I have several friends that like to live vicariously through me and always ask about where I’ve been or where I’m going for work. I think it can be easy to glamorize business travel, so for all of you out there that think it’s a bunch of play time and great eating and exotic places, I’m going to go ahead and dispel a few of those myths and give some visual examples of why business travel is NOT glamorous.

1.) You’re often forced to stay in very out-of-the-way places where you have very few options for “good food”.

out-of-the-way hotel

awful, monochrome scenery

Who cooks food like this?!?

I think they forgot to cook it….

2.) Many times I’m required to go somewhere that I’m out of my climate comfort zone which requires me to dig out clothes that I may not have worn for months.

I don’t even know where my swim trunks are

3.) Finally, the one that really wears me out, is the activities that you’re sometimes forced to attend because it’s “good for business” when all you want to do is go back to the hotel room and unwind and take a nap.

Seattle Mariners…It’s so hot!

I can play golf anytime, why must I play on a work trip?

The seats aren’t even that good.

So, I understand why people might think that it’s glamorous but it’s just not true. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. If you have stories about business travel gone wrong, I’d love to hear about it.

TJ Lewis is a whiny traveler.  He loves to travel, but his love of whining accompanies him wherever he goes. The only music on his iPhone is the soundtrack to the award winning broadway musical “Wicked”.  He claims it’s all he needs.

Approximately 100,000 people die in America every year from Healthcare Aquirred infections.  You read that right…. 100,000 hospital and nursing home patients look to American healthcare facilities for help and end up dying from an infection that usually has nothing to do with the reason they were in the hospital in the first place.  Monarch had the honor of working with Clorox, and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control (APIC), to inspire healthcare workers to drastically reduce those numbers.  In the process of developing three case-studies of hospitals that have taken drastic and creative measures to reduce those infections, the Monarch crew visited three very different health care faciliites in three very different cities.

Our first trip was to New York City to visit with the employees at NYU Langone medical center in the heart of NYC.  We worked hard, walked a lot, and saw both Wicked and Phantom on broadway.  We shared cabs, small elevators, a hotel room, and a really emotional moment right before intermission of Wicked (and there is nothing wrong with three grown men being moved by a green woman wearing a big hat).  Our week of filming at NYU Langone was unforgetable.  We found the people at the hospital to be energetic, colorful, and passionate.

Next, the crew traveled to the suburbs of Los Angelas to two separate hospitals that are a part of one system called Kaiser Permente. In LA we shared the frustration of sitting in the worst traffic I could have ever imagined on the 5, the strange looks from passerbys in Hollywood when they noticed the gopro on the hood of our rental van, a dirty look from Jay Leno’s crew while we took pictures of Jay doing his “Jay walking” thing in Hollywood, and Mexican food so authentic that I can hear my stomach gurgle just remembering it.  I’ll not soon forget the week we spent in LA with the great people at Kaiser Permente.  We found the employees in Downey and Panorama City California to be intelligent, vigilant, and passionate. 

Our final trip was to Medford Oregon.  A change of pace from the other two locations, and a beautiful city tucked in the mountains of southern Oregon.   While in the breathtaking mountains of Medford, the Monarch crew shared a car chase with nature in an attempt to get a time lapse of the sun going down over the valley, a bunch of great food, and a lot of conversations about how to get back out there for a vacation at some point.   The people in Medford were warm, creative, and passionate and I will spend a vacation there at some point (prefferably without the crew).

Throughout our 6 months of travel, shooting, and post production for this project, the Monarch crew came to understand some of the issues surrounding Healthcare acquired infections that will forever change the way we think about healthcare.  The people of NYC, LA, and Medford didn’t share a lot in common actually.  They dressed differently, relaxed differently, ate differently, and even worked differenty, but they seemed to have a common denomitor that I believe is a big part of the reason for their success.   Passion.  Passion fills in the cracks between cultures, ecomonic statuses, job descriptions, political opinions, and lifesytles.  Passion is what makes a housekeeper a life saver.  It’s what makes a CEO redefine the meaning of the phrase “bottom line.”  Passion seems to be the fuel that propelled these three hospitals to come together and send people home to their families.  Passion is contagious…. and I caught it while working on this project.

Thank you Clorox, APIC, NYU Langone, Kasier Permente, and Medford, for giving us the opportunity to chase the sun in the Oregon mountains, the occasion to taste the real meaning of caliente at an authentic mesixan restaurant near LA, and the priveledge of hearing Luke sing the headline song from Wicked at the top of his lungs.   Thank you for the opportuntiy to meet so many different kinds of people who have harnessed passion in their organization to save the lives of American patients.

