artisan wedding videos by studio msv

Uber Amazing Blog Award

One of the coolest things about the internet is it's "viral" nature. The internet is unlike any other modern medium of information distribution because it has a unique way of disseminating news from one source to another that spreads faster and further than the usual news network or paper.

When, on the internet, one item becomes popular and is reported or spread around by others, that popular item becomes world renown in a matter of days. (Case in point: the "Chocolate Rain" music video that was posted on YouTube in April of 2007 and has since been viewed almost 31 million times! That's over 54,000 views a DAY! That's clearly more than just a youtube video - that's a phenomenon.)

Well, about a month ago a gal named Jade, who writes the blog MommaWannabe, started passing around what she called the Uber Amazing Blog Award for blogs that she thought were uber amazing. She simply asked each recipient to also nominate and give the award to at least five other blogs who were uber amazing. There's no telling how many blogs have been nominated or have recieved this award by now. Try Googling the term "uber amazing blog" and you'll see just how prolific this award has become!

I'm proud to say that my blog has been nominated as an Uber Amazing Blog by Diane Phillips of DK Designs! Thanks, Diane!

These are the official rules:

The Uber (synonym to Super) Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:

• inspires you
• makes you smile and laugh
• or maybe gives amazing information
• a great read
• has an amazing design
• and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:

• Put the logo on your blog or post.
• Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
• Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.

Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

I will be announcing my nominees soon!

Wildflower Linen Spotlight

I won't say too much... you can read all about it on The Wedding Chat. But remember when I posted about visiting Wildflower for a special project? Well, here it is...

Check out The Wedding Chat and Wildflower Linens!

My Friend Stacie on HGTV

My friend, Stacie Tamaki was on HGTV (Home and Garden TV - it's a cable network, people) a few years ago and they did a feature on Stacie and her amazing minature origami cranes and hand-crafted mini cherry blossom tree.

It's a pretty cool video but, if you know Stacie at all, you'll wonder why the editors of that piece edited the life out of Stacie's personality. Maybe she was camera-shy or maybe she was just really concentrating on her craft, but whatever the reason, meeting Stacie in real-life is a much more exhiliarating experience than what they depicted in the video.

Anyway... check it out!

You can see more of Stacie's stuff at www.tinycranes.com or her regularly-upkept blog, www.theflirtygirl.com (which is where I first saw this video, not coincidentally. Hat tip to Stacie. :-)

Computing Clutch

I came across this amazing new product today; it's a laptop computer stylish enough to bring to a Hollywood after party!

Check out the new Vivienne Tam-designed HP "clutch" notebook!

Read more here>>

Now you can live blog from the cocktail party without looking like a nerd!

"After Whom Shall I Stalk?"

I use Google reader as my RSS feed reader.
I read a lot of blogs.

Some may suggest too many.

But I'm always looking for inspiration and insight so I consider it valuable research. Some of the blogs that I read are listed in my blog roll on the right-hand side of this page, some are not wedding-related so they're not listed, but nevertheless I'm always looking for more!

If you have some great suggestions as far as interesting, creative, insightful and visually stunning blogs that you think I should look into -- yours or others', wedding-related or not -- please leave a comment on this post and tell me who you think I should check out!

Thanks!

The Coolest iPhone App!

My movies are very music-driven.

If you're a bride of mine, you've gone through the rigors of having to create a song list from which the foundation of your wedding movie will be laid. If you're not a client of mine, you might get a sense of the importance of music in my movies just by watching them.

So it's no surprise that sometimes my "editor's block" centers around the fact that I can't find that perfect song to create the mood I'm looking for in a particular segment. In fact, I try my best to find (musical) inspiration wherever it finds me. That means trying really really hard to remember a band name, a song title, or a lyric or two that I can later Google from my desktop. But my memory has never been great when it comes to that sort of thing so thankfully those days are over!

Have you tried the Shazam App from your friendly neighborhood iTunes App Store? Goodness gracious. It's awesome.

