My 30th birthday is coming up and I really wanted to have a surprise party.
My wife’s response to this… “You can’t ASK for a surprise party!” Well I guess you can. Despite being on bed rest, my wife threw me a great surprise party all from planning on the couch through using my contacts list on my iPhone, facebook and good ol’ phone calls. Deb planned for us to go on a date to Decades one night and when we walked in there were some awesome friends waiting for me. It was a big surprise, I had no idea it was coming! Leading up to this night I was feeling a little down that a party wasn’t going to happen. I had even asked my friend Jason if we could have a wings party at his house one night. He complied even though he knew the party the next day was going to happen. I must say I have some friends that are the best… I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Deb planned us a video scavenger hunt. Deb had to go home but she sent us on our way and this is what happened:
Welcome to The Blog
blog
You’re The Best
Curiosity
I often check stats on my blog. Nothing overly astounding, just basic numbers and the thing I love checking is how people found me. Some of the search terms that people have used make me laugh, here’s how a few people found me on Google:
- hidden gems itunes rental
- matt hawkins producer
- matt hawkins director
- one week movie review
- www.matthewahawkins.com (googling a domain name always makes me laugh)
AND my favorite that made me laugh a lot:
- andrew kramer man crush (odd I know, who Googles that!)
The other thing I love seeing is where people are searching you from – New Jersey, Philadelphia, London, etc.
My only question that rarely seems to get answered is why? But that might just be the fun part.
Cheers,
Matthew A. Hawkins
Birthday Party Time
We had an awesome time with the Wigg family a couple weeks ago.
I wanted to capture a birthday party for the SilverScreen Tots site and this is what we got:
Be sure to visit SilverScreen Tots today
My Everybody Story
We’ve been working on some great things at PCC.
The big project I’ve been working on has been incredibly difficult. I filmed a number of stories over the last few weeks and have been able to join into people’s lives, pretty much with each person I’ve met, I never would have been able to hear their story… let alone anyone else in our church.
After filming various people, in various locations and piecing it all together, we found that the different looks didn’t fit together. The stories were amazing, but aesthetically it just wasn’t working. It reminded me of an earlier post: check it here.
With the way things go, we had already started late on our videos (equipment hadn’t arrived till later then we would have liked – so can be the world of production). So, Thursday (3 nights before we had to show our video on Easter Sunday) we decided to re-shoot. Thursday at 7:30pm we went out to re-shoot 4 of the stories. My good friend Jason was persistent on coming with me that night… little did I know that I would need him there.
In the first 20 minutes of filming the first story, my wife called me and said she was having some problems with the baby (she is 21 weeks prego). I ran from the shoot and left Jason and Shawn behind the cameras.
Deb had to spend the night in the hospital, but after tests and checks from the doctor, she’s at home on bedrest and baby is doing fine. While in the hospital, Deb said to me, “you left filming people’s everybody stories, so that we can have an everybody story of our own.” It’s true. I feel we’re still in one, but we pray for good things to happen and for deb and baby to be safe and healthy.
Curious how the video turned out?
Well from uploading the footage on Thursday night (7d footage is a synch, but the real time firewire XHA1S is sure way longer to load up, cursed tapes), I spent the next day in and out of editing, visiting the hospital, taking care of my boys (with the help of our incredible neighbors) and then got some real time to sit down and start editing around 6pm of Friday night. 4am the next morning I was done. A crazy day and an awesome result:
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