May 5th, 2008 by edit1media

Holy cow…has it really been THAT long since I posted a blog entry?! Things have been even crazier than usual around here!

I blogged earlier about Dalia & Mitchell’s wedding which we filmed in West Palm Beach in March. Well just a few days after getting home from there, a colleague in the LA area asked me (Laura) to come do a Same Day Edit for a corporate event. That was fun and involved quite a few retired NBA stars. But I wasn’t prepared to see snow in the foothills and froze my patootie off! LOL!! I did manage to get a great shot of the palm trees with snow in the background…certainly not something I’m used to seeing!

After that short adventure, we had another ‘short notice trip’ down to San Diego to film some Pearl Harbor vets. Those men really are one-of-a-kind heroes and it was an honor to capture their stories in High Definition. One of the gentlemen, John Finn is the last living Medal of Honor recipient from the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is such an engaging and fascinating man! A special thanks to our buddy Randy Stubbs for letting us borrow his lighting kit so we didn’t have to ship ours down there!

The week after that, a corporate client needed us to go to Jacksonville, Florida and Waukegan, Illinois to create some client testimonials for an upcoming meeting. That happened in the midst of the American Airlines MD80 debacle and we saw a lot of people who were stranded at Chicago O’Hare. The trip was filled with flight delays and lots of cold rain (even in Florida!) so we were actually happy to get back home to the 50-degree weather! LOL!! Thankfully the following week found us in Honolulu for an on-site editing session with a client and we were able to warm up quite a bit! So basically at the beginning of March when I looked at my calendar we had one trip coming up. By the end of April we had FOUR more added in! Crazy!

All this traveling has us very thankful to be home, although I wouldn’t have minded if we just staying in Hawaii forever. We are a little bit suntanned, exhausted, and behind on our editing but we are soooo grateful for our children having been away too many nights from them over the last two months. I swear they grew at least an inch while we were coming and going! Mega kudos to Andrew (our oldest son and editor extraordinaire!) for holding down the fort and keeping his little brothers in check! Now it’s time for some serious editing all-nighters!

Corporate, Crazy Schedule, Destination Weddings, Hawaii, Networking, News, Same Day Edit, Travel

March 8th, 2008 by edit1media

Chris and I are in Fort Lauderdale this weekend to shoot Dalia & Mitchell’s wedding tomorrow in West Palm Beach. The weather has been amazing and yes, it’s Spring Break too! So the beaches are crowded with college kids but we haven’t seen too much crazy stuff yet! Dalia booked an incredible room for us overlooking the beach. So cool!

Today we filmed Dalia & Mitchell’s blessing from the Rabbi and tomorrow is the big day! We are working with Craig Larsen Jr who is a photographer also from Washington. It’s great for Dalia & Mitchell to be able to meet with us back home in Washington both before and after the wedding and have us here for the events.

Since June marks our 15th wedding anniversary, Chris and I decided to add on a few days to this trip and take a short cruise to the Bahamas. I’ve never been on a cruise nor to the Caribbean before so I was really excited! Now the day after the cruise is over I have to say I was NOT disappointed! We snorkeled, jet-skiied, and did something really cool called snuba and got pretty sunburned! A videographer who previously purchased our training DVD picked us up in Nassau and we went to his studio to check out his work and give him some tips. Now he is hoping to come to Seattle for some one-on-one training which will be fun! While on the island he gave us a personal tour and turned us on to conch fritters and Kalik beer! Yum! Thanks, Rodger!

I’ll post some photos when we get back home since I can’t figure out how to do that from my phone! In the meantime, I hope everyone joins me in wishing Dalia & Mitchell well in thier new marriage! Mazeltov!!

wedding video + destination wedding

Crazy Schedule, Destination Weddings, Jewish, Travel

July 17th, 2007 by edit1media

Just a quick and very belated post to brag for a moment!

In May Edit 1 Media was honored with a First Place Telly Award for a short documentary video that is in the movie theater of the Pacific Aviation Museum in Honolulu, HI. This short movie was filmed on Ford Island, a small island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that the US battleships surrounded on the morning of December 7, 1941. The story highlights two men who were 19 yeard old during the attack and who helped other men out of the burning waters of Pearl Harbor. Their lives were dramatically changed that fateful day and our film took them back to Ford Island where a new museum was being built. It’s an extremely powerful film that shows two men still haunted by war over 65 years after the attack.

I’m proud to say that my father, Allan Palmer the CEO of the Palmer Group along and my brother, Steven Palmer (graphics, design and so much more), my sister Adrienne Palmer (website) and the awesome curator named Mike Wilson (who is practically family) were almost completely responsible for raising this musuem from nothing. Upon the museum’s opening on December 7, 2007 we were so proud to be a part of perserving an important piece of American history. The thousands of people in attendance made every hard moment of work worth it for all of us.

