artisan wedding videos by studio msv

What's the Happs? Christmas Already? Wha??

Man oh man, it has been SOOoooo long since I've posted anything here. I, like many of you, have been so busy these past few months. If I weren't ethically opposed to human cloning, I would gladly sign up to have myself cloned. "Two or three more of me would be great. Thanks, doc!"

I hope you have all had a great couple of months; with the Thanksgiving and now Christmas holidays practically enveloping - no DROWING us - with extended To-Do lists, it's no wonder people always say they need vacations from their vacations.

I have been busy editing in order to get client movies delivered to them in time for Christmas family parties and so forth. It's been hectic and BARELY manageable, but I'm plugging away. There are some folks that will have to wait just a little longer to get their movies, but I think it's my job to make a great movie, not just one that arrives in the nick of time. I hope you agree with that assessment.

Anyway, I want to wish you all a great Christmas and holiday season as well as a terrific and safe New Year celebration. I will return in full force in 2010 and I look forward to re-connecting with all of you. :-)

Cheers!

(Meanwhile, if you didn't get a Christmas Card from us this year - it's nothing personal - we're just super duper busy! Here it is; a wonderful photo from the gifted Tanja Lippert. Also check out the rest of the pictures at her blog.)

And lastly, before I sign off for a couple of weeks, here is a trailer/highlight video I made for my clients, Margaret and Stewart. It's one of many movies I've been working on. enjoy!

Margaret and Stewart highlights from andrew msv on Vimeo.

ABC's of Disney

Earlier this week, I went to Los Angeles for a brief detox and family facetime session with my wife and kids. I've been gone so much during wedding season that this was a welcomed (and necessary!) break. Here is a fun thing I did while at Disneyland and California Adventures theme parks... Check it out!

Montage here (click for larger image)

 
Detailed images here:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

For hard core Disney fans, here is the list of where each of these letters was found. Can you guess the SPECIFIC location?

Tomorrowland: A, B, E, K, Q, V, Y

Fantasyland: D, M, O, W
Frontierland: F, S, T, Z
New Orleans Square: L
Main Street: I
California Adventure: H, J, P, R, U, X
Outside the Parks: C, G, N

Some Mexico Pictures (part five)

More Mexico photos...

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Some Mexico Pictures (part four)

After the wedding was over, my wife Annie, and I were able to celebrate our 11th year anniversary while down in Mexico. Here are some random photos I took of stuff that I saw.

No explanations necessary... just picutres of what I saw. :-)

Warning: Geeky photography talk coming up...

The first and fourth images are HDR composites based on two exposures.

The final three images have no color correction done to them. If you're interested in seeing the exposure settings, visit my Facebook photo album where you can often see photos before they're posted here on the blog...

Facebook Mexico 2009 Album

If you're not my Facebook friend, what are you waiting for?
www.facebook.com/andrewmsv

And become a fan of Studio MSV on Facebook by clicking on the banner to the right -->

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Some Mexico Pictures (part three)

Here are more photos of our trip to Mexico for Joemar and April's wonderful destination wedding...

A brief description of each:

This is a shot of the Villa at which our awesome clients, April and Joemar, held their reception.

Another sunset shot of the view from the villa.

This is the street just outside the villa at the end of the wedding day when we were wrapping up and heading home. (I know I skipped over the actual wedding portion of the trip, but highlights will be coming soon.) 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

A shot of the streets of Puerto Vallarta and capping off the photoset, one more photo of the view from the Villa.

Some Mexico Pictures (part two)

Here are some more images from our wedding in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. These images are from day two, our location scout day.

Quick descriptors of each:

I shot with Augie Chang (who, if you've ever seen his blog, you know is very fond of "jumping shots")

We had wonderful food at the hotel restaurant. Including our collective favorite, the fresh ceviche!

The view from the reception site was incredible. I caught this wonderful sunset using HDR photography (high dynamic range.) If you think this sunset photo is cool, wait until you see the high-definition timelapse video that I shot!

Our hotel was nestled in a mountain side and there was countless little critters running about. Cool for nature-lovers like me. (Not so much for my wife. :-)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Lastly, here's one of my favorite shots of Puerto Vallarta. The motorcyles in the forground and the palm trees reflected in the mirror.

Some Mexico Pictures (part one)

Here are some photos that I've taken of our time in Mexico. Enjoy!

The team on our way to dinner!

 

Here's Francisco, MB, and Maria 

This was taken from my hotel room balcony. I love "low" key photography. I'm often inspired by photographers lik Ben Chrisman and their use of dark or negative space. See Ben's Take-a-Look Tuesday interview RIGHT HERE.

Photos from Mexico

I have been taking fun iPhone snapshots and "proper" pictures as well.

In order to see the latest photos as they come out, please follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/andrewmsv) or befriend me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/andrewmsv)

Here are two of my favorites so far...

 

The direct link to the Facebook photo album in which these photos are contained, is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=130903&id=677601670 

Me Work Hard for You

Here's a couple of pics of me on recent shoots. Meanwhile, I continue to work on beautifully creative wedding movies for you! Stay tuned! :-)

^ photo by Mauricio Arias (click to enlarge)

^photo by Stacie Tamaki (click to enlarge)

Four Seasons, Westlake Village

A few weeks ago I realized I was gaining weight. Not enough sleep, a lack of exercise, and too much soda catches up with anyone. Even those with a historically fast metabolism like myself. Couple the weight gain with an unfortunate haircut and suddenly my face looked like a Marie Calendar's apple pie. Not cool.

So I started running and trying to eat better which has helped tremendously. The cool thing is this:

Last week, my friend, Julie from Elysium Productions - a wedding videography company in Orange County sent me a direct message on Twitter (follow me on Twitter here!) that asked if I was free to help her shoot that Saturday. But, unfortunately, I replied I was already shooting a wedding (at the beautiful Ritz Carlton SF, in fact.) But she clarified that it was the NEXT weekend that she needed me.

So after some text messaging, some emails, and a few phone calls, I found myself staying at Four Seasons, Westlake Village (nestled between California's Simi Valley and Malibu Hills) for a corporate job that Julie and the Elysium team didn't want to pass up.

I shot there for three days total and culminated the weekend with a Same Day Edit. Well, I guess, technically, a three-day edit that consisted of footage from all three days' events. I won't be able to show the video here just yet - Julie gets to blog about it first, of course - but after she blogs it, I will be able to show it.

I shot the first two days with my friend, James Burkart of Burkart Video Productions and the final day with one of Julie's trusted second-shooters from the LA area named, Chris Aguilar (of Soul Surf Media.)

And the cool thing that I was alluding to is that the event was unique because it was held at the Westlake Village Four Seasons which has a world-class wellness center built into the facilities. It's one of only a few of its kind in the world.

I got to sit in on some talks led by industry leaders on health, nutrition, aging, and wellness. Listening to them talk about these topics from the stand point of being world leaders in their field really gave me a great perspective on how I should treat my body. So I continue the journey - like many of us - to try to do better in taking care of ourselves. I'm on this journey with you so let's encourage each other to do our best!

(And, since we all know blog posts are better with photos, here are some pictures I took while in LA for this shoot.)

^ At the Saddlerock Ranch

^ Saddlerock for dinner

^ Live music

^ "A Vanity Affair" closing night soirée

^ Four Seasons Logo Gobo projected onto a hillside about 300 yards away