Archive for the 'General' Category

One More Live On-Air Wedding

Building on success of the live on-air wedding broadcasted in May 2009, A-Morning TV Show pulled another one, just as successful. The small army of local wedding vendors eager to showcase their talents, has helped to present beautifully every element of the show.

A-Morning Wedding Ceremony

Family and guests are looking down on the ceremony from the second floor of the Media Mall on 87 George St. in Ottawa, Canada.

I asked the show producer Ziyada Callender to assess the success. Ziyada kindly responded, and here is the interview:

Q:  What was the success on a scale form 1 to 10?

Z: On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the wedding show a 9… since
there’s always room for improvement! There was so much to do in such a
short space of time, I’m more than happy with the outcome of the show.

A-Morning Wedding Ceremony

Ingrid and Gino are leaving the Ceremony at the A-Morning Ottawa.

Q: The most important motive of every wedding is keeping the bride happy.
Do you think we made Ingrid feel good?

Z: Keeping Ingrid happy for this wedding was even more important than the
first wedding we did, because our focus was on couples who had a
disastrous first wedding. Ingrid’s first wedding was a complete
catastrophic destination wedding so it was extremely important that she
was pleased with everything. Thankfully, she was!

Q: Have you heard back from the viewers? Any exciting emails you could
quote for me?

A: We had a quite a few emails from viewers saying how happy they were with
the wedding show (the dress was beautiful, they got so many prizes,
etc.) but the best one for me — the one that I kept — was from the
bride and groom themselves:

Thank you for giving us such a great ‘re-do’. It was an experience that we will never forget. Please pass on our thanks to the staff and hosts of the show. Everyone was so nice and worked hard to make the day so great for us and our guests. We may not have come across as sentimental on the show but this ‘re-do’ experience not only gave us a new wedding day experience that was far better than our own it also helped to remind Gino and I that we have a great life together with our children.

A-Morning Wedding Ceremony

Wedding gown show makes good television.

Q: Local wedding vendors charge big money for their services. You have not
charge the couple a penny. Are you going to spoil local brides?

Z: We love our community and showcasing local businesses. If there’s a
venue for us to support both, we’re definitely going to do it!

Q: How do you think it affects local vendors in terms of setting up certain
standards. Who is catching up?

Z: I think shows like this gives vendors involved a chance to showcase
their supply to such a mass audience and ultimately, generates more
business. Because of what we’re doing, I feel local vendors are raising
both their quality and quantity to meet the demands once being on our
show.

I will let you know if there is another live on-air morning show in the future. Thanks!

A-Morning Wedding on Flickr.

“If there is money to be spent it’s either on funerals, babies or weddings!”

- says TV producer Joanne Woo.

Joanne produces daily breakfast television show in Ottawa, National Capital of Canada. The city with its suburbs totaling up to around one million inhabitants wakes up to the only local morning show named simply - A-Morning. /A\ (sic!) is the brand of the station, hence the show title.

Atv_wedding_413

On the photo: the weather and the best man Bill Welychka looks up as the A-Morning host Kurt Stoodley performs the ceremony.

 While the station struggles through the hurdles caused by the federal regulations and current status of economy, the staff decided to take on the wedding theme and run four hour show culminating in the live on-air wedding ceremony.

JOANNE WOO: “It’s something we’ve never done… I love the challenge of new things. So we thought what the heck, let’s take a chance.”

The show propped up by the local sponsors went well as a high class wedding with the white limousine, make up artists, decorators, clothing retailers and jewelers, all focused on promoting their businesses at the same time making good television. Response was strong and positive -from the married couple, their families, sponsors and viewers as well. The station in fact has received several requests for the copies of the show.

JOANNE WOO: “It’s a big morale boost to know that our little station can put together a big production with so few resources.” The show was put on shortly after the major cuts in the industry in a whole and about 50% staff lay off at the station.

Atv_wedding_547

On the photo: news anchor Sandra Blaikie blows bubbles on the newly married couple Stephan and Christina leaving the TV station.

Apparently the station is keen on capitalizing on success and eager to run the sequel, and possibly to make the wedding show a regular one.

Is it going to affect local wedding video production businesses? It will definitely raise the bar in production quality challenging local videographers to catch up. Is it going to compete with the businesses? Probably not. Few occasional weddings a year won’t bite out of a big pie. On a contrary, production team wants to see wedding videographers on the show, says Joanne.

That’s all. Let me know what you think in the Comments box. I would like to hear from the videographers, marrying couples and local TV stations, what do you think of a live on-air wedding on your local morning TV show?

More photos of the live on-air wedding of Stephan and Christina.

Richard Emmanuel speaks with Ottawa Citizen

Richard Emmanuel, photo by Malcolm TaylorThere may be a chance to work shoulder to shoulder with great and successful personality. Unfortunately I have not yet had that chance with Richard Emmanuel, the photographer based in Toronto. But I have read an article on wedding photography in Ottawa Citizen on June 25, 2008. Big portion of that article was based on an interview with Richard.

Although he is making point about approach to wedding photography, everything he said may be equally applied to wedding videos. Just few quotes:

“A lot of people want to live like rock stars. [A wedding day] is their chance to do it for a day. My brides are all princesses for a day. I help make their dream come true.”

He likes the idea that the pictures may stay in the family for generations. “I capture the milestone moments.”

That’s the key, helping the marrying couple to make it a day of a celebrity life and capture it for generations. Apparently it ensures Richard Emmanuel’s solid booking for 18 months to two years ahead and a healthy compensation for a hard work.

Photo by Malcolm Taylor, published in Ottawa Citizen.

FAQ Video in Videomaker, May 2008

Videomaker 2008

I was delighted to see Mark Montgomery using my Videomaker forum entry for the “Your questions answered” page.

Not to mention that Videomaker has been one of my favourite readings since my first days in television and video production (there is actually a copy in my news truck), I am a frequent visitor to VM web site. It is a good place to visit, to chat, to help others and to learn new stuff for everyone, whether you are an aspiring enthusiast or a seasoned pro.

Have not you subscribed yet?

 

 

High-end Wedding Spendings Steady: Reuters

Latest decline in traditional marriage numbers and US economy slow down made some wedding vendors worried. Too early, says Claudia Parsons, Reuters. At least New York videographers should get their cameras ready for the season.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - “Investment bank bailouts, home foreclosures and job losses have spread economic gloom through America but in New York, at least, there’s one industry still weathering the storm — high-end weddings. Cake makers, florists, wedding planners and dress-makers at a wedding show this month said brides were still determined to enjoy their big day with almost no expense spared.”

Read full report.