We are so honored to have been blessed by this experience and being able to meet such incredible people as Herb Franck, Ernie Olson, Gen. Chuck Yeager, Gen. Robin Olds, Wally Schirra, John Finn, and countless others. The Palmer Group ROCKS!!!!

Awards, Corporate, Hawaii, Travel, wedding videographer, Weddings

April 6th, 2007 by edit1media

Chris and I wrapped up our crazy corporate shoot by flying out to Tampa, Florida a few days ago. The weather there was absolutely perfect. Bright blue skies, lots of sunshine…just perfect! We met with David and Vance from VHVideo Productions to talk business and had a great time with them. We have loads of ideas to digest now on how to handle our growing business!

We did spend 1/2 a day at the hotel pool in Orlando before flying back home. That was a small slice of heaven and I have a slight sunburn to prove it! But now we are back home and editing away on all the projects we have!

We are in the process of creating a new videography package that will help those who are looking for a more affordable product while still keeping the Edit 1 Media quality and emotion that we are well-known for. So keep your eyes peeled for that info coming soon!

corporate video

Corporate, Networking, Travel

March 29th, 2007 by edit1media

March 29, 2007

The past two weeks have been crazy…filled with last minute travels and a sad story too.

One of our recent groom’s found out that his father is dying. Their wedding wasn’t quite on our radar to be completed yet, but his dad has less than two months to live. So naturally they are now top priority and are working feverishly to get a great movie out for them as soon as possible. I really want the bride and groom to experience sharing their video with his dad before he passes away. This is so close to our hearts because his dad is dying from cancer and we knew the groom back when our own son was battling cancer. It’s just so sad. I hate cancer.

One the positive side to this story, all of our other clients who are so patiently waiting for their videos have been wonderful about this. They’ve said “Of course you have to do their’s first…no problem!”. We are so grateful to have such wonderful clients!

Then in the midst of all that, we get a call to travel to several cities to record some testimonial videos for a coporate client. Chris and I spent 5 nights in 5 different hotels! We visited San Francisco, San Jose, Vacaville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Dayton. My brain was so fried when we got back home two days ago! And now in just a few more days we will head out to Tampa, Florida for another shoot.

I can’t complain because business is good and we seem to have some high demand. But it does put a crimp on my editing! I wish I could clone myself! But this does lead me to realize that we will probably need to bring on another editor in the near future. Or fast-forward that human cloning thing!

Thanks for stopping by to read our blog and I hope you take a few minutes to watch some of the videos we have and leave some comments too. It’s really cool for us to see who is visiting! And just for incentive, here is another video we are working on. It’s the opening to this couple’s wedding movie. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!

wedding + corporate video

cancer, Christian Ceremony, Corporate, Crazy Schedule, Personal Life, Real Weddings, Travel, Video Clips, wedding videographer

January 18th, 2007 by edit1media

January 11, 2007

What a wild party last night at the Twisted Martini in the Jacksonville Landing. We had a “2nd line” from the hotel to the club that included boas and beads! Here is the Same Day Edit we created. Oh yeah, there’s also some seminars in there too. But basically I wanted to create something that gave the overall feeling of the day…a big, fun, crazy blur!!

P.S. The ‘playing cards’ are actually cards of all the Top 25 videographers! LOL!!

meetings

Business, Networking, News, Same Day Edit, Travel

January 18th, 2007 by edit1media

January 8, 2007

I’ll try to make this brief because this weekend was just insane and there is way too much to write!

The Seattle Wedding Show was Saturday and Sunday. We had two booths and eight non-paid clients who volunteered their time to help us. What amazing clients we have!!! I believe the final count was over 8,000 people attended and we handed out over 2,000 demo DVDs. One of our booths was dedicated to showing the difference between High Definition and Standard Definition and with a very impressive demo. It was great to see vendors we haven’t seen in awhile too! Overall it was a successful and fun show! I can hardly wait until next year! Thank you to Sharon of Third Day Creations for making our booth so beautiful with the flowers and candles!

After the show, we had to break down the booths and get to the airport to take off to Jacksonville, Florida for the 4Ever Group’s Video ’07 Conference. After flying all night we got in this morning and took a nice long nap! Then we headed out to the Awards Banquet where we had a seat waiting for us next to our buddies from Pixel Pops in Dallas, Texas. I handed out quite a few of the awards, including quite a few from a company I had never heard of before! Below is a photo of Chris and I with our new Top 25 award. Then the party started!! It’s nice to be able to let loose once a year and have Cosmopolitans to my heart’s content and gab with old friends and make some new ones! Videographers rock!!

