We're still here!

So every couple of months I pop on this blog and say, "We're still here!" Well, guess what? We're still here.

It looks like the last post on this blog I was having problems with the contact form. That was back in December. 8 month ago. While the contact form is working I am not certain that everything gets through, so please be sure to follow-up with an email to info@mckennavideo.com .

So what has been going on? Well, still working on transferring 8mm film to DVD, 16mm film to DVD,  and videotape (including VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, and mini-dv) to DVD and digital media. We have pretty much not been involved in any video production work, but we still have the capability should the need arise. On the downside, we have decided we are not going to burn to blu-ray disc any more. Today, I am digitizing a group of 35mm slides for a well known customer of ours. So much fun!

If you haven't seen the photo website in a while be sure to visit us at www.chrismckennaphotography.com and see some of our latest work.

Anyway, be sure to give us a ring or better yet drop us an email.

Blessings to you.

Chris.

Contact Form Back Up

Just a quick note to let you know that the contact form on our website it back up and running. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Blessings and Merry Christmas!

Chris.

Christmas 2013 Deadlines 8mm Film Tranfser to DVD

Greetings,

Just a quick post to let you know that our guaranteed Christmas delivery deadline for film-to-dvd or any film work has passed. We are now at capacity for the remainder of the year.

Having said that, we can provide you with a case and preview DVD that can be given as the gift with the promise of film on DVD enclosed.

If you are interested, please drop us a line at info@mckennavideo.com or call the studio at (253) 539-3438. And as always, we NEVER, EVER send your film or tapes to Mexico to transfer, like the "cheap" guys do.

Blessings and happy Thanksgiving.

Chris.

Sony PMW-EX1R for Sale

I don’t normally do this, but since is this my blog I can do anything I want, right? Ok, we have to sell one our professional video cameras: a Sony PMW-EX1R. Only 106 hours on it. Includes extra battery and memory card. And I'll throw in the training videos and user reference guide I purchased too! 

Email me at info@mckennavideo.com for more information. Serious inquiries only please. And please do your research before contacting me so you know about how much these cameras go for.

Thanks and blessings,

Chris.

Have You Visited Our Website?

Good day!

Way, way back, I started a little company. It was called McKenna Video Services. We joined an association of other video service companies, followed their advice to get the business started much faster than what would otherwise be possible (paying them a small fortune for that advice), and part of what we were to get for the small fortune was a professional and customized website. It wasn't! It was crap to put it mildly. So we did our research and hired a local company to build us a completely custom and professional website (also paying them a small fortune) and scrapped the original website we had.

This new website was nice, but it was completely flash driven. If you know anything about flash, you know that it cannot be easily changed and SEO-forget about it. So while it looked and functioned as well as it could, and while our customers liked it, it was useless in driving new traffic to us.

So after about a year of this version I decided to scrap it all and just do it myself. And by "it" I mean design and build a website all myself.

It took me about a month of non-stop work, but I did it. I built a website that gave me everything I wanted: information for my customers, ability to redesign and change pages and content at any moment, and ability for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). That was seven years ago.

What I achieved is exactly the same website I use today. You can see it at www.mckennavideo.com . And while a few things in our business have changed over the couple of years, it is exactly the same shell, with the content and functionality that is relevant today.

Why is this important? Couple of reasons.

First and foremost, we are still in business and still here to serve you. That has not changed-we are not going anywhere. Second, we do not change because of the latest fad or trend. There are a lot of things going on in cyberspace these days but we run the risk of losing the ability for you to find us and that outweighs the benefits (we'd love to have a wordpress site with an integrated blog, but say goodbye to finding McKenna Video through Google if we moved in that direction). Lastly, we want you to have as much of our information at your fingertips as is possible. If we move to another shell, we probably couldn't get you as much of the information as is currently available.

Anyway, just wanted to pass all this along. If you haven't visited our video services website, please visit www.mckennavideo.com and if you are interested in our photography services please visit www.chrismckennaphotography.com .

Thanks so much, and blessings to you.

Chris.

Film Transfer Facts

Fact #1: you can't take garbage and turn it into gold (and this goes for life too). I'm sorry to say, but if your film is in poor condition, you will NOT get a good image. Likewise, film is a very low-resolution source of media, and you CANNOT make it high-definition no matter what you do. Sure, you can burn it to a blu-ray disc, but that doesn't mean it's a high-def image. It just means you can store more of it on that particular disc (and now you can't play it on a standard DVD player or a computer).Out-of-focus, overexposed, underexposed, pop/scratches, etc. are all part of your film and cannot be "corrected in post."

