It was a jam packed day that started early and ended fairly late.  The crew was great to work with.  Our talent was a good sport all the way through the day.

You can see the spot on the local TV stations as well as some of the cable channels.  It’s airing now!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We filmed the spot a few weeks ago, when it wasn’t all that cold yet, and Jenna was a great sport.  We were assured of her accuracy so we naturally had her throw the Javelin at the camera for a couple of shots.  20 to 30 feet, was no problem.  So, we upped the challenge for Jenna, and Kirk moved down the field a good 100 feet or so.  then we had her throw it again, and again and again.  Great accuracy!  A fun afternoon working with a National Champ.  And as usual, Mount Mercy were great hosts.

Hit the link below to see how the spot turned out.

But, we did get an email today from Isaac, our Intern from the past three years, who is now at Stanford.  Seems the young lad has landed himself on the student Senate, as well as is writing for the Stanford Daily.  To see his first article that got published in the Stanford Daily, click the link.

And, it has come to our attention that he is attending the Jay-Z / Kanye West concert as press for the Stanford Daily.  Way to go Isaac!  We are sure he will have a blast!

Kirk and Kent take a break for a picture - yeah, that's Sean Astin on the monitor

Kent Stock, for those of you who don’t know was the subject of the the film “The Final Season” staring Sean Astin and Powers Boothe.  The movie is about the last season of baseball at storied Norway High School.  Kent was the last baseball coach and took the team to being the the State Champions for the 20th and final time.  The movie is based on Kent’s final season and his book that he wrote “Heading For Home”.

We had the luxury of working with several of the clips directly from the movie as well as some footage from some of his speaking engagements.

It was great having Kent in studio, and of course being the Cardinals fan that he is, it’s all about baseball right now.  Go Cards!

He shot us an email the other day about one of his classes in particular – it’s a humanities course that focuses on the journeys and ideologies of four ancient and classical historians and philosophers.  A major theme of the course is the ethnographic accounts of these historians.  The focus on these ethnographies caught his eye, as we at MVP also have experience in the ethnographic field.

Ethnography is the detailed research and study of a particular culture or group of people.  Isaac read Herodotus’ the Histories, which studies the interactions of the Ancient Greek and Persian empires, their geographical layouts, military conquests, and cultural interactions.  Herodotus describes their cultures and customs in great depth, true to the ethnographic style.

2500 years later, these same ethnographic accounts are still in use.  Here at MVP, we utilize ethnography to capture the behaviors, preferences, and buying habits of consumers.  We capture, on film, the behind-the-scences actions of consumers for large advertising firms like BBDO in New York. Working with anthropologists, we use this video to supply useful information to these advertising agencies.

The medium has changed, as video has fulfilled the demands of a faster moving world, but the overall essences of the art is still the same.  Centuries after Herodotus, the same ethnographic studies are in full gear at MVP.

Remember: 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte. 1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte. 1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte. 1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte

1. The Floppy Disc: 1.44 MB. They’re extinct. If you’ve even seen a floppy in the last 8 years, you’re probably doing something wrong.

2. Zip Disc:  100 MB. A step up, but no giant leap by any means.

3. CD: 700 MB. In no way extinct, but very quickly being replaced by MP3′s . The world is online.

4. DVD: 4.7 GB. We use DVD’s frequently for sharing video, primarily with clients. For storage, however, it is largely impractical.

5. Flash Drive: 128 GB. Varying sizes, but 128 GB is fairly large. Terrific way for transferring media, not stellar for storing it.

6. External Hard drive: 2TB . Ahh, the external HD.  Every computer has a hard drive inside of it for file storage. The external hard drive does exactly what it sounds like- it is another drive outside of the computer utilized for file storage. They come in varying sizes, but at MVP we primarily use 1 TB, 2 TB, and even 4 TB drives. To put the size of these drives in perspective, a 2 TB drive holds the equivalent of 1,422,222 floppy discs. By combining multiple drives, we have developed a system to edit, store, and backup the video very efficiently.

Our advice to consumers is to stay with this constantly changing evolution. We’re in the age of the terabyte, but fairly soon, we’ll undoubtedly be working with petabytes (1000 terabytes = 1 petabyte). If you’re a consumer, looking for easy file storage of documents, music, photos, and some video, our advice would be to purchase a 500 GB (half TB) external hard drive. They’re small, efficient, and can store a ton. Technology moves quickly, and is constantly becoming more efficient. Right now, however, a 500 GB drive puts you on pace with the technological evolution.

El final…o quizas, el principio. This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t speak Spanish. It means,”The end, or perhaps, the beginning.”

Today I went on my last on-location shoot with Kirk to Coralville, Iowa for yet another project. Innovative Software Engineering. I was a PA on set, gaffing and transporting equipment when needed. Our main interviewee from Innovative Software Engineering was from the Canal Islands!

After filming testimonials everyone stepped outside dressed in their business attire. All the employees stood behind him as he cut a red ribbon with a golden pair of scissors to dedicate the site. Everyone cheered. The mayor gave a speech and others wished the new business well.

My time at MVP Video Production feels more like a beginning in a way. I have gained so much, in experience, knowledge, and confidence (and especially more confident as a cinema major! Talk about some major confidence)

I have been gathering photos from different folders on computers of the stills I’ve taken for my final project, and placed my favorites into one folder. I also gathered all my vlogs and the MVP Video Production “Thank You” video we created after the Corridor Business Journal voted the company the best video production company in the corridor.

Tomorrow is my final day. The end is near, but so is a new beginning.

I can’t think of a better place to have interned this summer!

8/11/11

Kirk filming Gov. Perry

Interview of Phil Suess, C.O.O. of D.C. Taylor Co.

Kirk and Craig wait for Gov. Perry to exit his campaign bus

Eric filming Gov. Perry touring the D.C. Taylor Co. building

“In your dreams!” It’s usually the dramatic phrase often rehearsed on TV when a character tells another that their hopes are improbable or impossible. But, I would ask, what are your dreams made of?

From one intern to another, I encourage you to challenge yourself to step outside any box you might create for yourself. My internship at MVP Video Production was all I dreamed it would be. But, I had to dream it first, and share that dream with my sponsor, Jeff. Your internship doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s, because you are not like anyone else. Yes, you want to make sure you are getting professional experience that will help you in your field, but what does that look like? Synergize with your sponsor because they may be able to take your dream even farther than you thought possible.

All this to say, I’m totally psyched about a new film opportunity I have with MVP Video Production. And it all came about because I finally asked to be a part of it–thus staying with my internship for a couple more days! It’s the season of elections and straw poles, and I will have a part to play in documenting this season with Jeff, Kirk, Eric and Isaac.

It’s more than I dreamed of. So, I just got to thinking, maybe I was dreaming too small?

Kirk and Eric set up the teleprompter in the studio and I got to practice reading off one. It’s an interesting contraption that lets you read on a reflective surface that is placed in front of the camera, so you are looking straight into the camera, but the camera cannot see the words you’re reading!

I’m also excited that I have an opportunity to think outside the box with my final internship project. I’m compiling an interactive DVD with these blog posts, a slideshow, and the intern vlogs.

Sayonara!