I know the title of this article is a little crude.  Maybe I should have said it in a slightly lighter way as in “I was only looking for someone to love.”  But I find people want the unvarnished truth these days.  They’re impatient.  I prefer a little varnish now and then, but anyway you’re aboard and I appreciate you reading my drivel.  Now for more slightly off-color but hopefully amusing observations about our species, the internet, baseball, Robert Frost and TV commercials.

(Oh, by the way, I am not going to talk about long tail keyword research, although now that I  think about it I could have made a stupide comment like “researching tail” is a major occupation of the males of most species.

It’s also not about Direct Response Advertising although one could say that in the movie, “The Tall Guy”, there’s a fine example of Direct Response Advertising. In this hilarious movie, starring Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum, which is filled with tons of off-color humor and sexy scenes about finding someone to love, a spicy, British hooker asks Jeff Goldblum “Fancy a (f-word), big boy?” Jeff responds, “No, thanks. I just had one.” This is what direct respons advertising does. It states an offer very directly and asks for a direct response.  “Don’t put up with those unsightly zits one minute longer” or “Have Abs like this in 60 days. Order you abBlaster today”.  Direct Response Advertising goes right for the throat, or the pocketbook, or the psyche.

But back to finding someone to romance. This urge to entwine oneself with another has driven much of history’s famous and the rest of us as well.

Paris’ pursuit of Helen of Troy and King Henry VIII’s wife of the day are two famous examples.  At this royal/ political level, exposing this basic urge out of control is the media’s favorite pastime. Witness the smearing of President Clinton’s non-sexual relations relationship.  And the British seem to cherish the revelations that those “better than us” truly do have feet of clay.

Should only eunuchs run our government? I don’t think so.  I’d prefer one slimy, but eloquent, fast-on-his (or her)-feet, effective politician than ten eunuchs.  I hear eunuchs are filled with resentment. Gee. Wonder why. Maybe it’s because they’ve been deprived of their biological “agendas”.

This bio genetic urge which is imbued in most all of us guarantees the continuance of the species. Certainly it can’t be disputed that every single one of us is here because two people found a moment to do something other than work 24/7. And the animals who share our planet are at it too.  I’ve been watching two excellent BBC documentary series “Planet Earth” and “Life” (which has incredibly stunning video production utilizing the Cineflex helicopter mount and man other video production techniques) and it reaffirms that among most species on earth their lives are segmented as follows.

First, birth, followed quickly by eating or being eaten, followed eating some other animal or plant, then, looking for another to love (often with psychotic single-mindedness that can lead to, you guessed it, being eaten), and lastly, being eaten and or dying.

What’s not to like?

And so I think that many of the species, if they could talk, would admit just before they shed this mortal coil that as they look back on their life, one thing was a continually driving force.  “I only wanted to get laid.”

Oh, I may have left out a very brief part of that life arc. The part just after the realization by the male black widow spider, “Oops, I’ve had it” and the short moment he has to rapidly jot down some “notes to self” for his next lifetime, i.e. maybe getting laid any time, any where, with any black widow female should be postponed until I’ve at least had a little time to learn baseball, or learn to water ski or just hang out with my buds.

There was a quote from the famous poet Robert “the Iceman” Frost, who, by the way, was quite an athlete and played softball and tennis well into his eighties. We always see pictures of him when he was 218 years old but he was young and full of oats, too.  I call him the Iceman because a lot of people like the super-hero thing.

(above – Robert Frost, pic taken somewhere between 36 – 46 years old.)

He loved the Boston Red Sox and Ted Williams was his favorite hitter. http://www.thisisvermont.com/storyrobertfrost05.html

Anyway Mr. Frost loved competition, adventure and I love this quote:

And so, as Spring approaches, we see all of nature moving toward that primal theme to renew life. And I urge one and all to consider for a moment (between twittering and texting) bringing a little love into the world they live in….not just the “taking” kind of love but the “giving” kind as well.

