What's your story?

Run your own business? Want to start one? Discuss business applications of ProShow Gold and Producer here.
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Re: What's your story?

Postby bellzerr » Sat Jan 16, 2010 6:48 am

Diane -
Somehow I knew all that from your avatar photo. :) Your story fits your kind countenance. I encourage you to create that wedding show... hand-made gowns spanning 40 years! Amazing.

Debbie -
Of course you'll bite because no one can resist the lure of story - it's what we're made of. Yours has the twist of ProShow steering you toward your true gift of photo composition. We all love your pet photography. I wish you lived in my area so I could get you to properly photograph "My Three Sons." :D fourfeetfotos is certain to be a continuing success.

Lynn -
Don't family shows get just the best response? I need to follow your lead and do something for my local school or church group as well. I'm sure there are folks on this forum that could help you with that "capable" pocket camera choice.

Barbara -
You are so right...
Proverbs 19:21, Ephesians 2:10, Jeremiah 1:5

Thank you everyone for taking a few moments to response. I think this forum is quite unique.
Mark

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Re: What's your story?

Postby VidQueen » Sat Jan 16, 2010 10:21 am

(Deep Breath for a long story.....)

In 1998 I was a video producer for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. I was sort of the "go to" person for editing and graphic design (I hated the videography side). One of the executives was about to celebrate his 50th birthday and his wife brought in a bunch of pictures to make a video of him. The project landed in my lap. I used Adobe After Effects to animate the photos and Avid to edit everything together with music. The video was such a hit I was told to do at least 5 more videos like it that year (NON work related). I started to think to myself that there just may be a market for this sort of thing.....

I started Moving Pictures in August of 2000 and was able to quit Wal-Mart in April of 2001. No, I didn't really make a whole lot of money the first few years, but my husband at the time was able to support my "habit" :wink: Wal-Mart and Sam's Club continued to hire me as a freelance editor, which made up for the monetary short fall.

I found ProShow Gold in 2006 and was ELATED!!! Until then I was using AE, which is not very efficient for slide shows. I only used Gold for a few months before moving up to Producer. I entered the Photodex monthly contest and won in July 2006. Around the same time I launched my website, Choice Backgrounds, not for ProShow Products, initially, but for other Professional Video editors to be able to buy video backgrounds in single downloads instead of high priced bundles. Over time, I've added ProShow Product to my line up :D

My favorite part of creating slide shows has always been the ability to make grown men cry :wink: I just love that part! 99% of the time my clients were women, but they always came back to tell me that their big "manly-men" husbands were reduced to tears watching the videos. That's power, ladies :twisted:

As someone who has worked at home for nearly ten years, I just LOVE to hear about other people starting this venture. It's a really great way to find a good balance between being available to your family and having a contributing, creative, personal purpose as well. No, you won't ever get rich at it....but money isn't where life's riches are anyway :D

Cheers to all!

Jennifer

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Re: What's your story?

Postby anitaemile » Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:10 am

(Jennifer might think: hmm, haven't I heard this before?)
I was born in The Netherlands and made a living as a technician in radiology and radiation technology in Amsterdam . I was born with the creative genes,so you name it, I've done it: airbrush, pottery, sewing, knitting, embroidering, photography, rock and roll dancing, sculpting etc . In 1988 I moved to Canada with my husband. As a side job I had been making wedding and anniversary albums for a short while , and started to get some well paying jobs , but once in the new Country I needed to have a steady income, so I went back working as radiation therapy technician. Our 2 sons were born 1989 and 1991 and 2 months after Chass ( youngest) was born, we moved back to Europe. Moved around much and , raised our kids, and did mainly volunteer work until we moved to Michigan in 1998. SInce the kids were still young and we all had a new country to adapt to I remained a stay at home mom . When the finances went quite tight I wanted to return to the workforce but found myself desillusioned: By than I had not worked in radiology or radiation therapy for many years, and I did not have my Michigan certificate. I would need to go back to college and start "all over" . Well, I really didn't have that passion , nor the money, so I decided to give the creative side a try. Started designing and selling funky fleece hats (http://zusmuts.tripod.com/), but that wasn't really my niche. When, in 2006 my bro's and me organized a surprise party for my Mom's 75th birthday, Michel ( one of the bro's )had made her a slide show with Magix. I was instantly hooked , and went home making slide shows with Magix. But Magix had too many limitations. I had found Producer online, and watched some of the contest shows. Contacted Jennifer to ask her about the program and , nice as she is, she referred me to this forum. :D It took a while before I was able to dish up the money for Producer , but in March of last year that all happened. Love to make shows, but most of all , love to manipulate images. I just can't watch something without wondering: how the heck did they do that?.. so that's why I had to start a template website. I just need to dig deeper ..

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Re: What's your story?

Postby VidQueen » Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:29 pm

Anita...your story makes me smile :D

Jennifer

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Re: What's your story?