My first reaction to that sentence is explosive.  I feel a need to protect the value of the talent and resources that Monarch has worked so hard to aqquire.  It also makes me feel defensive about the value of art in our culture in general.  The truth is, it sometimes seems like an uphill battle to get our clients to understand the worth of our services anyway.  Doing it for free may only give more fuel to their fire.  My attitude changes drastically when the cause it right.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Bloomington was one of those causes for Monarch.  Not only is the club operated by selfless people who have become my good friends, it has impacted the culture in Bloomington in profound ways.  As I walked into the club to talk with it’s leadership about the possibility of creating a video piece to be used as a fundraising tool, I was immediately hit by the impact the club has had on me personally.  I could get sappy and emotional talking about the way that the Boys and Girls club (then just the Boys Club) helped to shape my understanding of sports, teamwork, and friendships, but this blog isn’t about the Boys and Girls Club.  The project that Monarch created for the Boys and Girls club of Bloomington is an anomoly among many attempts to use Monarch’s resources to contribute to the effort of a not-for-profit organization.  I believe there are some take aways from this experience that I will use to assess future opportunites to donate our services and I thought I would share them with anyone else who may be contemplating helping an orgainization in this way.

1.  Get buy-in from your entire crew:

In the past i’ve found myself annoucing to my crew that we aren’t getting paid for a project while on site, or on the way to the shoot.  Before this project, I sat down with the guys and we made the decision together.  From the beginning it felt like something we could all “buy in to” and it really made a difference.

2.  Do the project on your terms as much as possible:

We dictated the equipment to be used and the timeline for the project.  This allowed me to fit the project in to a schedule that was booked with paying clients.  If the leadership of the non-profit pushes back about you doing the project on your terms, it may be time to find another project.

3.  Don’t take a small percentage of what you would normally charge:

Either donate or don’t donate!  This was huge for us on this project project.  The recognition and free publicity that Monarch got for donating to the Boy’s and Girls club was worth a lot more than the $500 that we may have charged them just to recoup some of the costs.

4.  Don’t forget the tax deduction:

It’s easy to blow this off, but it’s important for everyone involved to see the financials involved in the project.  Send the client a proposal for the project and an invoice….then mark it paid by donation from your company.  It feels good for everyone and it validates the work that you’ve done.  You haven’t simply done a free project….you’ve donated an expensive project.

These are just a few of the take aways that I got from this project.  Please feel free to add your own thoughts to this list and keep giving!

Here’s the video that came from this project:

Boys & Girls Club “It Just Takes One” Campaign

The Lighting:

For lighting we just used a 500 watt mogul lamp in a medium pancake lantern right above Zach’s head.  This gave us a nice soft light that would cover all three musicians, and then we threw a 100 watt frosted bulb in an 8″ reflector clamp light above and behind Zach for a rim light, and also placed one above and to the left of the violinist to give her a little fill.  We didn’t have a dimmer, so we had to waste quite a bit of it up at the ceiling.

The Cameras:

we had 2 cameras for this shoot.  One camera was our conservative wide shot which covered all three musicians.  We knew we didn’t want this to feel locked down.  We were looking for a more organic feel that would go more with the feel of the music and the rest of the video, but I also knew I didn’t want to go handheld for this shot either.  I didn’t want to make the viewer sick.  This was our anchor shot and we were going to be using it a lot, so I decided to put it on a monopod.  This gave us some fluidity with the shot, but it was also stable enough that we could stay with it for longer periods of time.  Our other shots were with a 70 – 200 on a shoulder mount which would let us get in nice and close and still stay out of the way of the wide shot.

The Audio:

Fact Music Group did all of the audio and it sounds great.  As you can see there are a handful of mics in the room which help give it the feel of a live acoustic recording.  It was also necessary, because it was, actually, a live acoustic recording.

What Else:

Feel free to post questions in the comments.  Look forward to doing more with the guys over at FMG.

The Video:

In the meantime, if you have any questions about what we do or how we do it, feel free to hit us in the comments, we love talking about what we do, and even more importantly, finding other people like us who love the art of making videos!

I’m in Denver this week with the American Society for Health Care Engineers (ASHE).  To be honest, I’m tired this week.  I’ve been to Denver many times to ski or play in the mountains in some way, but this time I was trading in my ski poles and fishing rods for a projector, an audience response system, and around 1000 PowerPoint slides that outline Health Care Construction.   I reluctantly got on the plane in Indianapolis and pouted my way back to seat 7A.  My role in Denver would be to support 4 speakers as they train construction teams to do construction within hospitals and other health care facilities.
As a self-proclaimed artist, I sometimes find myself searching desperately for an inspiration and energy to be passionate about what I’m doing (especially when most of my duties revolve around PowerPoint and audience response system problems).  As I sat in the opening session and listened to an interview that the Monarch team shot two years ago, I was reminded that sometimes our impact on the world around us can be just as profound using 1 camera and a microphone as it can be with a grip truck, a team of 16 techs, and all the video gear we can find.  Sometimes our best contribution to making things better around us is to sit in the back and push buttons.