And I’ll close with one more quote from Robert “the iceman” Frost:

Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
(from Birches, Frost was 46 years old)

In my next blog I promise to talk about things that really matter like Optimized Market Research, TV Commercials, getting training in the Canon 5D, and having an effective marketing (non-marketing) plan for the internet. Funny enough, I think most of all this has to do with our desire to have somebody love/appreciate/admire us.  Think about it. We perform optimized market research so that our clients will sigh when they see the results we got them.  And if our  TV commercials drive leads in like salmon heading upstream, we fell pretty good. Helping someone get their web presence really working for them after they’ve spent years trying and failing….that really makes one feel good, too. Of course we charge for our services but the real payback is that smile on our customer’s face.

And that’s why The Association’s here… in the end. Well that and to amuse you with half-baked humor.

One of the difficulties you can run into when trying to set up or manage a pay per click advertising account on Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN Ad Center, is the definitions of words. If you don’t understand the words it will be hard making sense of what the report is telling you.

Here are some definitions for terms you will run into when trying to set up or manage a pay per click advertising campaign with Google.

a. Search: On a Google AdWords report, this refers to the search network. This is basically the main Google page where people enter search terms, plus some other search engine sites that Google has partnered with. See also “Content” below.

b. Content: On a Google AdWords report, this refers to the content network. This is where Google will put your pay per click text ads up on other sites. You see this sometimes on web sites where it says “Sponsored ads from Google” and there is a small strip of these ads. They put your ad up on a site that has elected to have Google ads displayed, and they put it up only on sites where the subject matter of your ad matches the subject matter of the site. The Content Network greatly increases the reach of your ads, but fewer people will click on your ads than with the search network. And generally the Content Network gets a lower percentage of conversions than the search network.

c. Clicks: This is the number of people who clicked on one of your ads. Also called clickthroughs.

d. Impressions: This is the number of times that your ad appeared, either when someone typed in one of your keywords on the search network, or on the content network when your ad matched the subject matter of another site.

e. CTR: Stands for Click Through Rate. This is the percentage of time that someone clicked on one of your ads (Clicks) compared to the number of times the ad appeared (Impressions). A higher clickthrough rate means your ad is more effective, so you want this to be as high as possible.

f. CPC: Cost Per Click. This is the average cost you incur each time someone clicks on one of your text ads. This is affected by how much you are bidding for the various keywords.

g. Cost: In this column we see the total amount of money spent.

h. Avg Pos: Stands for Average Position. This means how high up your ad is appearing. As there are almost always multiple advertisers, they are shown in an order, and being nearer to the top or at the top is desirable. So if you see an average position of 1.5, that shows that your ads were appearing some of the time in the #1 position and some of the time in the #2 position.

i. Conversion: In a lead generation campaign, a conversion is someone who filled out a form and became a lead. In an online sales campaign, a conversion is someone who bought the product. There is special code which you put on one of your web pages, that will then communicate back to the Google interface and tell it when a conversion has occurred. This is vital to do, and not everybody knows about this feature.

j. Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of people who clicked on your ad and came to the site, that then filled out the form and either became a lead or bought something.

k. Cost/Conv: This is the cost per conversion. For example, if you got 10 conversions (leads) in one week, and spent $1,000 on your clickthroughs, then your cost per lead would be $100.00 each. You want the cost per conversion to be as low as possible.

1. What are the basic 20 steps for setting up your camera?

2. What is the transcoding process?

3. What are the limitations of the 4:2:0 color space?

4. What are my options for support & handheld rigging?

5. Should I shoot FAITHFUL or…?

6. How can I avoid the CMOS sensor overheating?

7. How do I import my shots into Final Cut Pro? 

8. What are my audio options?

9. What kind of memory cards do I use?

10. What do I use to offload the cards in the field?

11. How do I avoid moiré and rolling shutter issues?

12. What do I do if my camera overheats and shuts off?

13. Can I shoot Auto Iris?

14. Can I shoot Auto Focus?

15. Is the sensor bigger than the RED?

Not so say that these are the ONLY questions we’ll answer. This Boot Camp is for YOU, the independent filmmaker. Or the still photographer. Or even the newbie struggling with settings. So if there is a question not represented here, ask by submitting a comment below. We are very interested in what you want to learn.