Postby bellzerr » Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:50 pm

Jennifer -
You are a true success story for those looking to build a home based business. Thanks for your encouragement and willingness to always share what you've learned through your posts and excellent tutorials. Your assessment of the real rewards not being monetary is so true. You are a blessing to this forum.

Anita -
Fascinating. (Those hats are a hoot.) I also rely on ProShow to help me explore my creative side. Digging into "how do they do that," That's me too - often times to distraction when I should be working on a show project!

Thanks so much to both of you for your posts.

Mark

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Re: What's your story?

Postby psychogramma » Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:35 am

My journey here started with a request from my daughter to put my grandaughters' (my first, twins) first 18 years into a slide show for their graduation. This was a fast moving year ago. First came the internet research for the right "program". I found this forum before I found the photodex site. Watched many of the "challenge" shows and was amazed! You can do that in a slide show? Dang, even. I had no idea. I downloaded both versions on "trial" and in the end just knew that I would be wanting to do the "more" of PSP. I love the challenge of "how did they do that" and am always running off to psp to figure it out. The shows I do are family stuff and some just "playing about".

I joined the forum because of it's warm and helpful atmosphere. Forums had put me off in the past, but this one is like a family gathering. I seldom leave here without a smile or laughter, sometimes tears for another's loss but always having learned something new.

I am retired and will never understand how some retirees are bored. Have tooo many interests to ever have time for boredom. Quilting, PSP, family photo archiving, geneology, beading, backgammon and horseshoes are part of almost every day and there is a long list of sidelines tossed in. I created and maintain a web site for our local horseshoe club http://www.ringer3.com.

A big thanks to all who share their knowlege and those who ask the questions, each of you add to the whole that make this forum what it is. A special thanks to Mike for his patience, good judgement and time.

Cathy

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Re: What's your story?

Postby trulytango » Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:32 am

Hi there :D

I discovered Gold in 2002/2003 and did many simple shows – kids parties, holiday memories etc. in executable format mainly, because for some reason I could only create output to VCD for television viewing… I’m not sure if it was a shortfall in my equipment, or a feature lacking in the software at the time? Maybe someone else can remember that far back! My shows were ‘static’ because I’m talking about the time before you could even zoom and pan… but even then, the emotional pulling power was evident and I presented my 1st ‘live’ show in December 2003 at my niece’s 21st Birthday Party. I borrowed a laptop, a projector and a screen from my workplace – and linked the soundtrack into the DJ’s speakers. The reaction was amazing… and since then I’ve gone on to create and present a number of shows for large audiences attending Weddings or Special Anniversary parties at two particular venues that have excellent conferencing facilities – it’s far easier to breeze in and present a show when you have confidence in the equipment or facilities provided… unless of course, you happen to enjoy a white knuckle ride!

As far as the learning curve goes, I remember the update that introduced zoom and pan to Gold and I know I sat there, scratching my head, trying to figure out what needed to be done in the two windows that appeared in motion effects. Doh! It took quite a while before I figured out how to do a basic zoom, but once I mastered that I started to use simple effects that would take place over a series of slides. I eventually upgraded to ‘old’ Producer at the end of 2005 – because by then I really wanted to work with layers (something that Gold didn’t acquire for some time), and besides, Producer had superior caption features and it supported transparency too.

From a business angle, my circumstances have always dictated the need to earn a regular income so I have a part time teaching job in the adult and community learning sector. However, ProShow has provided me with an additional income stream – I create shows by word of mouth (perhaps on average 2-3 per year) and I have a small range of ProShow related products for sale via my blog. I also save money by creating shows as gifts! More recently, I forged a relationship with a professional wedding photographer who offers a slideshow as an optional extra and we are both hopeful that this will prove to be a worthwhile venture.

I found this Forum in May 2006 and it soon became a favourite place to visit. The help and feedback I received really helped me to move things forward. As the software has developed and our community has grown, I have also made some really great friends… :D
Windows 7 HP 64-bit, Intel i5 2500K Quad Core, 8GB RAM, 1.0GB Ge-Force NVIDIA GTX 560i, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Producer 6 (GPU Benchmark was 336, now 324), a big old Canon 20D and a funky Canon Powershot G15

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Re: What's your story?

Postby bellzerr » Sun Jan 17, 2010 8:59 am

Cathy -
Congratulations on an active retirement. :D
You're right about this forum - it's quite unique.

trulytango -
You've been through many generations of ProShow. It is growing up, isn't it? I'm hopeful that with the prices dropping for the always more capable hardware that new surprises will continue to be released from Photodex. Whatever learning curve that brings, I'm certain that this forum will continue to meet the challenge. Let us know how things work out with your wedding photographer. It sure seems that having photos dropped in your lap so you can focus your efforts on show production alone should be a winning combination for both photographer and ProShow producer.

Mark

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Re: What's your story?

Postby MG - Admin » Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:29 am

My story will be a bit different than most.