Fact #2: there is a quality difference in all transfer methods. Frame-by-frame is NOT the same as projection methods. Sure, projection is faster and cheaper. But there IS a noticeable difference between the two. First, ring around the edge that is inherent in projection is usually noticeable and second is flicker. You get both in projection. Not so with frame-by-frame. See the link here to the video at the end of the this blog post for a real comparison between the two methods. Keep in mind that the cheap discount and warehouse/wholesale operations (names withheld) use a service provider that employs projection methods (and as a sidenote your film usually ends up in Mexico for the actual transfer). And for the record, I believe that high-def transfer that I see some others offering is a marketing ploy and not worth the extra cost. I have run an in-studio comparison and I notice absolutely NO difference-if I did, we would be offering it.

Fact #3: McKenna Video is the only company in Puyallup that has been continually transferring for the last 8 years. The ONLY company! Everyone else has either folded, discontinued this business segment, or is late to the game. Do you want to trust someone you just started doing this, or someone who has transferred almost 2 million feet of film? Do you want to have your film sent to Mexico to be transferred or do you want to keep it in the U.S.? Do you want lower quality or higher quality?

See our website for more information www.mckennavideo.com .

I hope this helps as your consider your options on who to have transfer your precious memories to DVD.

Blessings,

Chris. 

http://vimeo.com/9953255

Costco Still in Film Transfer Business?

Greetings friends,

Recently, we had someone working in the Costco photo booth tell us that Costco was getting out the film to DVD transfer business. "Getting tired of making excuses for yesVideo," I thought. Or perhaps it was Costco spending too much money taking orders for not much in return? Either way, it was good news for us.

However, every time I look at their website or walk through their store I see that they are still offering the service. Not getting out? Whatever. (and I'll save my commentary on the quality of their transfer for another post).

So this note just serves as a reminder that McKenna Video is here and is still offering to transfer your 8mm film to DVD. 16mm to DVD too. In fact, all of your home movie film to DVD. In fact, we can now transfer your old Polarvision film cassettes to DVD.

Visit our website, send us an email at info@mckennavideo.com and quit wasting time with Costco.

Blessings,

Chris.

A Contract Agreement is a Contract Agreement and Must Be Executed for It to be Valid

You call and ask for me to write up an agreement to film your event. I write one up and send it over to you with the clause "must be executed within 5 days to remain valid." That means, you must sign the contract and return it to me within 5 days with any required deposit for it to be valid. Anything different requires a new contact.

Simple? I think so.

So don't be surprised when I call after the 5 days have expired and ask if you still intend to use our services for event. If I don't hear from you, I assume that you have opted out and my obligation for your date is released.

Have a good night.

Blessings,

Chris .

The Death of MVS Weddings

Ok, now that I have your attention....

Well, our MVS Weddings didn't die but just got folded into McKenna Video and Chris McKenna Photography. We took the website down and retracted all our marketing materials. This isn't to say that we are done with weddings-we aren't. We're just done marketing our services under that name.

Under McKenna Video and Chris McKenna Photography you will still receive the same great products and services.

BTW-a vulture scooped up MVS Weddings domain name once we let it expire and is going to piggyback on that name to market their services. Just be aware that anything you may now see under that name is not in any way, I repeat NOT affiliated with McKenna Video and Chris McKenna Photography.

Question? Please send an email to info@mckennavideo.com .

Blessings,

Chris

Merry Christmas 2012

Well, the Mayan Apocalypse came and went. Thank God for that! So now here we are at Christmas.

From all of us here at McKenna Video, we want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. May today bring you love, peace and joy.

Blessings,

Chris.

Christmas 2012 Deadline

Good morning and happy December.

Just a quick note to let you know that we still have a little open capacity for guaranteed Christmas delivery. Normally, we cut off the week before Christmas, but this year we were able to work some jobs ahead and without issue (normally film-to-DVD transfers) letting us get a few more projects in before the holidays.

To talk about your project specifically, please send me an email at info@mckennavideo.com .

