WEVA Tour Rocks Atlanta With HDV Exhibits and New Wedding Video Concepts
March 09, 2005
Sarasota, FL - Longtime WEVA International members along with videographers new to the business, and those anxious to learn how to improve their wedding and event bookings in the face of increasing competition, came out in droves last night to attend the 2005 WEVA Town Meeting Tour kick-off event in Atlanta, GA.
The event's Opening Reception, sponsored by Sony and Adobe Systems, was packed full of professional wedding & event videographers from the Atlanta metro area and all around the southeast region. “This has been a fantastic turnout! We’re seeing lots of new faces here tonight,” said Tony Hale, owner of TheDVShop, a leading provider of graphic and digital video editing systems.
“Last year’s Town Meeting in Atlanta was wonderful, but this year was even more exciting,” said Bob Perl, president of the Atlanta Videographers Association (AVA). “WEVA organized and produced an outstanding program for us and I know both WEVA and the AVA will be gaining many new members as a result,” said Perl. “People have enjoyed the video presentations and the live demonstrations by videographers, and all of the networking that’s going on. The exhibits by Sony and Adobe have stayed full from the time the doors first opened. Everyone wants to know more about HDV and get their questions answered, and the Town Meeting here tonight has been a great opportunity to do that one-on-one,” Perl related.
It was also a unique chance for videographers to view actual wedding ceremony and reception footage that had been shot on Sony’s brand new HVR-Z1 HDV camcorder.
“Attendees are seeing the actual raw footage from the Z1, which was shot at a wedding in Chicago this past weekend. It’s an exclusive HDV display here in Atlanta for the kick-off of our 7th Annual WEVA Town Meeting Tour,” said WEVA’s Director of Education John Zale. “For the upcoming cities on this year’s Tour, the HDV footage will be edited using Adobe’s new HDV plug-in. Videographers attending the Town Meeting in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas–during NAB, will be able to see the results first-hand during the Opening Reception at each city-stop,” Zale said.
Also on display at the Town Meeting in Atlanta were award-winning wedding and event productions from WEVA’s Creative Excellence Awards Competition, the industry’s most prestigious awards program. And new this year, at the event’s Opening Reception, were live displays of unique wedding and event on-location production techniques demonstrated by WEVA CEA winners.
The sit-down meeting for viewing the creative and technical presentations that followed the Reception, had all-new staging, designed by WEVA Special Events Director Marc Rogers who manages the technical and production operations for the Tour, and a faster-paced approach that yielded a wide variety of fresh presentations.
Speakers and panelists for the evening included WEVA International Chairman Roy Chapman, new technology representatives from Adobe Systems and Sony, and nationally-recognized WEVA International members, including John Goolsby (Cannon Video), Tim Sudall (Video One Productions), Brett Culp (Creative Video Productions), Lance Gray (PixelPops), Josh Fozzard (Moonlight Memory Productions), and Mike Gunter (Glacier Lily Productions).
Also on the agenda was an all-new -- and refreshingly candid – Bridal Industry Q&A Panel featuring bridal magazine representatives, which included Donna Jakulski, publisher of The Perfect Wedding Guide (Atlanta), and Brooke Schmidt editor of “I Do” for Georgia Brides magazine, together with local wedding consultants including, Christa Dierckman of Events Now, Karen Casey of Karen Casey Events, and Margie Sikes of Affairs of Elegance.
The panelists “laid it on the line” for videographers wanting to know what needed to be done to capture their attention, and suggested several changes videographers can make to attract more business from today’s brides, who are presented with an ever-increasing array of choices in planning their special events. Bridal industry Q&A panels are also planned for the San Francisco, New York and Chicago city-stops on this year's Tour.
“All in all, this was the best WEVA Town Meeting I have attended!” said longtime WEVA International member Wayne Morris of Wayne Morris Video Productions who had driven in from Birmingham, AL. “The Bridal Industry Panel was an excellent addition to the meeting this year. We learned so much from listening to all of the panelists. It’s just been a tremendous experience.”
Acting on suggestions from last year’s attendees, WEVA also added new, extended-length sessions to the WEVA Institute’s new Pro Video Workshops that are on-tour this year in conjunction with the Town Meeting city-stops in Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
Town Meeting attendees in Atlanta were able to register for WEVA Institute workshops presented by Sony and Adobe as well as those presented by WEVA members including, Lance Gray, John Goolsby, Tim Sudall, Mike Gunter, and Mark & Trisha Von Lanken (Picture This Productions). Tour events wrapped up this afternoon with two, special 4-hour workshops presented by Brett Culp, Monica Arellano and JT Fannin of Creative Video Productions, and by Josh Fozzard of Moonlight Memory Productions.
Images from the Atlanta event are now posted on the WEVA Town Meeting section of the association's website in the Atlanta Photo Gallery - Click Here!
Next week the 2005 WEVA Town Meeting Tour and WEVA Institute workshops will be heading to San Francisco (March 16 & 17) followed by Chicago (March 23 & 24),
New York City (March 31) and Las Vegas (at NAB) on April 19.
The Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA) is the largest trade association for professional wedding and event videographers. The association is dedicated to advancing the professional interests of wedding and event videographers worldwide through continuing education, technical support, group benefits, advocacy committees and professional development training. For more information regarding professional videography and WEVA International activities and membership, including the WEVA Institute, the 7th Annual WEVA Town Meeting Tour (March 2005), and the 15th Annual WEVA EXPO (August 8-11, 2005), visit www.weva.com, or contact the association office at 941-923-5334 or email: [email protected] |
