Named in the News

And I didn't have to get arrested first! My video production company, the Philip Randolph Parker Co., got a mention in the March 2010 issue of the Osprey Observer, a monthly newspaper in Hillsborough County, Fla. The article about PRP is on page 12 of the first section.

I never spoke to the reporter. She e-mailed some questions and also took — with permission — copy from our website as well as from the news release I had sent. (Previously published on my company's blog.)

If you click on the image, the photo might show up large enough that you can read the copy. I have not noticed a surge in traffic to our web site since the article came out last week but being featured in a news publication, no matter how small, without paying for it lends an air of legitimacy to our cause.

I haven't seen an online version but if one appears, I'll link to it.

Catching Up & the $80K Personal Documentary

Stuff has been happening. I've been too lazy to document it here.

Let's see... I'm vice president of my homeowner's association. After the election, the new board members were asked to stand up and we received a round of applause. I said, "We should enjoy it now. That will be the last time anyone applauds the board."

Sure enough, it's been a lot of work. I volunteered to create and write a community blog, which is where my online writing has been directed recently. If you want to read about parking issues and Chinese drywall (which, fortunately, my unit does not have) visit the St. Charles Place blog.

I've got a freelance job coming up next month with the American Bar Association. Its magazine, the ABA Journal, wants to integrate video into its website more. Some of the details are still secret but I'll be doing some traveling and producing video pieces from the road for a project called the Legal Rebels Tour.

That, in turn, has made me fear that my laptop with which I'll need to edit the video pieces will explode at some point during the trip so I've been shopping for a new one. I thought about buying a small emergency backup camera too but I might trust my Canon GL2 to continue its reliable service.

I've made significant headway (more than 21 minutes) editing the family documentary I've been working on. There are a couple of clips up on personal-documentary.com if you're curious to see them.

They interweave historical archive footage that puts the subjects' lives in context of their time. I need to do a better job about asking people about events that were current at various points in their lives.

Speaking of personal documentaries, I came across an article in the street.com about a Chicago TV news anchor who has started a similar business. Only he charges $80,000 and up per project!

I'm glad to publicity for the personal documentary. The more people hear about it, the more interest it generates for all businesses who create them. But I'd hate for people to think that if they're not spending $80,000 they're not getting a quality production.

I can produce them for less than a quarter of that. Like company featured in the article, I shoot and edit them with broadcast quality high definition equipment. I even have a background as a television news reporter, though not in as high profile a job as Robert Jordan, who anchors news for WGN-TV, and I would match the quality of my personal documentaries with any I've seen anywhere -- and, believe me, I have looked.

If you find evidence to the contrary, please point it out to me. I'd like to see what I can do better.

And, lastly, I've even played some guitar lately.

Motivation

I mentioned my struggle writing the family documentary on which I'm working. How's this for a kick in the pants: I got an e-mail from a St. Petersburg Times reporter who stumbled across my personal documentary site (www.Personal-Documentary.com, if you don't know) and thought it might make a good story idea.

Although I'm happy with the site now, if I could get a couple clips from this current project up there, it would make an even better impression on anyone who visited. Should I get a mention in the Times, that should bring a lot of traffic. It would be good to have my best foot forward.

It might not happen. I confessed in reply to the reporter that I had not started marketing the business and I did not yet have any paying customers. I did include several possible angles for her to pursue if she was not deterred by my opening admission.

In fact, there they are:

First, in the YouTube era people are much more conscious about capturing and sharing themselves on video. A personal documentary is a richer ore in the same vein. People can have their life stories professionally told and preserved on video. They're also using more multi-media in the events of their lives.

Wedding receptions now feature "how they met" film clips. Funeral services often include a memorial tribute video. Anniversary celebrations and birthday parties, including bar and bat mitzvahs, are now sometimes incomplete without the "how they got to this point" video.

Those who would not subject their friends or loved ones to sitting through home movies can hire someone like me who can turn a rambling recollection of memories in to a memorable film.

Second, the same advances in technology that have made consumer grade equipment better and easier to use have also brought professional equipment into more people's price range. Camera and editing equipment that would have required a second mortgage on my house just a decade ago cost me less than $10,000. It has already paid for itself in freelance work.

What that means is that someone like me who knows his way around a camera as well as script writing, narration and editing, can work as a one person crew for smaller jobs. That, in turn, brings the cost of production down into an individual's price range. Not that these productions are cheap. You're talking between $5,000 and $9,000 depending on how complex the project is. But it's still a lot less than if you had to hire a producer, camera person, narrator and editor separately.

Last and probably least, I'm a former TV news and sports reporter looking for a new way to put his video storytelling skills to profitable use. I don't have to tell you how the media landscape is changing and how many people displaced from traditional media outlets have to find other places to ply their trades. The term "enterprising reporter" may now entail a different kind of enterprising.

I tell people's stories. This is my enterprise.

I'll let you know if I hear anything back.

My personal documentary site as well as JohnMcQuiston.com are both getting traffic from links embedded in e-mails. While I do now include both sites in my e-mail signature, I don't think that can account for it. The visitors are coming from places, according to my StatCounter, where I have not sent e-mails.

That means that some good soul is spreading word around about my sites for me. I'm curious to know who and why. And I'd like to say thank you.

I Thought It Was a Butter Knife

I gashed my left index finger open while slicing a bagel Monday. Perhaps low on concentration after the 3:30 a.m. wakeup call to report traffic on WFTS that morning. It looked like a closed eye weeping blood.

It felt like I had gashed my finger open with a knife.

I was visiting my parents at the time and luckily my mother has more Band-Aids than Walgreen's. A little Neosporin first and I was good to go. You can golf without your left index finger. At least you can do my approximation of golf without it. Same for playing piano.

Guitar? Not so much.

No such mishaps on the air at WFTS, though. That was the good news. I had a highlight during one of the local cut-ins we do during ABC's Good Morning America. A semi truck had crashed, overturned and caught fire on I-75 near Brooksville, about 50 miles north of Tampa. The wreckage blocked both the southbound lanes all morning.

The station's helicopter pilot had done reports from the scene but had to fly back to Tampa to refuel. The earpiece that lets the producer talk to me was working intermittently so I caught only that "we don't have Captain Al." I knew we had recorded video but didn't know if I was supposed to talk about it or not.

The anchor tosses to me. I show the location of the accident on the map and say casually, "we may have video of the scene." That's a cue to them to roll tape if they have it but I keep going in case they don't. A couple seconds later, the tape pops up and I smoothly explain that the cleanup continues as well as the investigation into the crash that killed the truck driver.

It looked it went according to script. Only there was no script.

I still know how to do this.

Progress on the family documentary project I'm trying to write is slow. I don't know why. I still know how to do this, too, but it's a task making myself sit there and plow through it. I don't have a deadline but I do need to get the project done so I can add excerpts to my Personal-Documentary.com website.

It's time to get going on this.