Doing a nice thing

Sometimes doing a nice thing is SO easy, and we just don't do it for whatever reason we give ourselves. Anyhow, I was in Aspen, CO on a client shoot, and one of the speakers at the event was Buzz Aldrin, the 2nd man on the moon, and an ardent supporter of space exploration (that's him & I in the picture).

Now it just happens that my father (Frank Marsden, Jr.) designed two the radar systems on the Lunar Landing Module that carried Buzz to the moon's surface. After I introduced myself to Buzz (I was the video director after all...), I told him about my dad's work on the LLM, to which he replied, "well, he obviously did a good job 'cause it got us home!" He saw my camera and suggested that we get a photo together for my dad. I was so busy telling him about my dad's work that I hadn't even thought of that, and a good friend snapped the above photo. It totally made my dad's day to see his son with a national hero like Buzz.

Again, a really simple thing, but with profound effects. My point is go ahead today and make someone's day. It's generally easy, and the results are totally worth it!

Remembering to have some fun...

That's me and my oldest and dearest musical partner Johnny Demarkis on your right. Johnny and I go back almost 30 years when we were part of the almost famous duo "Demarkis & Marsden" (imagine Wham without the pretty boys...oh, and we're straight, but that's another blog...).

The point of this post you say? That picture is of me on VACATION. Ya, I mix and produce audio & video for a living - I live and breath this stuff 24/7, and yet my idea of a fun vacation is mixing my buddy's music. Sometimes, in the midst of a particularly grueling couple of weeks, I lose sight of why I do this crazy thing I do. Spending a couple of weeks mixing music that is being created for the shear enjoyment of creating is SO MUCH FUN! It also helps that Johnny is actually incredibly talented too (check out his website at www.jpskid.com). He's not a client breathing down my neck, there's no money involved, it's two creative people working together for the sake of the creative process, trying to make a better piece of art for art's sake. That's why I got into this business (actually I got into it before it was a business to me - and I did it then because it made me happy and complete as a human being and artist), and sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

So I guess what I'm saying is that whatever lights your bulb, do it! And remember to have some fun doing it!

Learning to ask the right questions...

I don't know about you, but I seem to learn things the VERY hardest of ways. For example, I just spend a week in the field doing a remote project for a client of mine (that me directing the video shoot to the left). Why an audio composer would be directing a video shoot is a WHOLE different blog post, but suffice to say, I really like the exercise of using both sides of my brain (...in other words, it's fun).

Anyhoo, the client was new to the whole video production thing, and had hired me to document their whole event with the idea that eventually I would make some kind of product for them to sell from the resulting footage. It would be true, and not at all unkind to say that they really weren't prepared for me and the video truck to show up at the venue. I also didn't get a complete schedule of what I was shooting until 20 minutes before the event began. What I had been told was a 12 hour day turned out to be an 18 hour day.

The point of this whole diatribe is that I hadn't asked the right questions from the client, and just assumed that since they had hired me, they had a clue. They didn't, and it wasn't their fault - it was mine. Bottom line, it was a hard week with lots of work, and we all learned from each other. I'm off next week to shoot another project for them, and this time I'm much better prepared (knowing that they probably won't be prepared) to navigate the shoot. I've asked pointed questions and most of the time, gotten specific answers. Most importantly, I've kept a good (valuable) client, and educated them to boot.