The Sorgel-Lee Team, circa 1981

• Sorgel-Lee Riordan (aka Sorgel-Lee Multimedia, Sorgel-Lee, and, after I left, Sorgel Studios)
• Brien Lee & Company
• Video Images
• Visuals Plus
• TVL
• Brien Lee Creative Solutions
• Brien Lee VideoStory

In all of these, I had hiring and firing responsibilities.

Most of these were in Milwaukee, with branches or side trips into the Chicago market, as well as New York / New Jersey market, where I am sitting now.

It’s a beautiful, temperate, sunny labor day morning. I’m sitting on the back porch typing, and thinking about a labor day with high unemployment rates and so little corporate reinvestment, in either equipment, outside services, or hires.

I’m looking over a nearly 40 year career and thinking about all the people that made it possible– the staff “laborers” who wrote scripts, mounted slides, directed shows,

Creative Solutions Team, circa 2001

Mark Augustine & friend

went on shoots, retyped scripts, cursed at computers, mixed soundtracks, edited video or film, and developed trusting clients. The people who were on the 24 hour edit benders, some miles from home, miles from the security of s normal job, who made me and our clients look so good. There were hundreds– we hired when the people were right, not the economy.

I think of creative suppliers who took our ideas and melded them into music, or animations, or dramatic footage, and the young “kids” with no resumes we hired who later became superstars in their own right. I’m proud of that.

I’m not going to name names. But do the math– one person was with me for 17 years, helped launch a branch in New York City, and worked on some of the earliest interactive video in history. A few others were with me for five years plus– including one person who pronounced s/he never stayed at one place for more than a year or

two. I guess we kept things interesting. I know we always trusted out employees’ talents.

As time flew by, some went on to start their own companies, or launch new careers in various new fields of endeavor.

They all had once thing in common– they took the work “labor” seriously. They worked hard. Beyond the call of duty. The learned lots, added much, and almost always

Amy and Dan edit a Walgreens spectacular

became better than me at their particular creative specialty.

I also had remarkable business partners over the years. But that’s a different story.

Here’s to hard work and hard workers. Happy labor day, and thank you, fellow workhorses.

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 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.

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

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

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.