On Mentoring

Brien Lee

I’m a mentor. I don’t know when I figured it out, but it is what I’ve been doing most of my life.

I’ve been the owner, creative director and head writer for three of my own companies, and people working at those companies left a lot smarter than when they came in. (Of course, one thing they may have learned is “I’ll never work for that guy again!”)

I’ve taught creative theory, writing, direction, sound design, industrial theater techniques, short and long form video editing, and much more.

My past employees have gone on to success– some running their own creative companies of note and accomplishment.

I’ve helped clients improve their communications efforts, taught both the creative and technical at workshop and university levels, and started friends, relatives and customers on their way to achieving their dreams of being writers, producers, and entrepreneurs.

And this is what I want to do now that I’ve relocated to the New York / New Jersey metro area. Teach. Cajole. Foster learning by doing. Create a few success stories.

You’ll soon see more about this on my various websites– videostory.com, videostorysecrets.com, moderngeezer.com, and avsquad.com (I think that’s all of ‘em.)

I plan on offering a lot of quick-start knowledge for free. Some podcasts, some tutorials, reviews and recommendations, and some running off at the mouth.

It’s taken a while to settle down. Now it’s time to saddle up!

Sincerely,

Brien Lee

Tribute Video “How-To” Book Now Available

Tribute Videos are videos that celebrate a person, couple, group, or institution. They can be engagement videos, anniversary videos, memorials, retirement videos, milestone birthday videos, company histories, leadership stories, school reunion stories, award-winner portraits, and more. They are at home in the living room, rec room, boardroom or ballroom.

Tribute videos are how I got my start. (See “AVSquad” in the links.) And they remain the most satisfying of the work that we do. There is nothing like telling a people story.

A lot of people are into video these days, some as a hobby, some as a potential profession, some as part of their job duties. There is a perception that video is easy, thanks to point and shoot miniature cameras, computer editing, and thousands of tipsters on-line telling you how easy it is and selling something– usually hardware.

But hardware is only part of the problem, and hardware and editing software are covered pretty readily via training web sites, DVD lessons, and more.

No one is training people on how to tell a compelling story. How to interview, how to move pictures, how to choose music, how to pace videos, how to get a visceral reaction from an audience!

That’s where “Tribute Videos for Love & Money” comes in.

Tribute Videos for Love & Money

It’s an ebook that details my communications beliefs and systems. If you like samples of my work, and you want to know how and why certain creative decisions were made, this is the place to start. It concentrates on the “Tribute” people story type of video, but frankly, if you can tell that kind of story, there isn’t much you won’t be able to do as you grow your capability or career.

For more information, go to videostoryschool.com.

I hope you like it and find it valuable.

Welcome, Business Journal Readers

Friday’s Milwaukee Business Journal article by Phill Trewyn on the "rebirth" of our company as "VideoStory" does a good job of looking at a small business’s financial struggles in the midst of a slow marketing economy and a changing marketplace. The article, by nature, is going to be a broad stroke snapshot, with a fair amount of detail missing (I can blab on for hours) but a good sense of overview.

VideoStory creates work in video for distribution in DVD, CD-ROM, MPEG, the web, and good old-fashioned videotape. Our raw materials are motion videography and interviews, still images, graphics, music, words, old slides, new animations– just about anything that can be brought together sequentially to tell a sight and sound story.

I had to write that because people tend to confuse the media of creation with the media of distribution. Video forms the basis for so much of what is on the web these days, as an example. Therefore, we’ve abandoned web site informational database systems as a marketplace, but not streaming media on the web– something we’re quite good at, I believe.

But with that one amplification, I think Phill and the Business Journal did an excellent job of representing us.

If you’d like to see the article, go to http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2005/01/17/smallb1.html

Thanks, Phil, and thanks to our customers for their kind words.

Brien Lee

Meet the Peoples

We’ve just uploaded our team biographies and pictures. There’s some excellent experience going on there, if you’re curious. Just click www.videostory.com/PEOPLE.htm.

Just the FAQS, M’am

We’ve posted a FAQ on our site about who we are, where we came from, what we believe, basics of how to work with a production company, and more. As a FAQ (frequently asked questions), it takes a Q&A approach to whatever it is you’d want to know about us or our products, or our preferences for, say, Original Ray’s Pizza on 3rd Avenue & 53rd.

If you’ve got a valid question you think would help potential video or meeting buyers learn more about the challenges or the craft of this unique form of communication, please email me. (Questions like “What the heck were you thinking?” are probably not considered valid. Well, wait– maybe.)

Brien Lee

Welcome!

Change is good, or so we here at VideoStory have written around 4000 times over the past 30 years.

But the changes to our website are really “good”. Not earthshaking, nor overly fancy, but appropriate, especially in light of your requests.

The biggest request?

You asked, “If you’re a multimedia company. then where are the samples?”

They’re here, now, by type, by theme, by solution… and there’s more coming.

We’re using Macromedia Flash to deliver the video– it gives us more picture for the bandwidth, so to speak. And thumbnail video samples don’t do any of us any good. You may need to download the flash player.

Some videos will need to preload a bit– please be patient, and you’ll see the whole video without “chokes” as a result.

However, if your connection is slow, there’s only so many tricks we can pull to speed things up. You might want to call us (414-271-2170) for a free DVD delivered to your door.

Again, thanks for visiting.