Colby Gaines’ Introduction
My name is Colby and I am the founder of Back Roads Entertainment (BRE). It’s my pleasure to officially launch the BRE blog.
This blog will be made up by the many voices that represent BRE including employees, industry friends and our collaborating partners. It’s meant to inform, entertain and start a conversation about all things production, video content, branding, technology and more.
For this first post, I wanted to share a quick story about why I got into the entertainment business. There are so many roots – it would take a novel to cover them all, but one memory stands out: my high school graduation night.
I’ll never forget the after-party: hosted by a charity at the high school, the entire class of 268 stayed up all night and capped the event at 6AM with a screening of the Class of ’93 high-light reel.
For five months, a classmate and I spent two hours after school three days a week editing, re-editing and re-re-editing moments from our senior year; pep rallies, plays, speeches, awards, pictures and songs were painstakingly inserted one at a time from one VHS player to a VHS recorder – every time we accidentally inserted a clip and covered up another clip, we had to start over or accept the mistake until the final cut looked (somewhat) seamless… technology has come along way since then.
The reel was an emotional, funny 30-minute time capsule that now-a-days, with all of the technology 10 year-olds have at their fingertips, could be cut together in about a day.
But I won’t ever forget the reaction to that video; from bittersweet tears to laughter, everyone seemed to share in the joy of that moment. Well before that moment – probably as far back as starring as a weed in my first grade play, I knew I wanted to be in the entertainment field but that moment… the excitement of putting together a story to be appreciated by an audience… was very gratifying.
I think all of us in the business of storytelling long for moments to share our work and move an audience. From my earlier days: high school drama club to working 65 hour-weeks at a CBS affiliate in college, I was never sure of the means but always clear on the end: I love entertainment and wanted to be a part of it.
We welcome all comments and feedback. We also look forward to creating a blog roll in the days ahead to promote other blogs we feel have valuable things to say. So – without further ado, welcome to Back Roads Entertainment. Let the water-cooler chatter begin.