I purchased a copy of ProShow Gold back in September of '05 after stumbling across a sample show shared on a photography forum. I'd never used another slide show program before, nor had I really needed one. I picked up my first DSLR earlier that year (Canon 10d - still have it!) and wanted to do something with the photos I took on my travels with my wife so purchasing Gold seemed like a good idea. I was impressed with the quality and ease of use, but wanted to learn more about the software.

I don't remember there being any kind of manual, and I doubt I would have read it anyway. Guys just don't do that sort of thing. Instead I started to search for info on the internet that might be able to provide some tips on how to best use the software. I found a Yahoo group that did have some helpful info, but it was a mess trying to find anything. Every topic was covered under one main category so you had to wade through the Gold and Producer threads, or try to guess which was which. The software was much less complex as it is today, but there were still enough different parts that needed to be separated out to make things easier to follow or find. As helpful and informative as the Yahoo group was, it was just disorganized enough that I thought there had to be a better way.

And here we are. A week or so after purchasing Gold and finding the Yahoo group I decided to try and start my own forum for the ProShow products. On October 5, 2005 the ProShow Enthusiasts forum went live and it hasn't looked back since. Membership picked up relatively quickly and has kept growing and growing each year. I thought that if I had a few hundred members it would be a success. Seeing the numbers now I feel as though I've created a monster, albeit a good one. As things have grown I've needed to change web hosts and server plans three times to keep up with the ever increasing database and bandwidth requirements. Keeping the forum up and running is no longer a choice, but an obligation. It's apparent that the forum is a valued part of many people's online lives and it would be a shame to not have it be available.

The members here, new and old, have been great. With only a small handful of bad apples over the past 4+ years I have to count myself lucky that I've been able to avoid the pitfalls that most forums run into. I keep the registration process pretty tight and read through most of the threads on a daily basis, but it has helped prevent spamming and the other bad stuff we don't want here. The interaction and camaraderie that is found here should be a model for other forums. If only nations could behave as well.

As for my slide show production, well, I have failed miserably there. I've taken tens of thousands of photos over the past 5 years from places I never thought I'd travel to. Yet, there is life and all of it's other time consuming events that seem to prevent me from taking the time to work on shows. I've thrown together a handful of shows and enjoy it while I'm doing it, but I still haven't found the extra time to work on them more regularly. The fantastically talented people here at the forum are coming up with some great techniques and I'm eager to use them myself. Here's to hoping that things slow down a bit and I can spend more time using the software instead of just talking about it.

Mike

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Re: What's your story?

Postby bellzerr » Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:20 pm

Mike -
I was hoping we'd here from you. :D That's quite a story. They say the cobbler's kids have no shoes so I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the forum creator/administrator has no shows. It's that much more of a testament to your dedication to this forum. Thank you for your vision and action in building such a fine community.
Mark

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Re: What's your story?

Postby seebee » Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:29 pm

I really enjoyed reading all of your stories, and thought I'd add my own. I lost both of my parents after a very long and painful 18 months of caring for them. They entered hospice care on the same day and they passed within 10 months of each other. My sister and I wanted to have a simple slideshow made for their memorial service, and since I was overwhelmed with the other details of the service, I asked a friend to make it for us. It was very nice, but after some time, I thought "I could have done this". So, I researched software and decided that Proshow Producer was the best. I bought it and started learning to use it. My sister and I took one of the 2 day proshow seminars and we were both hooked. That was a few years ago, and I'm still learning. I am a volunteer now with a hospice group and am providing slideshows as part of their bereavement program. I initially became involved with hospice as a volunteer because I saw the benefits of slideshows for those stuggling with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. I love the creative outlet of producing shows, and I have considered doing it as a business; however, I don't know that I have the business know-how or the desire and drive to promote it as a business. I really love the satisfaction of helping someone else during the heartache of losing a loved one. I've also done some wedding shows and a couple of sports team shows, which I really enjoyed too. That's about it!

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Re: What's your story?

Postby BarbaraC » Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:17 am

I love the idea of creating "memory" shows for the people in hospice and for their families. Forget about a business. You're doing the right thing, so please don't stop.

Barbara
The Frame Locker - styles, transitions, frames, backgrounds, & more.
Subscribe to Frame Locker News for alerts to new products.
How-to's: ProShowThink

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Re: What's your story?

Postby bellzerr » Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:47 am

Barbara said it. I can't think of a better outlet for ProShow.
Mark

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Re: What's your story?

Postby ChrissyC » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:35 am

seebee, what an inspiring story! what a wonderful wonderful idea you have of making shows for hospice families! You know, looking around at all the horrible things that are happening in the world the best of mankind rises to the top like cream and I feel proud to be one of the people adding goodness to the world instead of horror...
nice story seebee.....
huggs, Chrissy

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Re: What's your story?

Postby seebee » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:41 am

Barbara, Mark and Chrissy,
Thank you for your comments. You have NO idea how much I needed to hear them.

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