New to our Canon Boot Camp? Scan the QR code below with your phone to sign up for our newsletter, or click the sign-up icon below.

Excerpt from the Canon Boot Camp Reference Manual

The Associated Press wanted their still cameras to shoot video.

The Associated Press still photographers were shooting video with pocket cameras, so the AP asked Canon if the Canon DSLR’s could shoot video.

Canon engineers faced a series of challenges to accomplish this.

Challenge One: Get the mirror out of the way so video could be shot.

The Canon camera is a Single Lens Reflex camera, meaning it uses a mirror to reflect the image to the viewfinder for focusing. When you push the button to take a still picture, the mirror flips up out of the way briefly. For video, the mirror needs to stay up and out of the way for the duration of filming.

Solution One: Canon engineers put a button on the back of the 5D that flips the mirror up and holds it there for the duration of filming.

Challenge Two: Video requires 30 pictures per second.

The Canon 5D Mark II began life as a still camera. Its circuits are designed to output 3.9 stills per second.* The 5D Mark III can output 6 stills a second.

But for video, the circuits needed to output 24 – 30 stills per second. **

Solution Two:

When the Canon engineers were asked to make the camera produce 10 times as many pictures a second, they had a problem. Luckily, the solution was easy. The HD video picture only needs 2.07 megapixel picture to fill the screen. That’s one-tenth the size of the 21 megapixel picture the Canon 5D outputs.

So instead of having to output 3.9 BIG pictures per second . . .

. . . the sensor only had to output 30 small pictures per second.

Recap: Because HDTV only needed a 2.0 megapixel picture, the Canon could output 30 small pictures per second. This meant the engineers didn’t have to redesign the camera’s circuitry.

*The Canon 7D shoots 8 still shots a second.

**Film cameras, on the other hand, mostly shoot 24 frames per second. The 5D Mark III can shoot 24, 25, 30 and 60 frames per second.

Download the full Canon Boot Camp Reference Manual from our Facebook Page.

Last night The Association had the pleasure of meeting Dawn Hope of the Clickers & Flickers Photo Network. Celine had found the group online, and we inevitably got invited to their next networking event. So sallied forth wondering if we were walking into yet another dry and boring dinner with overdone chicken breasts.

What we found was a passionate group of still photographers and other creatives (even a nun!) who shared a desire to tell stories with light. And as Fletch poignantly pointed out during the introductions, filmmaking is simply a succession of still photographs.

Never heard of Clickers & Flickers? Here’s a blurb from their website about who and what they are:

 Clickers and Flickers is a dynamic, ever expanding network of photographers, digital artists, darkroom artists, filmmakers, curators, photographic vendors and photo enthusiasts of all kinds. Our members range in expertise from complete beginners to working professionals to nationally known artists. This mix is one of our strengths. The combination of an amateur’s passion and a professional’s expertise stoke the creative fires of all our members.

Our premiere event is our monthly dinner lecture. We attract world class photographers and photo professionals, such as publishers, curators, collectors, photo magazine editors and writers to speak on their area of expertise. Check out our list of past speakers. Your favorite photographer is most probably there.

It’s true. They’ve had an amazing array of speakers at their dinner lectures. Architectural photographers Julius Shulman and Marvin Rand. Rock and roll photographers Henry Diltz and Jim Marshall. Into Travel? How about  chatting it up with National Geographic photographer Gerd Ludwig and stock photographer Jim Zuckerman?

Then there’s landscape photographer Marc Meunch or wildlife photographer B. “Moose” Peterson.  Andrew Bernstein and Howard Bingham headed up the sports arena. And of course, the  photojournalism end has been held up by Boris Yaro and Steve Schapiro.