This week I will be on two panels…one on Same Day Edits and one on Judging. I’m also going to be doing a Same Day Edit of the conference on Wednesday. Then we head out on Thursday so we can do Jill & Bart’s wedding on Friday. Crazy week, but that’s our life and we love it!

wedding

Awards, Crazy Schedule, High Definition, Seattle, Travel, Wedding Show

January 15th, 2007 by edit1media

December 7, 2006

Words cannot describe today. We are in Honolulu for the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Grand Opening of the Pacific Aviation Museum.

We were commissioned to create a total of 5 videos for the museum. One is about two survivors telling their story of December 7th and their return to Ford Island. This plays in a full 200-seat theater every 20 minutes 7 days a week. It’s a very powerful movie and people leave in stunned silence. The first time it was shown today both gentlemen, Herb and Ernie, were there. They had no idea the movie was going to be a permanent part of the museum and they were in tears when we told them. They also got a standing ovation at the end of the first play when they were introduced. These are two amazing American heroes and I’m so proud to call them my friends now too. Herb told me that this movie touched him deeper than any of the hundreds of other movies, videos, books, or photos that he has seen about Pearl Harbor over the last 65 years. Talk about a compliment!!!

The other thing we did was create ‘kiosk videos’ that play on large plasma screens in 4 of the exhibits. One is about the “Battle of Niihau” which most people know nothing about and is a fascinating story! Another is about a small airplane whose pilot and his son found themselves in a swarm of Japanese Zeros on that fateful morning and lived to tell about it. Their airplane is also on display. Again, another story that many people don’t know about. The third video talks about the Doolittle Raid and has a mini-theater that looks like a ‘ready-room’ to host it in. The fourth video is about Guadalcanal. This museum is truly cool and I’m not saying that just because our videos are there (well, maybe! LOL!!).

The Grand Opening ceremony was really cool. There were about 2,000 people there, most of which had to come over to Ford Island via a trolley since it is still a military base. Chuck Yeager (aviation God), Wally Schirra (astronaut), Tom Brokaw, 5 Medal of Honor Recipients, and many more honored guests were there. But the most important guests were the Pearl Harbor survivors who made the trip from all different parts of the country. I got chills when they were all asked to stand and were given a standing ovation. After a bunch of speeches the museum was blessed by a Hawaiian Kahuna and officially opened. People raved about our videos which was a really cool experience!

business

Corporate, Hawaii, Travel, Video Clips

January 15th, 2007 by edit1media

October 29, 2006

After three days of being confined to a very small room in a crappy hotel and watching 14 hours of videos each day, I’m happy to be back home! The final judging was an educational and amazing experience. One I would be happy to do again in the future.

The three other judges were Sheila Orsi, Joe McManus, and Jay Stein. I already knew Sheila but didn’t really know Joe or Jay, so it was great to get to know these fine folks! We had a ton of fun and I hope we’ll all stay in touch from now on!

The videos…the cool thing about the final round is that by this time almost all the videos were awesome! My head is spinning with great shots, cool music, and the fact that an hour long video seems SO much longer than a 30 or 40 minute video. The amazing thing is that the 30-40 minute videos actually seemed to have more footage and tell more of a story than the longer videos. So the first thing we are going to do is implement this style into our own productions.

I was also happy to see more videographers incorporating voice over into their weddings. It really helps to tell the story and condense time without making the viewer feel like they are missing anything.

The funny thing is that they wouldn’t tell us who the winner’s are. We won’t know until everyone else finds out at the AAA Awards Banquet in Jacksonville, Florida in January! It’s killing me! There were several winning videos who I’m pretty sure I know who did them, but there are quite a few that I’m not sure of. I can hardly wait until Jacksonville now!

It truly was an honor to ask to be a judge by the 4Ever Group. Again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The ONLY downside is that we couldn’t enter the contest ourselves and we had some pretty amazing videos this year. But there is always next year!

wedding

Awards, Cinematography, Crazy Schedule, Travel

January 15th, 2007 by edit1media

October 08, 2006

A few months ago I was asked to be a judge for a national wedding videography contest for the 4Ever Group. I was sent a total of 76 tapes and I have 12 left to watch. It’s been an interesting experience and in about two weeks I’m going to New York for the final round of judging with all the judges.

The ones that I have selected as the top in their category are hands down better than the rest of the group. It’s actually a little bit disheartening to see so many bad videos. Plus it makes me wish I had actually been entering national contests over the last few years!

The biggest problem I come across is camera stability, followed by editing that just doesn’t match the music. This just goes to show that there is still definitely a need for lots of education in the industry! I highly recommend the training videos by Mark & Trisha Von Lanken for anyone who needs help in these areas!

Awards, Travel, wedding videographer, Weddings