New Business Launch + Demo Video + First SDE

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Well .... it's been a while since I posted any of my wedding work on here so I thought I'd make it a big one! I've been absolutely busting to share my work on here and get feedback etc ... but I've had to keep the cat in the bag .....

Firstly, I'm super excited to announce the launch of my new business - Shadowplay Photography and Video - and wanted this forum to be one of the first places I broke the news. I've learned so much here and it's such a great community.

When I first got into video production about 4 or so years ago I did a few weddings. But, in recent years I've focused mainly on corporate work and tv commercials. I'll still continue with that work but it's an awesome feeling to do more of the work I truly love and am passionate about. And it's also exciting to work along side my beautiful and talented wife who does the photography.

Secondly, I put together a video that played at our official launch and has now become our demo video. You can check it out here:

http://www.vimeo.com/1289473

Thirdly, we did our first ever Same Day Edit a week after we launched the new business! Here's the link to it:

http://www.vimeo.com/1289768

The way this SDE came together is a good story with lots of drama so let me know if you're interested and I can elaborate.

Any comments, feedback, critique etc ... are all welcome.

Cheers,

Matthew.

p.s. Our website and blog are pretty much finished ... just a few minor things to do. Check them out if you're interested - www.shadowplay.com.au and www.shadowplay.com.au/blog

[Noa Put]

Matthew, your demo video looks awesome, I also liked the way you mixed it all together with the music and the effects you used were well executed. I just wished I could use commercial music as well but here it would cost me an arm and a leg to include the type of music you used.
The only remark I might give is the fact that you placed heavy focus on your videos and just a small notice of your wifes photo's, think you should have included some more of her work.
Your site looks very elegant but not that unique as it is the same template as "stillmotion" uses, for clients it might be confusing because beside the color both sites looks quite alike.
Your blog looks classy as well, easy to navigate and great to showcase your work. You should include the "nextgen gallery" plugin which gives a much more better way to showcase your photo's and just a tip, the video category shows the link to your video as well, here you need to add the description (without the link) in the excerpt field of the post. In that way the links are not displayed anymore in your category pages, but maybe you allready had this on your agenda.

Thanks for sharing the demo, it gave me some idea's that I might borrow from you. :)

[Nick Stone]

Nice work Matthew.
Love the colors.
Hey Noa,
You have to have a music licence with APRA in Australia to play or use artists songs.
Otherwise it is illegal

Nick

[Bill Anciaux]

Matthew --

Very cool demo and website content. I noticed some misspellings in the What We Offer section of your website -- suprise, browes, and shotos. I'd suggest you fix these and any other spelling mistakes on your site.

The writing style is very cool and complements the visual material nicely.

Good luck,

Bill

[Peter Szilveszter]

Hey Matt

Love the new look and name. Watched the demo and great work with the Merlin (hand-held or vest?). Very inspiring and great to see fellow Aussies producing such high standard videos!!!

The only critique I found is some of the songs changes didn't quiet flow well together but the edits work great for the song.

Website looks great and love the colour scheme. I wouldn't worry about the similarities with Patricks site, after all he is 15,000kms away! :)

Man for a first SDE its amazing. I would struggle, and well yet to try one, How many cam operators did you have?

Would love to hear about the SDE production story.

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

The only remark I might give is the fact that you placed heavy focus on your videos and just a small notice of your wifes photo's, think you should have included some more of her work.
Your site looks very elegant but not that unique as it is the same template as "stillmotion" uses, for clients it might be confusing because beside the color both sites looks quite alike.
Your blog looks classy as well, easy to navigate and great to showcase your work. You should include the "nextgen gallery" plugin which gives a much more better way to showcase your photo's and just a tip, the video category shows the link to your video as well, here you need to add the description (without the link) in the excerpt field of the post. In that way the links are not displayed anymore in your category pages, but maybe you allready had this on your agenda.

Thanks for sharing the demo, it gave me some idea's that I might borrow from you. :)

Hey Noa,

Thanks for your feedback. Like Peter said, I'm a fair distance from StillMotion so the similar sites shouldn't be a problem. I looked at a lot of template websites and couldn't find a better one.

I didn't include many photos in the demo video because we had heaps on display at the launch. Plus, we always show a photo slideshow of Katie's (my wife) best images - and the website/blog have heaps of photos as well.

Great tip on the "excerpt" field - I've been trying to figure out how to change that!

Cheers,

Matthew.

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Originally Posted by Bill Anciaux

Matthew --

Very cool demo and website content. I noticed some misspellings in the What We Offer section of your website -- suprise, browes, and shotos. I'd suggest you fix these and any other spelling mistakes on your site.

The writing style is very cool and complements the visual material nicely.

Good luck,

Bill

Hey Bill,

Thanks heaps for the free proof-reading! I've fixed up those mistakes you pointed out - and I'll go through it all again to see if there are any more.

Cheers,

Matthew.

[Darren Smith]

Hey Matt

Great work, good to see some "local" talent on this forum. Nothing bad to say other than, glad you work up there and not on the coast, nothing wrong with competition, love it, but I look forward to doing work to your standard. And to be in business with your wife - that's a blessing. My wife is looking after the admin of the business and the business networking side of things, gives me what little time I have to work on my creative elements of my work (heaven knows I need it).

