business and needs video content for web, digital signage, in lobby videos, marketing or promotional videos, or otherwise, give them a shout and let Fat Cat do the rest!

Our sister site http://www.announcemychild.com/ also has a new look- check it out and pass the word on to your friends and family that are expecting that little bundle of joy! In the meantime, sign up to be included on our mailing list for blog updates to your right (it's free and we won't bug you or sell your email address!) Don't you HATE that?

Rumor has it that October is a busy month for spring and summer bookings for the upcoming year, don't be left out in the cold so to speak without a document of your wedding day on video- call us soon to check availability for your date!

We will post as soon as the new wedding site is up and running for you to check out- it's TOO cool. We are pretty excited.

Later!

Fat Cat Media Group and ExpoVenture 2008!

Fat Cat's not just weddings! Come on out Tuesday, September 23rd to ExpoVentrue 2008 sponsored by the Wichita Area Chamber of Commerce at Century II Expo Hall! We'll be at Booth 1315 10 am to 6 pm promoting the non-wedding side of our business and making some great friends along the way. You might catch a glimpse of Steph and Barry hard at work, we'll be capturing scenes of the day for the Chamber to share with you at a later date. Come on down! SG

BABY FARE!

If you are expecting or know someone who is, don't sit around watching it rain this weekend. Grab a rain coat and head downtown to Century II and the 2008 Baby Fare! Fat Cat Productions will be sharing information about our sister site http://www.announcemychild.com/ ! This division of Fat Cat produces baby stories and video birth announcements to remember that very special time of a baby's new arrival to the world! ....No, we don't film the actual birth :) Check it out at the link above!!!

There will be many booths catering to moms and tots, so come on down!

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!

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."

Fat Cat's Makin' Tracks

Yesterday we received some copies of the newest Event DV Magazine, a trade magazine we subscribe to discussing topics relating to event videographers and filmmakers. And...we were excited to find ourselves on the cover! We had been contacted several weeks ago by one of the authors wanting to interview us for our out-of-market weddings. We aren't sure how we ended up on the Event DV radar, but it was nice to be recognized in such a great magazine with other superb videographers across the country, many of whom we look up to and admire! We simply strive to provide good, solid work to our customers to provide them with a keepsake of a lifetime, all the while having a great time ourselves and enjoying meeting so many wonderful people along the way! Here are some shots of the cover that Alex provided us, from T&J Studios of the magazine. Jeff of T&J took the cover photo during one of our eXtreme sessions last summer. You can find the article online soon at http://www.eventdv.net/ .

FAT CAT EMERGENCY!

Ok, so we didn't have a real emergency :) which is good! But it is that time of year again that I got to go film at Hutchinson Community College for the annual "Field Operations" class. It was so great to see old friends! Field Ops, as they call it, is a special two day hands-on operational course teaching paramedic students how to run ambulance calls from start to finish. In class you learn a lot of bookwork and didactic skills, in the hospital clinicals you use your skills under direct care and supervision, but just before field internship where you actually put everything together on the ambulance, you get run through the ringer at field ops!

Students start by being assigned to an ambulance and a mentor in the field of EMS. They check their jump kits and inventory equipment, then wait for the radio to signal an emergency. They are disptached by a real dispatch center and ride red light and siren to the scene of the "call". Once they arrive, volunteer patients act out a number of traumatic or medical emergencies including but not limited to chest pains, car crashes, falls, seizures, heat stroke and this year they even threw in some agricultural accidents with a haybaling machine and horses! Too cool. The patients are "moulaged" to look as if they are really injured, burned or bleeding or whatever the scenario calls for. A concoction of ketchup and chocolate sauce stands in for blood, pieces of plastic built up on the skin act as protruding bones, frozen noodles act as, well- brain matter. After the students give appropriate treatment, they transport the patient in the ambulance to an on site emergency room, give report to the nurses and then return to their posts to restock the ambulance, write run reports and grab a bite to eat and wait for the next call. Last year the crews ran almost 100 calls, this year they well topped it!

Last year we made a 40-minute documentary that has been criss-crossing the midwest promoting the field operations course to other EMS services and teaching schools. It's been a big hit. Next year we will make a new edition of the documentary! We can't wait! Two 12 to 13 hour days of filming about non-stop in the heat and humidity really are fun :)

We have said for some time we will post a portion of the video... give us time, we keep having other deadlines to meet and just haven't done it. Someday it will happen :) The first documentary is done, it's just taking us time to post!

What a hoot today was, thanks to my buddy Chy for having me back this year, although I am extremely bugbit, chigger attacked and sunburnt, I had a blast!

Steph