I went in to the convention with a good attitude. I was positive, confident, and prayed like crazy the night before. I had asked God to bless me and let His light shine through me when I met and interacted with the people there. Which, for anyone who knows me, isn’t always the way I approach things. Unfortunately I tend to have a negative attitude about things and hardly ever expect or even ask God to truly bless something I do. A lot of times I pray and say “God bless…” and then not really expect God to do it. Why is that? I’m not totally sure. It may be because of what our culture says, or even the things that we as Christian teenagers think and chat about. I think as Christian “teens” or young adults we often joke about God “blessing” us. We throw that phrase around like it means little or nothing that God, the Creator of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, who cared enough about us to DIE on the cross for OUR SINS, is BLESSING us in what we’re doing. It’s a big deal, and I personally don’t think I’ve ever truly taken it seriously before this weekend.

Anyways, I got there Thursday night and set up my booth and right off the bat got to meet and talk with some really cool people. They showed a genuine interest in what I was doing and what my company does, which isn’t always the case. Most of the time people don’t take me seriously, they just think its “cute” that I run a business. They see it as like a teenagers lemonade stand.

Over the next several hours or so I kept meeting great people, one right after the other. At about 9 o’clock we packed up and headed home. Once again, before I went to sleep I prayed and contemplated about the next two days and asked God to bless me and shine through me.

Friday morning my dad and I woke up around 6:30 and got dressed and ready to go for the day. We stopped by my friend Destin’s house and picked him up. We got to the convention at around 8:30 and set up my booth and got settled in for the day. After we got done Mr. Gorman, the convention coordinator, and someone else stopped over at my booth. They informed me I had been chosen to receive a $300 check from Ian Lamont the next morning. WOW! I didn’t know about this previously and it was a nice surprise, and that was just the first blessing that day. After that Mr. Gorman and I took a tour around the building. He showed me around and told me some things he’d like to have filmed for their video I’m doing for them. During all this Destin dutifully sat at my booth and talked to people for me.

Later that afternoon I had ran out of all my business cards. But soon after that I met a man who was interested in me recording his son playing guitar and singing. I told him I had never done it before, but he said he wanted to give me the opportunity. So I have him a quote, and then he gave me $50 in advance! Another big blessing.

Then later that afternoon I filmed a workshop for one of the vendors, I ended up having technical difficulties and had to give her a refund. But she’s still interested in me producing a DVD for her, so thats awesome. Another big blessing.

Then Saturday came and I received my check and met some more awesome people. I had the oppurtunity to help shoot some footage for the guys over at E3cubes, and in return they gave me one of their cubes. I also got to do my first “workshop”, which was an interesting experience. So overall God really blessed me and taught me a lot of things this past weekend.

Thank you to everyone who I got to meet, for those that encouraged me, and those I met in person for the first time. It was great getting to talk to all of you and learning from you. I hope I get the privilege of doing it all again next year.

Not too bad for less then $10 in PVC, metal, and a little ingenuity.

From my own experience, heres what I learned. Measure twice, check three times, cut once (twice if needed). The biggest step I didn’t do as well as I should have was check three times. I would quickly “try it on” and then cut. Which wasn’t the best idea. My shoulder mount works, but the spot where I mount my camera isn’t necessarily where I would like it. Below I’ve compiled a list of links to my personal favorites I’ve seen. Post a comment below if you have any you’d like to add to the list.

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=15621

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=14078

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=12777

http://cheesycam.com/?p=782

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2DY36eMxo&feature=related

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=10863

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=9820

Now I know that sounds conceited, but thats not why I created it. My goal is to market myself. Sounds kind of weird but its worked for other people, so I thought I would give it a shot. Since I enjoy hosting podcasts, videos,etc. I’m going to try and market my personality. So anything and everything I create thats not specifically done for JPT Media will be marketed as eg: Producedby Ethan Thompson. So if people enjoy what I do, or at least are interested I may be able to create a “following”. Which could then be used to market other peoples material, or my own, and at some point God-willing make me some cash. SO, become a fan of me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter!

