BostonVoyager Feature of Meg Simone

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Boston Voyager Feature! Extra, extra, read all about it… Want to know when I filmed my first wedding? How I got started in this biz? Check out this recent feature in BostonVoyager!

Today we’d like to introduce you to Meg Simone.

Meg, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up with a video camera in hand, always filming friends, documenting trips and ski adventures. In high school, I mainly took classes through our vocational department and by junior year I landed a paid internship at our local TV station which is now Outside TV.

Shortly after I graduated college, in August of 2000, I was working at the local TV station in North Conway, NH when co-workers asked me to film a friend’s wedding. After that eye-opening experience, I worked my way into the wedding industry by being one of the first videographers in the state that had a website (this was 18 years ago!) Using skills I picked up in college I could code my own website, and combining my networking capabilities through work at the TV station, I quickly grew my wedding film business through online and in-person contact with key referral sources.

I got to where I am today with a huge jump start in how to run a business after a three-year stint as at REALTOR® where I learned about sales, networking, sphere of influence, and pricing. All skills that are easily transferable to a wedding film business. I’ve attended countless industry continuing education events, in addition to mentors and colleagues pushing my comfort zone, daring me to dream big, and allowing me to march to the beat of my own artistic drum. Now I’m able to give back by running my own educational event, Relevant Workshop (for wedding professionals) each April.

Has it been a smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, there are constant struggles when you are responsible for your next paycheck. Where is the work going to come from? Balancing time between creating the art, and time running the business is a constant challenge.

Distractions are everywhere. For a creative, having large uninterrupted time blocks is mission critical to being efficient with workflow. For every distraction, be it a phone call or email, I know I am set back on my film edits by 20 minutes. Most days I turn my phone off or leave it in another room, and don’t open emails during the day (I check before 9 am and again after 4 pm). The world isn’t going to blow up and my business is still going to be there when I get back online!

I don’t ever feel like I missed anything because I just got done more work in 6 hours than most people do in two or three days. I’m super focused, determined, and have big goals manifesting all the time.

I don’t want to put myself in a position to get steamrolled by not paying attention. I want to be the one flagging the traffic because there is enough work for all of us, it’s just a matter of how I want to position my business in this market to divert the right traffic in my direction.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Meg Simone Wedding Films story. Tell us more about the business.
I am a wedding filmmaker known for memorable, engaging and genuine documentary style wedding films that range 15-25 minutes.

The most valued feature of my business is my storytelling style. I take a different approach and mindset to document live events using 95% spoken word and natural audio to retell the story of each wedding experience. I create longer-form documentary style films vs shorter highlights. Most of my films average 15-25 minutes. This style allows the viewer of my work to be transported back in time. Whether they know the couple or not, I pride my films on being multi-sensory, allowing everyone to relive the experience as if they were right there doing it all over again. As my friend Mariah from Snap Weddings said “WITH YOU BEHIND THE CAMERA, I KNOW OUR CLIENTS NEVER FEEL LIKE THEY ARE “IN FRONT” OF IT!”

What I’m most proud of as a company is that I march to the beat of my own creative drum. I don’t drink the cool-aid of every tech trend, be it buying cameras or new gadgets to “make better films.” As a documentarian, the story always wins over tech trends. I keep things basic by design. I’m aware of the noise, I just filter in what I want to listen to.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
There are more “wedding filmmakers” than ever before. DSLR Cameras and technology make the entry point for this business pretty easy to obtain, it’s “making it work” that will be the big shift in another 2-5 years as many of these new companies will sink or swim.

Like anything tech-based, it’s a delicate balance when striving to deliver the best quality product with people’s ability to view videos. Not everyone can even view 4K (and higher) films, and as demand for 4K increases, so will our additional investments in more memory, better computers, and on and on. It’s a never-ending game of keeping up to date but being realistic about what technology will actually give a ROI.

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