Yearly, approximately 100,000 people die in hospitals in the US from infections acquired during their stay.  In some cases, that means they came in with a broken arm and never left.   Part of the blame for these infections is the dust, debris, and germs that are brought in with construction teams doing work on the hospitals.

As I sat in the back somewhat annoyed that I wasn’t somewhere in the African Congo shooting the next award-winning short film, my eye caught a big scary construction worker wipe a tear from his eye.  I was immediately hit with my own arrogance.  What a privilege I have this week to be a small part of helping hospitals and construction teams save lives.

I think it’s part of “growing up” as an artist.  Sometimes it’s the small things that contribute most to the good things that go on around us.  As long as I’ve been doing this, I still need to grow up…I look forward to a time when I can be as passionate about being behind the scenes when I can’t see the big picture as when I’m in charge of something that is obviously having direct impact on people.  Thanks ASHE for giving me the opportunity to grow up a bit this week.

That said…if you have an idea for a piece in the Congo I’m in!

John Mitchell - Executive Director

One of the great things about working in a creative environment is the creative energy you can soak up and share with others that you’re around.  One of the things that we try to do occasionally is spend some time working on fun side-projects – Short films, documentaries, etc.  A huge frustration with this process, for all of us, is what to shoot.  Because the opportunity to shoot our own projects is more rare than we’d like, we aim to create something that is academy award worthy every time we do get the opportunity.

So, here we are in the concept stage of said project.  We all have ideas that have been brewing in our brains for some time and each of us gets a chance to pitch to the others our next big idea.  They’re all fine.  Not Great, but not terrible.  A few of them show some promise.  Ok, now what?  Whose ideas do we choose?  Which of us gets to be the lucky one to see our project come to fruition this time? The answer: No one.  It’s sad, but this is generally how it goes.  We’re so afraid of picking the wrong project or spending too much time with the wrong idea that we don’t spend any time on any of them.  Fortunately, this isn’t the story of every project, but a great many of them end up on a “some day” list.  Some day we’ll get around to developing those.  Some day we’ll get around to shooting them.

I came across a quote from John Mayer whose music you may hear occasionally if you spend any time on the road with us.  He said the following:

 TJ Lewis has nearly always had a problem with Capitalization.  He hopes it has gotten better since this problem was first discovered in first grade.  His handwriting is still exactly the same as it was in First Grade, so his capitalization problems are probably still a problem as well.  One of TJ’s favorite onomatopoeias is “splat” but he also likes the word “belch”.  Some day he would like to say that he has visited all 7 continents, whether he actually has or not.

This question is one of the most telling, personal questions you can ask a person about their work.  It causes you to think deeply about what you’ve committed many, many hours to.  For some, it’s a simple answer, for others they must dig deeper to figure it out.  I think I can speak for us all at Monarch when I say that for us this answer is simple.

We do what we do because of the emotion you can solicit from a person when they see their abstract, amorphous vision played out in front of them.  Sometimes we get a request from a client and in the initial meeting everything is lined out perfectly and neatly and there is no question on the direction and goals of the piece.  However, this is not always the case.  In fact, oftentimes this is not the case.  Fortunately, for us, and our clients, this is one of our favorite situations.  When all we have to work with is vague direction and abstract thoughts, we are allowed to think of new and different ways to tell your story and connect to your audience.  We can step outside of the norm and present ideas that may be different and exciting or emotional in ways that people in our target audience may not normally see.

One of my favorite things to do is sit around the guys in the studio brainstorming ideas for a new project.  For those that know me well it’s no surprise to find out that most of my ideas are usually those found on the floor at the end of the day.  Many rarely make the final concept chart, but without those ideas getting out and into someone else’s brain clouds, it’s hard to say what our final product may have been.  More to the point, I think it’s exactly those ideas, those off-the-wall, non-sensical ideas that help propel others ideas to stretch and grow and become more profound or engaging.  I accept my role in a brainstorm with pride, and love the opportunity to exercise and push myself to think creatively.  So, if you need a piece and don’t know where to start, come talk to us.  And, if you like, you can stick around for the brainstorm, but be warned, you may walk out a little dumber than when you came in.

Also, Feel free to tell us why you do what you do in the comments!

TJ Lewis is not, and has never been a fan of equestrian sports.  That’s not to say he doesn’t like horses, he just doesn’t think they should have to do things like jump over water and poles, or run around barrels. He does, however, like fictional stories about horses, like “Black Beauty” and “Seabiscuit”.  He’s never been fond of cursive and he loves James Bond films that have the word “day” in them.

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