The Best of Our Custom DVD cases.

When making DVDs for our clients, we like to take everything we can from the event, and turn the cover itself into a complete sample of that day. Below I posted some of our favorites with a brief description.

I try to make the theme and colors of the wedding stand out

on the DVD cover as much as possible. I stuck with straight 

lines on this one because they seem to go well with the black

tuxes and green dresses, with the green of the park in the back.

This is one that I didn't have many photos to work with for. I was told 

the bride liked ivy greens and wrought iron, so I incorporated it into the

cover.

This one, I think is my favorite. This was probably the most elegant,

crafty weddings we have ever done, and I wanted to make a cover

that payed homage to that craftiness. The back I made look like a 

scattered pile of pictures, and the front, I wanted to look like a decoration

taken right from the wedding. I think it's important to keep the theme 

strong on the cover of the case, to make it seem more like an artifact 

from that period of time.

Sometimes, I Cook.

In an effort to diversify our blog posting from being mostly about video, photography, or any of that nerdy stuff, I thought I should take the time to share with you my other passion; cooking. A long time ago, I realized that I had a knack for accomplishing any task in the kitchen. I never had any formal training, but I did read a lot of books, and watch a lot of "Good Eats" with Alton Brown. So for Thanksgiving, I decided to share with you my most coveted recipe. Pumpkin Cheese Cake.

Start with the crust. I mashed a bunch of pecans and vanilla wafers into a 8 inch pie pan, and melted in 1 stick of non-salted butter. Then layered the mixture along the sides of the pan.

I then started on the mixture. I'm doing this all from memory and have no exact recipe for it, but it was, 2 packs of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of brown sugar. 3 eggs. (1 at a time) 1/4 cup of cream, 1/4 cup of flour, tsp of salt and cinnamon, a dash of vanilla (Madagascar vanilla is preferred), and lastly about half a can of pumpkin puree. I had a bit left over when I poured it into the crust, so if your good at math, I'm guessing you can figure out a less wasteful method. I just ended up making 2 more cakes.

The hard part is done. Now just pour into the crust, leaving some room for it to rise and bake on 350degrees for an hour, or until they look like this:

While they're cooling, you can prepare the topping. I just made a simple sweetened whip cream but spiked it with Rum. I then topped it off with a chocolate drizzle, which is just chocolate chips melted into cream with a bit of butter.


They ended up looking like this:

Hope you enjoyed... and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

-Mike
Third Reel Productions

90 Stories Up

In the summer of 2010, my self, and TRP CEO, Jim, went to the Willis Tower (Sears Tower for those who refuse to call it anything else). We had special permission to go to the 90th floor roof, on the east side of building to check it out. We brought a camera with for this rare opportunity.

When the garage-like doors opened up on the 90th floor, the view was astonishing. The loud and busy city seemed suddenly quiet and peaceful. Walking around up there took some getting used to, considering we were above planes that were flying by. It's a really surreal feeling to look down on things that you are usually looking up at.  

 

I dare anyone else to look straight down. 

Vertigo?

I never knew the Board of Trade statue was faceless. 

A truly unique perspective.

There can never be enough time to spend up there. There is just so much to look at, and experience. But, I must say, there was one surprising downside...

 Giant spiders.

So it begins.

Hi,

Welcome to our first blog. It has been almost 3 years now since Third Reel Productions was founded in the basement of Jim's parent's house, and I feel it has been past due to start filling in our friends, family, clients, and strangers, with what has been going on with our company.

To get started. A brief history of everything until now.

In February of 2008, Jim and myself had been cooking up ideas on what to do with our skill and boredom. Jim, having recently graduated from film school at SIU, pitched the idea of starting a wedding video company. Him and I had both experience in working for different companies in the past, and became frustrated with those who completely lacked any sense of imagination and creativity when it came to wedding videography. We did a lot of research. We talked to people in the business, including DJs, Photographers, business advisers, even a lawyer. Within a months time, we settled on a name, a logo, and the type of equipment that we would need to get the ball rolling. We then got our loan, had business cards made, put up a website, and started advertising as much as we could for free, and then dipped into yellow pages and various other magazines. We did our first wedding in April for our friends Michelle & Kirk. They needed a video, we needed to do a video, and our company needed to have a sample. It was a win, win, win.

What came next was a lot of waiting. Waiting for emails, phone calls, a knock on the door. Anything. We got off to slow start, but by the time we got a few weddings under our belt, the more talk got around about how what a great job we can do, the more work we received. Something we never thought of. Word of mouth. It has become our most important asset in our company. We get a few jobs here and there from advertising, but going into our third year, word of mouth has kept us moving forward.

So, here we are now.  November of 2010. The holidays are approaching and business slows down a bit, but it gives us time to focus on things like writing blogs, reorganizing websites, and networking. As I continue to post, I'm going to share a lot of stories about the people we have worked with, and who we would like to continue working with. Also, it gives me an excuse to share all the other things that relate to our company, with out having to redesign a website. Such as t-shirt designs, photos, and even some of the newest music from the local scene which we have been pretty active with.

Stay tuned,

Mike