Love the website too, looks very classy but not overstated, I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Congrats
Darren

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Originally Posted by Peter Szilveszter

Hey Matt

Love the new look and name. Watched the demo and great work with the Merlin (hand-held or vest?). Very inspiring and great to see fellow Aussies producing such high standard videos!!!

The only critique I found is some of the songs changes didn't quiet flow well together but the edits work great for the song.

Website looks great and love the colour scheme. I wouldn't worry about the similarities with Patricks site, after all he is 15,000kms away! :)

Man for a first SDE its amazing. I would struggle, and well yet to try one, How many cam operators did you have?

Would love to hear about the SDE production story.

Hey Peter,

Thanks for your comments. Go the Aussies!

All hand-held with the Merlin. We had 3 manned cameras for the ceremony. Originally it was going to only be two manned with an un-manned one in the balcony but a friend was able to help out at the last minute. There was a 4th cam in the aisle for the bride's entrance.

Now for the story behind our first SDE ....

I'd purchased a brand new Macbook Pro a week or so before the wedding so that we could edit the SDE. That way we'd have someone mobile with us for the capturing etc ... The darn thing died a day or two before the wedding - I even spent most of my birthday trouble-shooting and trying to fix it - no luck. And being from a small town there was no way to get it fixed in time for the wedding.

So, after freaking out for bit we figured the best way to still pull it off would be to set up one of our editing systems at the Reception venue. Unfortunately, they had no available space for us to setup for the day :( We ended up renting a hotel room next to the Reception venue and setting that up as an 'office away from home' with one of our team members holed up in there capturing the tapes and doing preliminary editing.

However, that still left the challenge of getting the tapes to them back at the hotel/editing suite. To solve that we roped in a couple of family and friends to meet us a key locations throughout the day and they acted as runners to get the tapes back to the hotel room.

Then, after everything had been running late all day (the bride was 30 minutes late to the church) I was informed that the Reception was running an hour and a half early. Cue another freakout! Anyway, some stalling from the MC and some shuffling of formalities got things back on schedule and I finished the SDE on the dot of 9pm, exactly the time it was planned for originally.

I've don't think I've ever had so much adrenaline pumping through my body before. The buzz from being in the room as the SDE was played and the reaction from the bride, groom and guests made it totally worthwhile. In the area I'm located, no wedding would ever have seen anything like an SDE before so it was awesome to do something unique to make the bride and groom's special day even more memorable. It was one of those moments where you feel so blessed to be in this industry and doing what you love.

For that feeling alone I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Originally Posted by Darren Smith

Hey Matt

Great work, good to see some "local" talent on this forum. Nothing bad to say other than, glad you work up there and not on the coast, nothing wrong with competition, love it, but I look forward to doing work to your standard. And to be in business with your wife - that's a blessing. My wife is looking after the admin of the business and the business networking side of things, gives me what little time I have to work on my creative elements of my work (heaven knows I need it).

Love the website too, looks very classy but not overstated, I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Congrats
Darren

Hi Darren,

Thanks for your kind comments. It is great working with my wife on the Shadowplay stuff. Prior to launching this new business we've both mainly been focusing on our own respective businesses. Katie has been specialising in child and maternity portraiture (www.katiefinn.com.au) and I've been focusing on corporate work and TV commercials.

I'm really enjoying getting back into weddings - it's something I love doing and it's awesome to be officially working together as a husband and wife team. We'll still keep working on our other businesses but in the future I'd be happy for Shadowplay to take up more of our time.

Thanks again,

Matthew.

[Jason Magbanua]

Hey Matt, I watched the demo and your images are awesome. The way you grade your video, the greens and blules - eyepopping!

Loved the staircase shot, reminded me of this award winning photo by Ryan Schembri (your fellow Aussie).

Thanks for sharing!

PS - Shadowplay - are all your collaterals/ads/marketing materials BW? I felt the last graphic with your name (despite your company name) begged for color, at least in the typeface or the bokeh. Just an opinion ;)

[Peter Szilveszter]

Originally Posted by Matthew Ebenezer

For that feeling alone I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Thats a crazy day, I can imagine how much of a rush it would be seeing everyone's reaction on the night. Did the clients pay for this service or is this something you wanted to do as a bonus for them and well for your self too?

[Patrick Moreau]

Awesome stuff Matt. It is great to see such quality in both photo and video- it can really take you a long way.

All the best,

Patrick

[Ethan Cooper]

Originally Posted by Patrick Moreau

Awesome stuff Matt. It is great to see such quality in both photo and video- it can really take you a long way.

You would know wouldn't you.

Any of you guys care to teach a marketing class?

[Patrick Moreau]

Originally Posted by Ethan Cooper

You would know wouldn't you.

Any of you guys care to teach a marketing class?

Come to ReFrame Austin - that will be a big part of what we discuss. We want to talk about 35 adapters, steadicam, and color grading- but also how these things fit into the bigger picture of our business, pricing, and marketing strategy.