Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Jay & Michelle - Same Day Edit


Jay & Michelle - Same Day Edit from Northernlight Filmworks on Vimeo.

We had an amazing time getting to know Jay and Michelle, another great and memorable couple. It was simply a storybook wedding from the very beginning all the way to the wedding day. We filmed their love story video and we really learned a lot about them. Jay and Michelle could easily be our friends, the Priest made that same comment.

The wedding day was a very cold day but well worth the trip to Lafayette. When we arrived at the church to prepare for set up a couple hours before, there was a funeral mass ending. My immediate thought was, here was a family grieving over the loss of a family member and a friend. I wondered who he or she was and what they may have been or done in their life. What mark did they leave? Here we were to prepare for a day of celebration. In a sense one life ending while another young couple begins theirs. I try to always look at things and figure out what they might mean. In this instance, I think God was just reminding me that life is short and even in death, there is a celebration of ones life. As in marriage, you are celebrating the beginning of the couples life as husband and wife. I wonder what mark I will leave?

This video is a Same Day Edit video. It is a Highlight of the days events leading up to and including the wedding ceremony. Same Day Edits can be logistically challenging and needless to say, very stressful to pull off. They require a lot of preplanning and coordination. Thanks to Ryan Koral of Epic Motion in Michigan for giving me a hand with some Glidecam work and thanks to Erik Muzzy for helping out where needed. We have a very small window to digitize the footage and edit it together and then we print to tape. We can't spend the normal amount of time we usually do to color grade the work. I remember Jennifer running down the hall toward me with the final product in hand so that we could stay on our target time. There is that brief moment of when you dim the lights and hit play that you bite your nails hoping that the facility hooked up everything correctly and that our piece was coded correctly and ta da there it is!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Bridal Show - Indianapolis




Come visit with us at the Perfect Wedding Guide Bridal Show in Indianapolis at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. The show is January 3rd and 4th and we will be present both days from 11am to 4pm. This is one of the best shows all year and there will be opportunities for you to meet some of the best in the business. If you have already booked with us, stop by and say hi, we would love to visit with you.

Some suggestions. If you already know who you want to visit with, search them out first. Bookings really pick up during and after a bridal show. You might want to go around a each area at least a couple times because there will be wedding professionals in multiple areas and it can be quite easy to miss something particularly if it is crowded. Bring a small camera and take photos of things you like so that you can refer to it later. Some wedding professionals will ask that you provide your name, address, phone and e-mail so that they can followup with you after the show. Suggestion: make up some stick on mailing labels with your information on them and you can just peel and stick. This will be a huge time saver for you.

If time is an issue, see if you can set up an appointment to meet with those you are considering doing business with. Remember these are the people you will interact with and the photographer, videographer and wedding planner will most likely be with you a very large part of your day. Try to get a feel for their personality.

We will have a limited number of free admission tickets. One ticket will allow the Bride and Groom free admission. E-mail or call us if you are interested. First come first serve.

If you can't make the Bridal Show, we would be happy to meet you at our studio located on the square in downtown Noblesville. If that is not convenient, we can make other arrangements. We always encourage a face to face meeting.


If you have trouble locating us at the show, here are our cell numbers: 317-407-2648 Jennifer and 317-605-9177 John

Thanks,
John and Jennifer Moon
www.northernlightfilmworks.com

Monday, December 1, 2008

Our 2 furry children



These are our 2 lovely labs. Tucker is our chocolate and Sydney is our yellow lab. Tucker is 6 years old and Sydney is 8 years old. We adopted Sydney from my brother Steve, when they had their first child. We had taken care of Sydney when they would go away on a trip. Tucker really liked having her around. We have had Sydney for 3 years. I never really heard Sydney bark until a few weeks after we got her. She loves to chase Tucker. Tucker loves it too. They are both great dogs and they are fun to take hiking, which is one of their favorite activities.

Tucker is an amazing dog. When he was about 6 months old, we took him to Camp Atterbury for evaluation for consideration into their search and rescue program. It was interesting watching how they test dogs for this. I remember meeting with them and they said that most of the dogs they see do not meet the standards. I guess he was letting us know that there was little chance Tucker would make it. I remember him walking up to us a period of time after running him through a series of tests and told us that it had been a long time since they have observed a dog with so much drive and they wanted to train him. We put quite a bit of time an effort into it. There was one weekend that it was just me that had to go and it was night navigation training, which was fun to learn. We were basically inserted into the middle of the woods at night with no flashlights. We had to navigate to several different points. Also learned different search techniques. I still remember the moonlight and the image of these intermittent spider webs and some were occupied by the crawly critters.

We found ourselves unable to totally commit to the search and rescue program because of the time element. Tucker is still amazing. It is fun to watch him work and he thrives on doing this. It is almost like he knows it is his job. For example, we live on a wooded lot and our home sits atop a hill. At night, I can take a small piece of rubber from a tennis ball, no larger than 1 inch and throw it into the trees and underbrush at night. I release him with the command, "go find" and to my amazement, he drops it off at my feet as if to say, "is that all you got?" It simple but fun entertainment for me. Now Sydney on the other hand. She would rather wait until Tucker finds what he needs to find and then take it away when he drops it.

These photos I took on Thanksgiving day. They love the tall grass. Tucker was running through the grass and occasionally he would hop like a deer running. He has chased a few deers, so maybe he was just seeing what it was like.


John