Home Matters: Local Brothers Find Better Opportunities in Belleville

Quinte Area provides plenty of business for launch of video production enterprise

Belleville, Ontario (PRWEB) July 25, 2004 -- You may never have heard of Graymatters Video Productions but if you were at the Belleville Waterfront Festival this year, you probably watched their work on the giant video screens during concerts by the Tea Party, Loverboy and Bad Companys Paul Rodgers.

Nine years ago, Adam and Andrew Gray left for film school at Concordia University in Montreal, certain they were leaving Belleville life behind them forever. After graduating with a successful student short entitled The Extremity", which played in over 40 theatres across the country including The Montreal World Film Festival and The Vancouver International Film festival, the Grays struck out for Toronto and Canadas film and television industry.

Adam found work producing corporate training and promotional videos that involved traveling and shooting in such unusual locations as North Africa, Texas, California and Arizona. Later he worked for Big Soul Productions as a video editor on the television series Into The Music" and as co-writer and editor for the documentary The Gift of The Creators Game . Younger brother Andrew did freelance video editing while completing The Abduction", another short film, in his spare time.

Long weeks and 14-hour days became the norm for both brothers, who hungrily absorbed every available experience to gain an advantage. Its great at first," remembers Adam, you feel you live in the heart of everything thats happening. But as you get closer to thirty (years old) your values change and other things become more important to you like family, community and open spaces."

Andrew returned to Belleville to obtain a post-graduate diploma in digital production at Loyalist, focusing on graphic design and animation. After spending a year at home, Andrew convinced his brother that Belleville was a developing marketplace and that- whether the community realized it or not- there was a growing need for professional video production services.

Within a year Adam returned home and the brothers established Graymatters video productions, headquartered at 217 Pinnacle St. They survived the lean early days of their enterprise and found a lucky break.

We were lucky that we opened our business in Belleville just before The Empire Theatre opened," Adam explains, Drew and I knew that it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Drew is a musician and Im music fanatic, so working with musicians is definitely right up our alley.

The brothers went down to The Empire and asked Mark Rashotte who was going to shoot the opening night for him and no one was doing it.

We wanted to show him what we could do," says Andrew, So we made a documentary for him about the opening night. I guess he really liked it because we became The Empires in-house video production service, and later Mark and Andy Forgies gang hired us to do a promotional DVD for their band 'All You Need Is Love."

Digital video production is something that is becoming essential for serious performance artists. Home audio recording studios have become so common that everyone can make their own demo CD. If you want to stand out from the other bands trying to land venues or attract the interest of a record label, you need a DVD. It lets the people with finances know that you dont just sound good in a recording studio, you can also put on a show in front of a live audience."

We use cutting edge technology that is still affordable to people who havent cut their first platinum record yet, and the production quality is really turning heads."

Theres actually a great market in Belleville for all kinds of new experiences", says Andrew I think the success of the Empire Theatre and the Quinte Film Alternative prove that."

Adam agrees Belleville has advantages he didnt see when he was younger. You can make a name for yourself here very quickly if you do good work. You dont get lost in the shuffle of 500 other businesses bidding for the same three jobs."

With what the Internet has become, you can now run a global business from a Belleville headquarters," Andrew observes, That would have been much harder to do just 10 years ago. Theres a definite excitement to being here, you get a sense that the community is really growing and changing while, at the same time, theres a real opportunity to get involved with that and be a part of a building process."

Since establishing Graymatters in 2003, the brothers have earned steady work from community-based clients such as the Quinte Arts Council, Elton Joel, the Quinte Ballet School of Canada, T-Minus, the Rotary Club Of Belleville, the Empire Theatre, All You Need Is Love and the Belleville Ethnic and Waterfront Festival.

A carefully built reputation for quality that has landed them a prestigious contract with Canadas biggest music management company, Vancouver-based S.L. Feldman and Associates, shooting a promotional DVD for guitar virtuoso Jesse Cook. The brothers are also finishing post-production work on a 'live DVD for Toronto comedian Glen Foster, alias That Canadian Guy" (In country-wide release with Bullseye Records this September).

Its proof that operating from a smaller community isnt a handicap if youre ready to make the effort and the effort comes easily because were doing what we love."

Asked for the biggest advantage in returning to your hometown to start a business, Adam laughs.

Without question- being able to go over to your parents house for dinner."

ABOUT GRAYMATTERS
GrayMatters Video Productions is a Belleville, Ontario based broadcast quality recording, pre and post-production video facility specializing in live concert and corporate promotional videos.
www.graymatters.tv

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