I’ve had an awesome last couple of days. On Saturday my friends and family had a surprise birthday party for me. Afterwards two of my friends came and spent the night. We stayed up late taking photos, playing around with long exposures, and chatting about our spiritual lives and convictions. It was great hearing and talking about all these pertinent topics with some of my closest friends. I really got to see and hear what was on their hearts and what they felt about a lot of stuff. I can’t wait to do it again.

Then yesterday my friend Tyler and I went to see a softball game where I was hoping to get some photos, but because of a tall fence (well tall for me) I didn’t have the chance. After the game we went out for pizza and then headed home. Thats it for now!

I’m thinking that may be one of my selling points on my services when I get back from WOL. I’d like to get into sound for weddings. I’ve been talking about doing it for months and I want to really try and get my business going full throttle this coming year. I keep telling people I run my own business, while this statement is true, I really don’t do much. Just a video here and there. But if I want to have a business that can support me full time when I graduate I’m gonna have to jump on the bandwagon and start doing it.

Anyways, in the beginning of June I’ll be shooting, editing, speaking, and have my own booth at the 2010 LEAH convention. I can’t to do my first ever speaking “gig”. I can talk peoples ears off about what I do and what I’m going to do, and this time people may actually want to hear what I have to say! Then June 19, as I said before in a previous blog post, I’ll be heading off to WOL Island.

That’s it for now! Have a great and blessed day!

http://cheasycam.com/

http://philipbloom.co.uk/blog/

http://prolost.com/

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/

http://eoshd.com/

http://hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/

http://www.hd4pc.com/

http://dslrvideoshooter.com/

http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com/

http://blog.planet5d.com/

http://www.cinema5d.com/news/

http://jag35.com/new/category/blog/

http://www.tomguilmette.com/wp/

http://www.nextwavedv.com/

http://www.canonfilmmakers.com/

http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/

http://mydslrshow.com/

All right fast forward to the end of the summer. I ended up applying to go the next summer (this years) with the hopes that I would get accepted to work tech. After waiting almost 6 months I got an email asking if I still wanted to have them process my application. I emailed them back telling them I had changed my mind and didn’t want to work at WOL this year. But after thinking about it some more, praying, and getting a good nights sleep I emailed them AGAIN saying that I changed my mind AGAIN and would like to come work for the summer.

Fast forward to March 31 2010. I received another email, this time telling me I got accepted to work tech this year. I was so excited! I’ll finally be doing the job I’ve been wanted to do for almost 2 years.

As of today its only 54 days till I leave for my first year of Word of Life STC on the island. I can’t wait to see what God’s got planned for me this summer. I’m also hoping I might be able to “chronicle” my summer and make my videos into a kind of video blog that I’ll post when I get back.

Moral of the story, don’t be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone and keep on trying no matter how young or inexperienced you think you are.

One of the big differences is in your presentation. When connecting with someone in real life, most of the time you try to establish common ground with the person first. Whether it be sports, politics, beliefs, etc.  This works online, in certain situations. When I contact people to interview them, I don’t necessarily find something I have in common with the person. I usually cut straight to the point and tell the person about myself and the reason why I’m contacting them. Now if your looking to make a friendship with the perspective person, then I would suggest finding common ground. But if you need to interview a new person every week, then you may not have time to do this.

Another thing I’ve learned is if you contact the person via social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, your likely to get a quicker response. I personally usually find it strange to be contacted by someone by email before I hear from them via social networks.  I believe the reason for this is because social networks are for just that, networking. Now there are exceptions to this “rule”. If the person you would like to contact hardly ever checks their social network profiles, then your probably better off with contacting them via email.

How about you? Do you have any tips for connecting and making contacts online? Let us know in the comment section below.