Imagine: You're a wedding videographer. You're in an elevator and you hear a killer tune that would be perfect for a dramatic Super 8mm segment of the movie you're currently working on. You bust out your iPhone. Touch the Shazam App icon. Shazaam listens to the song you're no longer trying to memorize the lyrics of, searches its database for what song you're hearing, and reports back to you the title, artist, album, and even allows you to order the song from iTunes.

Nice.

If you've ever found yourself in a situation where you heard a cool song and wanted to know who it was by, but couldn't, give Shazam a quickie (FREE!) download.

I'm on the DV Show!

There is a very popular website and podcast called The DV Show by Brian Alves. Brian is a leader in video industry tech and solutions and was once a wedding videographer himself. Somehow - I'm not sure how - Brian caught wind of my new Instant Wedding DVD Favors and wanted to feature me on an upcoming episode of his DV Show Podcast.

If you're interested in checking out the podcast, my phone interview is listed in the archives on THIS page as the post dated July 7, 2008.

There are some advertisements in the first part of the podcast, but my interview starts at about the 3:32 mark. Then there is another commercial break and the interview picks up again at 21:46.

You can find the full interview HERE in .mp3 format. Or you can get it on iTunes by clicking HERE (this will open iTunes so you can download it to your iPod or iPhone!) Check it out and let me know if you think I sounded like a dork. :-)

Season for Voting

It's the season for voting. What? Politics, candidates, amendments, and propositions? blah blah blah!

I'm talking about my new public opinion poll here on the blog. (See right-hand side toward the bottom.) I'm going to give it a try to see if it interests people - and when I say "see if it interests people" I mean, "see if I have the internal fortitude to continue to come up with new and fun questions on a regular basis."

For now, check it out and vote on something - then come back on vote on something else!

Cheers!

Working Vacation

Some of you whom I have communicated with over email know that I am working a wedding this weekend in Los Angeles and then relaying my SoCal visit into a family vacation to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico on a four-day cruise.

This will be the first time my kids have ever been on a cruise and since my son is proned to motion sickness, I stocked up on Dramamine and bought one of those accupressure wristband contraptions too. Frankly, I'm a little dubious of its effectiveness. I'll report back on my findings after I've 'collected more data'. (With some luck it will only be data I'm collecting, not chunks of Zach's lunch.)

While on this trip, I will be blogging about my goings on as frequently as I can. I don't really know what internet connections are like out on the open waters. I would assume satellite internet connections are possible, but I have no experience with "logging on" while at sea. (To be honest, I'm a little ashamed to say that I'm even voluntarily considering wearing a virtual tether while on vacation with my family, but this is sort of a way of journaling the experience; something my kids will appreciate in years to come.)

Besides, frequent readers shouldn't be surprised at my propensity for vlogging vacations... See here, here, here and here.

Anyway, here's my first episode of my 2008 Summer Vacay... It's a two-minute non-sequitur. Enjoy!

(It should be noted that the video was shot with my wife's point-and-shoot Sony Cybershot digital-still camera.)

Twitter

I know; it's geeky and I'm a dork for liking it. But it's things like this that makes technology fun!

Twitter.com is a free online service that allows you to let your friends know what you're up to as well as keep up-to-date with your friends' activities. (If you're familiar with Facebook, it's basically like the "status" updates there, but much more up-to-the-minute and better connected.)

Here's how it works:

1) Sign up for a free account at www.twitter.com.
2) Start entering your your "update" status with whatever you're doing at the time.
3) Follow your friends to see what their doing (this is updated on the "recent posts" page.
4) Set up your mobile device to allow Twitter to accept text messages from your cell phone.
5) Stay connected!

Sign up so you can follow me on Twitter! My Twitter profile name is "AndrewMSV"! See you online!

(Tip: for iPhone users, you can get a fuller Twitter experience open Safari on your iPhone and go to www.twitterforiphone.com)