Midnight Magic Videography | Knoxville TN wedding videography at its very best

WOW it has been a really LONG time since I last updated this blog.  I know a lot of you have wondered where I’ve been, what have I been up to, and a lot of you want to see more wedding trailers.  Well, wait no longer, I’m going to fill you in on everything.

First off, I want thank everyone who voted for Midnight Magic Studios in the recent WTNZ, Fox 43 Hot List. For the second year in a row Midnight Magic Studios was named the top wedding videographer in the Knoxville area.  This means a lot to me because it is voted on by the general public. Thank you so much to the ones that voted.

On the personal and family side, our life has been a little hectic to say the least.  We decided to do a kitchen renovation.  I mean we are doing a complete renovation.  We put in all new flooring (after having the entire sub floor replaced), new counter tops, new appliances and we repainted the cabinets as well.  The only thing that stayed the same was the dishwasher.  We are about 75% complete to this point, the new countertops were delayed a few days so that pushed the appliances back a few days as well.  My wonderful wife, Leeann, has done the vast majority of the work.  I painted a few walls and the ceiling but other than that, she has done it all. The flooring had to be professionally installed due to some issues from a previous owner of our home.

During all this, wedding season kicked off with a bang.  First wedding out of the gate was Jon and Whitney.  I met them back in July 2009 thanks to a referral from Rebecca Tunnel.  They were such a great couple to work with this past year.  They did so much for their video, we did a photo montage, a love story documentary and Whitney did a bridal photo shoot.  The photographer was Sabrina from Photographs by Sabrina and we did the bridal portrait session at The Bleak House in Knoxville.  We had a lot of fun doing this and Whitney could not have been any more beautiful during that session as well as her wedding day.  I also can’t say enough good things about Jon.

The next wedding was from a referral from a bride I worked with last year, Rachel.  She and her husband were nice enough to do a short testimonial for me:

This is Caroline & Lawerence’s Wedding Trailer

Then my most recent wedding was with Autumn and Andrew.  Now, I have been working with this couple for over a year.  Autumn was a simply beautiful bride and both of them had so much fun during their wedding.  I laughed the entire day with them.  Autumn & Andrew have the best sense of humor which made working with them even more wonderful.  Back on April 1st, yea , April Fools Day, I pulled a little prank on Autumn.  I sent her a message on Facebook telling her that I would no longer be able to shoot weddings in the Knoxville area and I would not be able to do her wedding in May.  I told her it was due to a necessary move.  Well, she fell for it.  She called me in a panic and I couldn’t go through with it and started cracking up.  She laughed about then and still does today.  Andrew also pulled a prank on her the day of their wedding and she even came out of that laughing!!

There are many more weddings to come this year with venues like Butterfly Gap, The Lily Barn, World’s Fair Park and that’s just to name a few.  There are many fall dates still open for this year and I’m staring to get bookings for 2011.  So if you or someone you know is getting married, please get in touch with me and let me tell you or them all about Midnight Magic Studios and how we can create a special video to capture that once in a special day.

If you are lucky enough to live in East Tennessee, then you know we have had the most amazing spring so far.  The weather has just been gorgeous, helping to make up for the wet, cold and gloomy winter we just endured.  However, the pollen is CRAZY bad but I’m blessed to not be affected by spring allergies.  This is something I’m very thankful for because I know many people who have allergy problems that lead to bronchitis, pneumonia and bad sinus infections.  I have been way too busy to get sick!!

I have several springs weddings this year and have recently finished shooting the first one, which was for Whitney & Jon.  I met them last June, thanks to wedding planner Rebecca Tunnel.  I have just loved working with Whitney and Jon this past year.  They are great together and just fantastic people and I wish them the best of luck in their future together.

Whitney had a lot of great extras added to her video.  We did a photo montage, a Love Story Documentary and a Bridal Portrait shoot.  We did the photo shoot a week before her wedding at the beautiful Bleak House here in Knoxville.  Photographs by Sabrina did all of Whitney & Jon’s photography.  I love working with Sabrina, she is an award winning photographer, professional and so friendly.  I want to share Whitney’s Bridal Portrait shoot with you:

We have several wedding coming up soon.  One next weekend, Caroline and Lawrence on the 24th of April.  Another wedding I’m really looking forward to is Autumn & Andrew’s wedding on May 22nd.  They are another couple that I have known for some time now and I’ve loved being a part of some of their pre-wedding life.  They are easy going and both have a great sense of humor and have just been fun!!  They are getting married on May 22nd.

I’ll be sure to be updating soon on some other fantastic couples that I’m working with.

I absolutely LOVE what I do!!!

I got the most wonderful email tonight from Ashley and David.  I shot their wedding this past November at All Saints Catholic Church on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  I remember the first meeting I had with Ashley, she had been referred to me by a couple who’s wedding I shot in October of 2008.  When Ashely first started talking with me she was not sure if she wanted to even have a video done.  When I asked her why, she said that she just didn’t think that a video would be that important to her. Well, as you can see by her quote, I think she was glad she changed her mind:

“Don, you did a phenomenal job from start to finish with our wedding video. You and your staff are so pleasant to work with and you had us excited about our video from day one. We knew you would make it special and create a wedding keepsake like no other. Hesitant about having a videographer at first, we are very glad that we choose you to capture one of the happiest days of our lives. The trailer was a great ‘sneak peek’ at what was to come for our wedding video. Seeing our trailer left us anxious to see the finished product. Upon receiving our videos, we had a wedding viewing party with our parents. It was unanimous– the video is priceless. We will treasure it forever. The first thing both our parents said was ‘ We wish we had a video like this of our wedding’. Thank You Don for capturing the first day of the rest of our lives as husband and wife! ”
-Ashley & David

Thank you Ashley and David, you guys were so much fun to work with.  I wish you nothing but the best in your future.

