And Now, Deep Thoughts...
By Orphonic
It can be fun for me to daydream about the future of Orphonic. I see this company eventually expanding to accommodate more clients, hiring multiple full time employees, and evolving the business with the ever-changing industry. When I mapped out the path to get there, I reached the conclusion that it is realistic to plan for the start of growth as early as 2021. In the meantime, it's business as usual. Why the wait? Because of a fantastic opportunity I simply could not pass up. The opportunity to raise my daughter without childcare. It's a full time job with a lot of overtime. However, its full time status is temporary, as she'll be in 1st grade by 2021. In the meantime, I will still be available for limited scheduling (which seemed to work well for our typical clients over the last year). My wonderful wife is working hard on her career right now, but when she is isn't at work or school, she's at home with our daughter, giving me the time to continue to offer video and photo services to great clients like you. Dreams of building a business empire and world domination will have to remain dreams for the next handful of years. And that's cool. She's worth it.
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"...Go together like a horse and carriage..."
For some, hearing this Frank Sinatra tune evokes thoughts of wedded bliss or the joys of raising a family. For others, it is simply the theme song of the TV show, Married with Children, which chronicles the story of Al Bundy's nightmare of a life. I think that television and movies have negatively impacted our perception of what married life is. It is far more entertaining to observe the shortcomings of dysfunctional characters like the Bundys or the Bunkers than the Cleavers, for example. I cannot think of a better example than Leave It To Beaver, which reiterates my point.
I remember being engaged and thinking to myself, "Marriage doesn't work for some people, but it's going to work for us!" What was I basing this on? I had a belief that marriage was going to be an uphill battle or an unnatural state of companionship. I also thought that it could somehow change our civility toward each other over time. I was so relieved to find out that my inclinations were entirely wrong. When two people are right for each other and they want to be together for the rest of their lives, marriage can be both natural and enjoyable. There are plenty of books that have been written about how to maintain a healthy relationship and I do not claim to be an expert in the field of love. I'm just a married guy with a daughter and I have a formula that has been working for me for over a decade. Marriage is a partnership.
My wife and I had a conversation about how we intended to work together, not just during the highs, but specifically during the lows of our marriage. You cannot always just give each other space. We knew that if we had children, we would need to know how to work together. We look at it as if we are running a business, but the business is our lives. It is one life and we are the co-owners of it. It's great when co-workers get along with each other and enjoy each other’s company, but on a bad day, they still need to be able to work together in the same building. The key to that is respect. If you respect one another, you can work together even when you don't see eye to eye.
Most relationships start with a big rush of infatuation and that initial love is like a roaring bonfire. Naturally, after the kindling burns up, the logs provide a smaller flame but over a long period of time. But if you don't want the fire to go out, you have to keep an eye on it. You have to throw more logs in the fire every so often. But if you ever get scared that the flames aren’t roaring big enough, just add more kindling. The important thing to remember is that kindling is the little things. If the flames are low and all you have are some glowing coals, it's the small things that can quickly bring the flames back. Don't take my word for it, ask Grandma.
"Why should someone hire you?
We are dedicated to discreetly capturing beautiful video of your event without distracting you or your guests. We are passionate about it. More so than any other vendors we have yet to meet. For us, the most important thing isn't getting a shot of a ring going on a finger if that means blocking the view for all your guests. A cinematic camera floating around you on the dance floor is not as important as remembering your first dance without a cameraman running around you. You'll never forget your wedding day... and your wedding video will help you remember all the details. What you will forget is that we were ever there. In that sense, we are overwhelming proud of how forgettable we are. Licensed Music: Nothing Beats It.This question has come up a lot lately... "Why can't we have a specific song dubbed over our video?" The answer can be complicated. The simplest way to answer is "Because it's illegal and unethical to insert copyrighted material into a video if licensing for it hasn't been purchased." It's more than just buying an MP3, unfortunately. When you buy a song for $1 and download it, you are purchasing permission to listen to it. In a way, it's like you are renting it; You can't legally copy it or build something else with it. You can only listen to it. When you hear a popular song in a movie or a commercial, the publishing company charges the filmmaker a unique price for a custom license. Let's just say, it's going to be out of almost everyone's wedding budget.
More and more I've been getting requests for unedited video footage from clients. It use to be that photographers and videographers rarely showed anyone their unedited footage for a number of reasons.
Now, I'm not the kind of videographer that will turn away a client rather than let them see the footage without any makeup on, but as long as the client understands that a lot of work goes into post production, I'll share it. One of those things that goes into post production is color. Now, in a perfect world a cinematographer might use white cards to balance the color in camera, but with location changes, the sun changing throughout the day, and crazy DJ lights in the dark, a lot of times we have to take a wild guess when we adjust our camera settings, and just plan on fixing it later. Above is a video I shot of my dog, Cassette. I did it fast, because she doesn't sit still very long. I focused on her eyes and started rolling. I didn't check my aperture, my ISO, my shutter speed, or my color temperature. It was set to whatever I was filming last. I just started rolling, not to waste a second, because any moment she might move. Like I said, she doesn't sit still that long.
This isn't unlike many kinds of spontaneous situations at an event. Let's say I walk into the reception hall from outside and I come upon a memory in the making. All of the settings from outside are going to be different from what they would need to be inside. But rather than miss that moment, I shoot it with full intentions of fixing it later. When you see that unedited footage, you might think "This looks bad! Johnny must not know what he's doing." But au contraire, I knew exactly what I was doing: Catching something before it was gone and knowing full well what I was able to adjust in post later. So do I want you to see all the unedited footage? Sure. Just be understanding. ;-) |
Johnny MarszalkowskiVideographer, Photographer, Editor, and Owner of Archives
February 2017
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