My 7 Paradigm Shifts I thought I would start this new segment of my blog that I call “Then and Now” with a flashback on the paradigm shifts in my own video production business. Today’s video producers have wonderful high definition, high quality tools to work with. Tools that enhance the beautiful images and storytelling skills that are expected in video today. It wasn’t always the case. I shot my first wedding video in 1977. (I was just a child.) I owned some video retail st

This is a follow up to my previous post Lessons Learned 01 I am going to title this lesson: ” You can’t have enough cr@#**^p in your accessories kit.” If you go into the field on a video/photo shoot – take everything you can think of and add more. Murphy’s Law states that “if it can go wrong – it will!” Backup and redundancy are words every professional lives by. Once you are on location – you better have everything you need to get the job done. That being said: “You don’t kn

“We don’t know what we don’t know”. A cliche – yes, but true none-the-less. During the late 70’s and early 80’s I owned and operated 4 video retail stores. We sold video equipment and rented video movies – VHS and Beta. I call these times the “Wild West” days of video. My stores were called Video Central. I worked everyday and I was burning out. I needed a diversion. My wife Donna and I had a miniature schnauzer at the time named Maggie. We were blessed because Maggie was a g

From Allan Block - Chairman 2017 MPVA - Minnesota Professional Videographers Association An open letter to all video and film producers. I think it is important to offer some insight into why the MPVA actually exists. Not so much who we are , but why we have been meeting as a professional organization since 1989. Do the math. That’s 28 consecutive years. I know we are one of the oldest video oriented professional associations, if not the oldest, in the country. Groups, clubs