Here is their trailer:

I have joined Wes and Danielle Hope of Hope Photography in their “Perfect Ten: 10/10/10: The Coolest Contest Ever”!!  I am so excited about this.  I have worked with Wes and Danielle before and can tell you that they are great photographers and a wonderful team.  I love their style and the way they capture all the beauty and precious moments, but they also always seem to get the absolute best from the bride.  Oh, and they have a really great sense of humor that you can’t help but laugh.

They are celebrating their 10th anniversary of marriage and 10 years as wedding photographers.  And as a way to celebrate they are having a contest to giveaway a wedding package for a wedding on 10/10/10.  You can go to their website for all the details and rules.  As part of the giveaway, I am giving away the video of the ceremony for the lucky couple who wins.  There are some other great wedding vendors contributing services for this contest like One Enchanted Evening and Lisa Foster.  So, visit their site now and sign up today.  You could win.

Be sure and check my blog in a few weeks as I am going to be having a special promotion myself during the month of February.  I will be sharing those details in the coming days.  Also, there are some new things I am doing that I will be sharing with you in some future blogs to come out soon.

There are a lot of advantages to working from home.  I get to spend some great time with both my wife and daughter.  I can be home when our daughter is home sick from school.  I get to do my errands and general running around during the day while most others are at work.  One of my guilty pleasures of working from home is bad daytime TV shows.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting at home all day watching TV but most days when I come into the office to get started on my editing I most likely have the TV on. This happened yesterday and it was by far the most interesting part of my day.

I had just gotten our daughter off to school and came out to my office to get started on some editing.  The morning new show was on so I didn’t pay it much attention.  Well, after the morning news show goes off in our area, there is one of those Judge shows. You know the kind, any judge with some personality trying to decide who did what to who and two people who are more than likely just wanting to get some face time on TV.  Now I will admit there is one Judge show that I like to watch, but it is on mostly at night. Anyway, I was getting ready to turn the TV off when they introduced the case and stopped dead in my tracks.  Seems this bride is suing her wedding videographer.

OK, you have my full attention!  Seems this bride wanted someone to both photograph and video her wedding day.  She wanted the same person to do both.  Nothing unusual about that but I have to say, it is hard to do both so I don’t know some vendors do both like that.  This bride ended up hiring her cousin-in-law because he said he could do both and not charge her a lot of money.  Well, they played the tape of the video he shot and it was like looking through a set of blinds.  Big black bars running across the screen.  This is caused when the heads on the video camera are either dirty or damaged.  Here is the funny part, the videographer said he didn’t know the camera was doing that because it looked just fine to him as he was taping it and he could fix it.  First off, if you are looking through the camera viewfinder, you would not see any problems of a dirty or damaged video head.  You should get a warning that the head is dirty, but not always.  Second, you can not fix that problem.  You can’t go back and add video to places where it was not recorded. But, what knock me off my seat was the fact he could not tell the Judge what type, brand or model of camera he uses.  WHAT!!  How can you NOT know what type or brand of equipment your using?

I can tell you not only the brand and model of every item I use on your wedding video, but I also know how each one works and how to make it do all the things it was designed to do.  If your photographer can’t tell you what he/she is using, you need to run, don’t walk, but run away very fast.

This got me to thinking about one of the biggest excuse I hear from brides about not hiring a professional videographer.  “I have a family member who will video the wedding for me.”  Now, they may have a family member who is a professional videographer and that is great.  But more times than not, it is just a family member with a hand held camcorder and that person has no idea what they are doing or what shots to get.  This poor bride thought she was saving money by having a “family member” shoot her wedding when in fact, all she did was loose a very precious memory that she will never be able to get back.

One of my best training grounds in video was working for a local “Shop-At-Home” network.  It was a live 24/7 shopping network.  There was no stopping to reset a shot, fixing a light, or changing a script.  I had to think on my feet whenever a problem would come up.  It is the same thing with your wedding.  You don’t want me to stand up in the middle of everything and yell, “CUT,  we need to have the bride go back up the aisle because I didn’t get the shot of her smile.”.  It is the same thing with your cousin, uncle or brother shooting your wedding.  They don’t know where to be to get that image of the bride coming up the aisle.  They most likely don’t have wireless microphones to pick up the sound of your vows to each other.  And they sure wouldn’t know if the heads on the camcorder are damaged or dirty until it was too late.

I have a long list of things that have to be done BEFORE I ever leave the house to shoot your wedding.  One of those things is to make sure the heads are clean and in perfect working order.  But, I also have the knowledge to know what to do in the event it does happen.  I also have the experience and knowledge to know what to do in the event there is a problem during the ceremony.  I have had a couple of wedding where there was a problem with either the video tape breaking or a problem with the sound, but the bride never knew it happened.  At one wedding, in fact, my wireless mics interfered with the churches sound system. As soon as I knew what was going on, I took the steps needed to fix the problem.  The only other person who knew something was wrong was the gentleman running the churches sound system.

I ran into that bride just the other day and we were talking about her video and she just gushed about it.  In fact, she has not even picked up her pictures from the photographer yet.  Not because they are not ready, but because she loves the video more than the pictures.  I told her about the problem and she looked at me and said, “I never noticed that there was anything wrong with the video and we watched it last night for the 900th time.”  Now, if I had stopped her wedding to fix the mics, I would not be working today.

So, if your thinking of having a family member shoot your wedding, ask yourself,  do you want to save money or do you want to save a memory?  Oh, and for the court case on the Judge show, the bride won and got all her money back.