The list goes on. Fashion: Melvin Sokolsky. Nudes: Howard Schatz. Museum photography curator: Tim Wride. Stock photography: John Lund.

Dawn’s got it going on in the networking department. She probably knows the Pope. Or someone who’s photographed him. She’s has the energy of a puppy, maybe even more enthusiasm. In short, she’s a joy. And she’s in love with photography.

The event was held at the Castaway restaurant right here in Burbank. Asides from the lovely view, we were treated to a nice dinner with our choice of salmon, chicken or London broil. I had the salmon, which was quite tasty. The speaker of the night was William Carter, who presented us with a selection of photographs spanning 5 decades. The evening was split more or less evenly between the initial networking at the beginning, and William’s gentle and humorous monolog paired with his slideshow.

Along with a few other artists, we had access to a table to promote the Canon Boot Camp, which attracted a fair amount of attention. We met a number of fine photographers and other enthusiasts. Suffice to say, we may find ourselves giving a future boot camp in Africa while on safari. So keep your eye’s peeled for a future Filmmaker’s Notebook newsletter so you don’t miss out on the trip!

Anyway, filmmakers are welcome to attend the events! The next dinner lecture is May 30th (Wednesday) with Mark Boster, called the  “Four Seasons of Yosemite.” Those interested in attending should contact Dawn or visit the Clickers & Flickers website for more information.

The Association’s Canon Boot Camp has been busy since the start of the year! Prague. Burbank. Palm Springs.

Since the start of the year we have trained over 80 Canon Boot Camp participants in the ways of Canon DSLR. Here’s a few comments from recent classes:

“Overall I loved it. Had a blast and learned a lot.” S.H.

“Fletch and crew were wonderful!” C.L.

“I enjoyed the course. I was worried I might be ahead of the curve since I have shot before but I learned some great tips and tricks.” R.H.

“Thanks, I enjoyed the workshop. It was an excellent experience!” J.H.

We’ve really enjoyed the process of creating and improving both Pro Level I (basic DSLR training) and Pro Level II (Advanced DSLR).  Unique to our training is our hands-on approach while still maintaining a strong foundation in the basics.  And with over 2 years of experience in getting shooters of all backgrounds quickly up and running with the Canon HDSLR, we’ve decided to make a fundamental change in how we deliver our signature Canon camera classes.

Up to this point, the Basic class (Pro Level I) and the advanced class (Pro Level II) have been offered as separate classes, each for $399 (early discount sign up rate – it’s $499 if you wait till the last minute!). However, the full benefit of the Pro Level I training really ripens when you get down and dirty with an actual shoot, complete with script, lighting, etc.

We’ve also discovered that no matter how trained or experienced participants are, if they only take Pro Level II, they need at least some of the basic training offered in Pro Level I. One of those, “you don’t know what you don’t know” situations, but with the number of mental light bulbs going off in Pro Level I, it didn’t make sense to deprive even the most well seasoned shooters of the basic training.

So, to cover the bases for everyone, we are combining Pro Level I and Pro Level II into one, 2-Day Boot Camp. Really, nothing changes except that there’s only one Boot Camp now instead of two. We still deliver both basic and advanced/pro levels! The pricing stays the same, in that the combined classes are $699 if you register by midnight the Weds before the Boot Camp starts (after that it’s $989 – so save $300 and register early).

The Burbank Boot Camps will still be on Saturdays and Sundays (usually the last weekend of the month).

If you had your heart set on only attending Pro Level I or only Pro Level II, you’re in luck. We still have a couple slots left in the April 28th and April 29th classes. The month of May won’t see any classes, and in June, we switch to the new 1 Boot Camp mode of one 2-day class. If you want in on the April 28th class, book right now or you might miss out. There are literally just a couple seats left as we limit the class size.

If I’ve completely confused you, give me a ring at The Association! We’re down for real conversations on the phone or in person. We’d love to hear from you either way!