How I Began:

In the late 80’s I was about 12 years old when I discovered the love of story film making. Sneaking out my fathers VHS-C video camera and making short films with neighborhood friends I fell in love with the idea of story telling with moving images. I would write scripts and somehow talk my friends into being my actors as we made countless movies. Sadly, I would overwrite most of these video tapes and loose those memories.

It was not until I showed my 7th grade class a short 10-minute film that I made with middle school friends. I feel in love with the idea of having an audience for my films and getting the comments really helped to stoke my love. Of course, all my friends that acted in this hated me for the embarrassment of showing the whole 7th grade. When I got into high school, I elected to take TV / Media productions and really learned the craft and the real equipment needed to do what I needed. I was on mission to learn what I needed to do to make better films and videos.

 

Primm Video:

In 2003 My wife and I decided to start dabbling with wedding videography then on to dance recitals and more. Then in 2009 we decided to make it an official side business. Today we create films and videos for dance schools, schools, businesses, and now weddings.

We got out of weddings around 2018 where even that year we only filmed a few. The reason for leaving weddings behind was wanting to focus on other projects. We would average about 20 weddings a year about as many as we could handle as a side business. Today we are starting back with the intention of really moving forward in 2024 with advertising. For now, we are in a building a portfolio  with new techniques and equipment we did not have in 2018 and earlier.

 

Some of the gear we use:

I use a crew of 6K Cinema Cameras. I edit with Adobe Production software on Macintosh computers. I use high speed lenses by Sigma, Canon & Tamron which help for filming in low light and allowing for better focus depth and color to the films. I use a DJI Gimbal (Electric Camera Stabilizer) to get those smooth cinematic movements that you’ll see on the most recent films from 2023 and on. This gimbal is a game changer to the look and feel of a production.  I really strive to learn new techniques and using these helpful tools allows me to just be better at this.

 

My Editing background:

Today is a long way from A B Roll editing on S-VHS editing VCR’s in the mid 90’s. Todays software by Adobe and others gives you what would take millions of dollars in the 80’s to achieve. When I learned about A B Roll editing in TV class this was a game changer for me. The way this would work you had an “A” Edit VCR and a “B” Edit VCR. They were connected by an edit controlling consol. You would have two monitors, one for each deck. The console was comprised of many buttons and 2 jog dials one for each VCR deck. You would play a VHS tape in deck “A” and pick a start point with the controller. Then you would scrub to where you wanted it to end and pick an End point. You could do this about 20 times or more and get a series of edits cued up. In deck “B” you would put your edit VHS tape in - this would be your master edit. Then you would hit a button usually labeled “edit” on the controller - the VCRS would perform the magic as the controller would control the decks and shuffle the “A” deck to all of your ins and outs you picked and then “B” would record those series of edit cuts. This would be on a 2 to 3 frame accuracy, amazing for its time. This could take a lot of time as this was all real time. Usually, I would walk away while it was working. These systems were very expensive. I got my hands on my own in 1995 pro-summer versions, so not as professional but a step above ordinary and those cost me $3,800.00 for two decks and a controller.  That would be about $8,000.00 if sold today.  The type in TV class was about $50,000.00 plus back then. The pro-summer versions worked about as good, but you would lose quality in the recording. The 50K system would be accurate by the frame, whereas pro-summers were about 3 frames off. Each time you edit a master you lost generations and quality would get lost. Today generation loss is a thing of the past with digital.