Results tagged “Mike Varel” from Mike Varel's Blog - wedding photojournalism + cinematic wedding films - Kansas City + worldwide

In addition to weddings, corporate/marketing and non-profit video producitons, I also have a history of doing country music video work. Random? Maybe...

Two years ago I did a piece for Chuck Wicks for the Academy of Country Music Awards and this year I'm working on a 6 part video series to introduce everyone to Josh Thompson. He's an up and coming singer-songwriter with  songs like "Beer on the Table" as well as "Way Out Here" out on the radio right now.


Photo by Mike Varel

This is his first year attending the ACM Awards in Las Vegas, but I'll let the videos tell you more about who he is.

The first 4 episodes were shot from Kansas City to several stops in Florida. Episode 5 was sent up from Nashville and I'll be shooting and editing the last one from Las Vegas the day before the awards show. (no pressure right?)
I'm really excited to be filming a special concert for the troops at the airforce base as well.
Each episode will release every few days so check back for them.

Swing by CBS.com and check out their ACM Awards section for the videos.

If you're into country music, check out the ACM Awards live on CBS at 7 CST, April 18th.

[And a very special thanks to the rock-star editor Matt White who's been helping me meet the crazy deadlines on these videos]

So incase you haven't heard, the new digital cameras like the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II shoot incredible video as well as photos. "Fusion" is a term those cool folks out in California have been throwing around that basically means photo + video together.
So here's my Family Fusion piece.  I used my awesome nephews Grady & Casey along with my sister and brother in law Aaron to try this out on - You've seen Grady & Casey on here before in photos - get ready to see them in live action - enjoy:

So, this last minute, like a week away, but I'm teaching a class next Tuesday night at Digital Labrador.
It's one of my favorite places because I rent lenses and fun gear from them all the time for all my weddings.  I've even covered the shop for them a few weekends while they've gone to Mexico or the Flint Hills for one of their awesome photo workshops.
So Brud, one of the awesome guys up there approached me one day and said "what do you know about shooting video with a Digital SLR camera?" Well gang, quite a bit.
I actually used the Canon 5D Mark II shortly after it came out to film for a Food for the Hungry video early in the year, did another marketing piece with it, and I recently bought a Canon 7D for all my corporate marketing and wedding videos next year.
So - are you a photographer or videographer wanting to know the basics of shooting video with one of the coolest things in the video world right now?
Swing by the Digital Labrador site and check it out under the "Learn" tab.
There's some exciting new things happening in the photo/video world with these cameras - come learn about shooting video, composition, creative shots, dealing with audio and later editing - I look forward to meeting you!

So it's nearing the end of wedding season and I'm off to do another project that I'm very passionate about before all the October weddings kick in.

After an incredible photo & video wedding on Sunday, I'll be heading out bright and early Monday morning to the beautiful country of Guatemala.

One of the ministries Heartland Community Church and the Gathering introduced me to is Food for the Hungry.  They are an international organization seeking to end physical and spiritual poverty in the world.  They do that in many ways, but a big way is through Child Sponsorship.
The Gathering is made up of 300-400 college & post-college folks sponsoring over 350 children in Ethiopia.
Over the last couple years I've had the opportunity to do a handful of videos for Food for the Hungry and now I have an opportunity to do my first field assignment for them. 
I'll be spending a week in various communities in the country interviewing, filming and taking photos of the work they are doing there in order to create a Child Sponsorship video.

All that to say - if you try to call or email me before Saturday night the 26th, I won't be getting it. I'll be glad to return calls on Monday.

On a side note: I'm pretty much completely booked for 2009 now and dates are filling up quickly for 2010, so feel free to email or call me soon!

And just because my nephew Grady is hilarious, here's a recent pic -

Hey gang -
Welcome to the new blog - larger photos and embedded videos!
I'm hoping to keep you all up to date on what's going on with weekly video updates from this year's wedding season as well as photo shoots - be sure to update your Google Readers or RSS feeds to this new address instead of the old WordPress one. I'm continuing to try to bring in the older blog posts (with some issues) so I may repost some of the older ones with the larger pics too. Keep checking back! Thanks