I wanted to put together a fun little ad that we could play in the pre-show to highlight FilmAds a little bit more. I really want it to show off the power of the silver screen in some of the smaller communities we work in, such as Trail, Golden, Terrace and High Prairie (plus more!;) So this is what we came up with:

We also put together a fun little ‘Behind The Scenes’ video, filmed by the awesome Jillian Fraser from Simple Solutions. (Be sure to check out the work she offers as a virtual assistant… she is a life saver for admin & office work I tell you!).

• FilmAds September 2011 Monthly Report
• FilmAds
• Cineplex Media & FilmAds

I contacted our old neighbour about buying some tackle (jigs and spinners) because I had heard how popular their stuff was, which I love by the way, and then started to think about combining two things I love to do: film and fish. I followed up our conversation about tackle with the idea of doing a promo video they could use to showcase online for potential web customers. We’ve had a chance to sit down and it’s looking like it will develop into a lot more than just that, but in the time being they’ll be filming some of their own content and using the intro video I created below:

BentRods is an excellent fishing guide and they are also incredible hosts. So be sure to check out their site and if you’re looking for fishing trips, these are the guys to contact.

Cheers,
Matthew A. Hawkins

• Processing Ideas
• My Summer
• Day 12 – Behind the Scenes

There were a number of things that made it so. I wanted to recap a few of the things that stuck out the most to me.

1. Cineplex Media & FilmAds
In April I was able to see a 6 month conversation and a 1 year idea come to fruition. FilmAds officially signed a partnership with Cinplex Media. The deal has opened tremendous doors for the 12 theatres that I work with. I’m very excited for each of the theatres I work with and the new theatres we’ll be signing up in 2012.

2. Fringe
Last December my friend Jason and I came up with the crazy idea to meet John Noble (Walter Bishop on Fox’s Fringe) and we started to go out and visit the Fringe film sets. You can also check out how we met Joshua Jackson and others here.

3. Dan Murphy Interview
Aside from some technical issues that were completely my fault. I had a lot of fun interviewing Dan Murphy of Sportsnet (all because I asked him if he’d be up for it through Twitter)
My friend Geoff Heith filmed the interview and afterwards we figured we’d head over to Rogers Arena and see if we could watch the Canucks practice… which we actually got to do.

4. Brent Butt Interview
After I got to meet cast members from Fringe, I moved on to a new fun project: trying to film a Canadian comedian legend… Brent Butt. It all started with a few twitter questions and then a blog post. Brent responded on Twitter saying he’d do the interview once he got enough Twitter followers… which over time he finally got. Thus the interview (with another technical glitch that I’ve learned never to make again)

5. The Valley Votes Interviews
For the municipal election in the Chilliwack area (Hope, Agassiz, Harrison & Chilliwack) I was asked by the Valley Votes team (run by the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board) to interview candidates about important and pertinent things in the Chilliwack area. It was a great chance for me to sit down with influential people in the community and hear them out and share a bit about me as well. You can see all the interviews here.

6. 1Day Design
I get to work with a number small businesses all across BC and Alberta. With the way the economy has been going it’s proven tough for small businesses to do much in terms of marketing. Since I run a medium for businesses to market themselves, I wanted to give a simple option to get great advertising tools from – enter 1Day Design. As the 1Day Design site says “1Day Design is a service that is offered once a month. 1Day a month we create you a new website, logo, video or more. 1Day we design work for you at 1Price.”
The other side of 1Day Design is we give 50% of the money raised to charity. So far, we’ve given over $200 to charity and we’ve only been running for 2 months. It’s a start to something great!

7. Witness for the Prosecution
On my list for things to do for a while, was to have a role in a play. My actual goal was just to audition, but I guess I was good enough to play the part. Thanks to my friend and colleague Janet Carroll (the director) I was able to take on 3 roles (1 non-speaking) in the play “Witness for the Prosecution” by Agatha Christie. My main role was Thomas Clegg, a stuttering Englishman, nervous as anything because he’s taking the stand in court and he never does well with it. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and hope to do it again in the future.

8. Currency Marketing and The Living Young & Free Show
If you’ve ever spent any time on my blog, then you know I’ve spoken about Currency Marketing and LYFS. I have tried for a number of years to find a spot on their team. I really like the work they do and the people that work there. So in the spring of this year, I signed up for contract work with the Currency team and it’s been so much fun to work with them. A lot of what I do is literally behind the scenes. You wouldn’t really know what I’m doing unless I told you but a lot of what I do is film, direct and edit the Living Young Free Show (which is a bi-weekly show we produce) and I do a lot of coding/application entries for all their contests and spokespeople application entries. It can get really crazy, but is a lot fun… just check out their Christmas video we did:

9. My Family
After 2010 and the craziness and ups and downs we went through then, 2011 was a year of incredible time together. We got to go on a great 3 week road trip in the summer, in which we visited Salmon Arm, Nelson, Trail, Red Deer, Edmonton, Valemount and more (all while visiting some awesome friends, family and theatres!!!). We were also able to go to other great places through the year like Seattle, a weekend in the west end of Vancouver, a week at a beach house in Parksville (thanks to a special friend for letting use the last two places!) and camping in the Shuswap. It was a year for us to spend great time together, build new memories and start getting an idea of what the future is going to look like for us.