Blessings and seasons greetings,

Chris

Happy Independence Day

Happy Birthday, USA! from Chris McKenna on Vimeo.

Blessings to all our family and friends. Have a safe and sane 4th.

Chris. 

The Wal-Martization of Video Production

I found an interesting article on a 'video learning' site regarding what they call the "Wal-Martization of Video Production"-something that I have had to compete with here in the Puget Sound Region.

Here is what the article says:

"There are a number of companies that purport to “produce” very low-cost business videos by using inexperienced producers who audition their talents on the Internet and only deal with the business client after a contract has been made. Some of those companies include:

(names retracted so as to not give them free publicity on my site)

Not surprisingly, the videos are pretty lightweight. GeoBeats videos seem to be made entirely of still photos edited into videos with stock music and weak narration. Some are better than others, but it’s obvious that these types of videos are produced very quickly and by-the-numbers.

For a couple hundred dollars, it’s an easy sell to businesses. They may be thinking they are ahead of the game, but I like to look at the number of views a video has had. If only 50 people have seen it in six months, it’s pretty much worthless. And that kind of number is not uncommon in these cheapie videos.

At least they are not (yet) trying to outsource the production to China. These videos are shot at the business owner’s location so they require a local videographer. Young and inexperienced videographers get experience from this work and very small paychecks, but this makes it harder for real production companies to compete. That’s how business works many will say.

Wal-Mart does have positives: Great efficiency in buying and low prices, more choices for the consumer, employment for poor people who want to work. But don’t forget the negatives. Many 'Mom and Pop' stores are forced out of business. Wal-Mart wages and benefits are very low. No one knows your name when you walk into the store. The charm and sense of community of small-town businesses is lost. Economists says that overall Wal-Mart helps the national economy, but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost.(And don't forget the fact that these cheapie videos erode the value of the entire industry).

What’s your opinion of this type of video production company?"

I'm happy to say that McKenna Video is not one those companies. But having said that, we offer very affordable production rates for every type of business. We have served the large corporate client and produced very elaborate training videos, and we have produced entry-level promotional videos for the small and micro-sized business. We have produced everything from television commercials to wedding films. What's your fancy?

Call us for more information. 

Blessings,

Chris

(In the interest of full-disclosure, a few years back we had been a sub-contractor for one of the Wal-Mart video production houses (not any more), and in my opinion, you should call us before you ever call them. You'll be happy you did).

So What's New?

I think that I begin every post with something like "it's been a while since our last post." I'm not going to do that this time, even though it HAS been a while.

Anyway, all here is 'status quo.' We are still busy editing video, transferring video to DVD, transferring 8mm film to DVD (as well as 16mm film to DVD), and a plethora of other projects. We are probably not going to produce any weddings films this year (a smart decision given our current work schedules) and we are fine with that. We will miss the wonderful brides and groom and their families, but if God wills it we will meet them in another time, another place.

Anyway, so what is going on with you this summer. Drop us a line and let us know.

Until next time, blessings!

Chris.

Thank You

Just a real quick post this evening to say thank you for your patience with us during the transition to our new schedule. We are still here and ready to serve you!

Blessings,

Chris.

Online Ordering System Now Available

Greetings family and friends,

I am happy to announce that our online order system for videotape to DVD and 8mm film to DVD transfer services is now online and ready for your use.

At this point, the system will only accept orders for straight video and film transfers. It offers our customers the ability to send the film to us at their convenience and be free from the restrictions of our in-studio hours. And because it is online and simplifies the process, it allows us to drop the price a little.

While the ordering pages are 100% secure (payment is accepted through PayPal), keeping our costs down means that we don't have a programmer on-staff to complete a nice custom ordering page/shopping cart. But rest assured, our top quality film and tape transfer work will still be put into all of your projects.

The page is organized into 3 sections: one for silent film, one for sound film, and the last for videotapes. Be sure if you use this system that you place your order in the appropriate section. If you have a custom order, please call us or send us an email and we will either schedule a time in-studio or send you a custom invoice.

Let us know how you like our online ordering system. And please give us feedback if there is anything difficult or confusing that you find.

Visit the page at www.mckennavideo.com/orders.html .

Blessings,

Chris.