To all my blog readers, thanks for checking in and occasionally commenting. If anything, I do this blog for myself, but I love that you stop by and check out what’s happening.
Cheers,
Matthew A. Hawkins

• Video Invitation to Brent Butt
• Women I Work With Part 1
• Day 12 – Behind the Scenes

We had a lot of fun putting together this crazy and unique ad for Regency to share online and at the Carib Theatre in Quesnel.
We had ‘pro’ drivers, donut and warm coffee all morning. So glad I got to be a part of this experience.

Being up in the lift and in temps around 0 or just below, I finished the morning freezing cold. I went straight back to my hotel and jumped into my bed with my coat still on just to warm up. I had so much fun that I actually just laughed in bed and thought about how cool the shoot was.

Later that afternoon I got to sit down with Evelyn, general manager of Regency Chrysler, and talk about a number of things, especially the amazing community involvement that Regency has started in their community of Quesnel.

• Decades Coffee Club Commercial
• Behind The Scenes
• FilmAds Feature: Paradise Cinemas & Carib Theatres

A little intro to the Canucks coach.
A new episode will be loaded up for each Canucks home games.

• My Canucks Fan Journey
• Day 30 – My Ultimate Canucks Fan
• Video Invitation to Brent Butt

Typically we offer 1Service 1Price 1Client 1Design.
Well for the month of November, to help current clients and prospective clients of FilmAds – we’ll be offering 5 motion graphic ads to 5 companies for $100 each. (I should note that we’ve also booked 1Client for 1Logo design in November already!)

Half of the profits for Novembers 1Day Design, which will take place on November 10th, will go towards gift and food baskets that the local fire department distribute to families deserving a little extra around Christmas time. We’ll be sharing this event with you in future blog posts as well.

So if you, someone you know, someone your mom knows, or whoever, would like to get a motion graphic ad done for their business in one or all of our 12 FilmAds Theatres OR just for Internet/Facebook/Blog/Twitter usage, then head over to 1Day Design and sign up right away! We are limiting the spots to just 5 (FIVE!) so make sure you sign up today!

Here’s an example of what we can create you in a day*

*With 1Day Design you pay $100 for the ad as is. You supply us the content and we design away. We promise by the end of the day, you’ll have an awesome design at a crazy low price!

• 1Day November & Geoff Heith
• 1Day Design Launches
• 1Day Design – November’s Designs

Sarah Funk from Silver Lamb Studios did a cake smash shoot for us and we were thrilled with the results.
Sarah you are remarkably talented! Thank you so much.
CHECK OUT SARAH’S PICS HERE

And I couldn’t do a photo shoot of someone in our family without doing a video shoot as well…

• Cake Smash
• Day 13 – Photo Challenge
• Geoff’s Pics of Me

Sidewinder Conversions is a great company that offers a lot of mobility solutions for people with disabilities.

Check out their videos for side and rear entry vans:

Be sure to check out - SIDEWINDER WEBSITE

• 1Day Design Launches
• Possibly in Your Mailbox
• Decades Coffee Club – Matthew A. Hawkins

I remember watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 1994. Madison Square Garden. I remember Bure chasing the puck for an icing with seconds to spare in the game they would soon lose. I remember the feeling of defeat. The feeling of doubt that we would never see this moment again. Well, here we are today. Here is Vancouver sitting at the threshold of something that will go down in history one way or the other. Another moment to believe the Stanley Cup will makes it home in Vancouver.

Since getting into video, one of the first things I started doing was making fan videos for the Canucks. It’s been a fun ride and one I’ll continue to take as life goes on.
I’ve had the amazing privilege, because of being a Canucks fan, to do some awesome things with it:
- interview Dan Murphy from Sportsnet (still wish I had audio fixed and that I did that interview in character)
- visited GM Place (now Rogers Arena) for a behind the scenes tour, days before Crosby showed up for the first time on the West Coast
- interviewed Clayton Imoo (after years of talking about doing a video together…again with the audio…)
- interview with Brent Butt (because I persisted or he relented or both and I wish I had my audio fixed for this too… sigh)
- got to be on CTV and GLOBAL News a number of times (mostly because my kids are cute)
- was on the Canucks centre ice screen throughout a whole season for the opening videos (only pieces of my stuff, but still amazing)

I’ve been lucky and I hope to keep doing my nutty stuff for them.
I compiled a few of my favorite Canuck fan moments into one video for you to enjoy.

• Donald Miller & Hockey
• Video Invitation to Brent Butt
• Remembrance Day

Hiccups was holding a contest on Facebook: Post your love for Hiccups via video!
My kind of contest…
It’s kind of my type of contest. I love entering video contests, but with much experience in the “your video wins with most views or is most popular because your friends don’t know any better” I haven’t really had much luck.
I do better in the whole “we appreciate quality and funniness” kind of contest.

So my buddy Geoff Heith and I put together this fun video (some details on the process of shooting this below).

A couple fun facts about our shoot:
- we ate lunch and talked about work, beer and food.
- to warm up for the shoot we watched a bunch of hiccups season 2 webisodes
- we didn’t write down a script, we spent more time setting up my office and the camera/light gear
- we started the first shots with different accents then what we ended up with, it was a progression of what you saw above
- I forgot to get people to like the video until Sunday night. I should have spent more time “campaigning”
- I was really hoping to win for 1 of 2 reasons – the swag or getting in with the crew of CTV & maybe even Brent Butt again

So there you have it.
Cheers,
Matthew A. Hawkins
Until the next time…

• My Dark Photos
• Edit Edit Away
• My Take on Buying New Gear