The History of 8mm Film

Home movies have been around since the early years of America’s Great Depression (McKenna Video has seen a number of film from this area come to our studio for transfer to DVD). The great leap forward that made it possible to capture the best moments of family vacations, weddings and special events on film came in 1932 when the Eastman Kodak company created the 8mm film format. Until that time, home movies were only available to the very well off. When Kodak launched 8mm film, however, recording special events for posterity made a sudden and irreversible move into middle class America, Europe and the world.

By taking what was then the standard 16mm film spool and adding twice as may perforations along each edge, Kodak was able to design a far less expensive option than the 16mm format. The secret came in designing the spool holes so that only half the film was exposed on the first pass through the camera. Kodak’s revolutionary design allowed the camera to be opened and the spools flipped, so that the unexposed half of the film could be used on the second pass.

After both sides of the 16mm film were exposed, the film would be split down the middle, thus yielding two lengths of film, both of which were 8mm in width.  Because each of the new rows of film had just one row of perforations, the new process effectively yielded four times as many frames as the single-pass, double-perforated 16 mm film.  This allowed for exceptional cost savings, with no loss of quality, making the new 8mm format an instant success. The newest star in cinematography not only appeared on the horizon, it became accessible to the just about everyone.

For almost 60 years, Kodak continued to manufacture 8mm film, albeit with some modifications. In 1965, Super 8 film was introduced and became an instant hit with home movie makers.  Easier to use because it didn’t require reloading halfway through the film making process, Super 8 gave better quality and rapidly took over from its aging contemporary. Soon after, Kodak introduced Super 8 with sound. Although the sound is of very poor quality, it did give one the opportunity to record audio right alongside the image.

By the early 90’s, 8mm film in all its formats was facing extinction, though it survived for a number of years in independent film stores and eastern European countries, particularly in the black and white format. Once videotape and digital technology arrived on the scene, 8mm film format was forever doomed. Camcorders have now been all the rage for almost 20 years, and 8mm film has now been consigned to the history books, although some wedding videographers are resurrecting the format for use in their niche story telling.

For more information on having your family's 8mm film, Super 8 film, or 16mm film transferred to DVD, visit our website www.mckennavideo.com or call us at (253) 539-3438.

Blessings,

Chris.

McKenna Video Announces Changes to Pickup and Delivery Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(February 23, 2012)

(Puyallup, WA) McKenna Video Services announced today that they are suspending their free pickup and delivery service beginning March 1.

"Unfortunately, economic conditions dictate that we temporarily suspend our free pickup and delivery service," explains Chris McKenna, owner of McKenna Video & Photo. “We began offering this service as a courtesy to our customers when we began operations in 2005. It has been a popular service for many of our customers, but making this change now will allow us to expand our in-studio hours as our production schedule allows thereby giving our customers more flexibility to schedule their project drop-off and pickups. When market conditions once again allow us to offer this service free-of-charge, we will resume.”

Pick-up and delivery service will still be available to qualified customers. More information can be obtained by calling McKenna Video at (253) 539-3438.

McKenna Video Services is an award winning video studio offering services that include video production, home movie transfer to DVD, and CD and DVD duplication. In 2008, McKenna Video added professional photography to the their offerings and markets those services under the name Chris McKenna Photography.

For more information about McKenna Video Services, visit their website at www.mckennavideo.com or call (253) 539-3438.

### 

Final Thoughts on 2011

Well, here we are, 2 weeks into the new year. 2012! Every time I hear that I can't believe we are 12 years into the 21st century. It seems like just yesterday that we were talking about and dealing with Y2K. Remember that?

Anyway, I thought that for our first post of this new year we would offer a few closing comments on 2011.

Price was a big issue for us last year. Not only do our customers want the high quality that they have come to expect of us, but they also want us to match Costco transfer pricing. First, we don't sell dogfood, pizza, frozen foods, and car tires. If we did, we might be able to bring our transfer prices to their level, but we don't. Furthermore, if we could then we wouldn't really be specializing in video, would we? Also keep in mind, that Costco doesn't do the work themselves-they've aligned themselves with one of the most questionable transfer houses in the county and your tapes and film end up in Mexico to be transferred. Is that where you want your media sent to? And is the risk of your media being lost worth the few dollars you'll save?

Now pricing works both ways as I am also a consumer. And a great big thank you to all our vendors who kept their pricing steady throughout the year to help offset the pain that we on the front line are feeling. And a great big "BOO" to all those vendors that didn't! And you know who you are. And a great big "DOUBLE BOO" to that won't even entertain the notion of helping their customers out. CenturyLink, you are the worst! You treat your good, hardworking customers like crap and I can't wait to rid ourselves of your miserable services!

Standard Definition is dead. At least as far as filming goes. To help our customers out, we offered the option of having their events filmed with our SD cameras rather than the HD cameras (thus keeping the price lower). 2011 will be the last year that we do that since some of them still complained about the quality. Sorry, but you chose standard definition filming rather than high definition. If you wanted a HD picture, you should have chose HD filming. To that end, we are eliminating SD options on all productions.

 Weddings. Hmmm, where do I start. 2011 was a miserable year for weddings. We have won awards for our wedding productions and our customers love their productions. Having said that, we are going to discontinue the mvsweddings.com site and discountinue marketing that service. We spend far too much time and money keeping that site alive and talking to the budget bride only to lose the business to the "uncle Charlie's" of the world. We are happy to have the business and will continue to produce wedding videos, we are just not going to pursue them any longer. Weddings start at $2995 and if you are interested in award-winning wedding video, please contact us, if not please don't waste our time. Sorry to be blunt.

For the entirety of our existance, McKenna Video has always offered free pick-up and delivery. It has been a staple of our business. We were happy to go out and meet our customers at their homes or places of business and we still are. However, we are now going to qualify that service for the new year. We require a minimum of $75 in transfer work or duplications to offer free pickup and delivery, or we will charge a $25 pickup and a $25 delivery fee. Sorry for any inconvenience, but economic conditions dictate that we either discontinue the service altogether, start charging for this convenience, or raise our prices across of the board.

In regards to promoting your company, we are working out the details in some low cost HD promotions for your business. Video on your website it a great way to increase your Google ranking and we want to be sure that you can get a video on your homepage at an affordable rate.

We are also starting to offer disc print-only services. We have been resistant to that in the past, but we have seen the light and if you are in need for "print only" we can meet that need. We can also design your disc label for a nominal fee.

Related, if you are producing your own video, but need help with lower-thirds, animated backgrounds, etc., give us a call, we might be able to help.

Well, probably enough for now. (this entry seems like a lot of complaining to me, which is so against my nature). Stay tuned for more announcements in the next few weeks and months.

Blessings,

Chris.

Thoughts on Pricing

Last week, I had a very interesting conversation with a good customer of mine, who happens to be a teacher of small business at a couple of local schools. What started out as just small talk, ended up being a discussion of the pricing of our products and services, pricing in general, and the effect that the big box stores (those discount and warehouse stores) are having on small and micro-sized business.

It was both our thinking that the big box stores are killing small business. While they are free to do whatever they want to, the fact that they deal in volume and can offset their low pricing by also selling dog food and pizza, something that small business cannot do, means that small and micro-sized businesses cannot compete on price alone and are at a severe disadvantage. And in today's economy, factors such as quality work, where the work is being completed, who is doing the work, etc. take a second seat to price.

An example: in the town of Yelm, Wa, small business was everywhere. It seemed that most people either owned and worked in a small business, or knew someone who did. That community, like so many others throughout the nation, was built and survived through the efforts of their residents. Then the big discount store moved in (name withheld) and local business shriveled. No longer does the general store exist, or the neighborhood pharmacy. Most of those small business were forced to close down because they could not compete with you know who because of their pricing.

In the conversation I was having with my customer, he turned me on to some thoughts by John Ruskin, 19th century essayist, artist, and political economist, on the issue of low prices. His beliefs are this:

"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the things it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lower bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better."

So what is the takeaway here? I leave that up to you to discern, but I will tell you this: our products on a quality and service level are competitively priced. If you find someone cheaper to transfer your film, understand that there is a reason why they are cheaper. First, inferior quality. Second, they're probably sending the film to Mexico. Third, it takes 2-3 times as long to get your film back. And lastly, the chances of your film being lost in transit is greatly increased (see this blog posting "Don't Let Them Lose Your Stuff").

In closing, we want you to rest assured that here at McKenna Video & Photo, we treat every project as if it were our own. Your film, your videotapes, your photographs and slides, are treated with the utmost respect. Don't let someone elses artificially low prices undly sway you  to their doors. Visit us and see what we can do for you.

Blessings,

Chris.