Famous people at our wedding!

So I showed you a little sneak peek of my super fun and exciting wedding video that I am playing at the ceremony in just 34 days!  I absolutely cannot wait for all our guests to see our story unfold before their eyes with fun pictures, music and videos of our relationship. 

Well, it's almost done!  Thank the Lord!  I only have just a few more shots to add in sometime in the next week or two and then I will post the entire thing online to share with all of you :)

But for now, I thought I'd share the amazing little story of how that video came to be.  I'm going to try to be brief and do the abbreviated version that began all the way back mid-summer 2009:

*  Searched YouTube for creative and fun wedding montage videos
*  Found a film student who made a cool little spoof of A&E's Biography for her wedding video
*  Asked her if she could make one for me, she wanted over $500 for an 8 minute video!  Said "No thanks, I'll do it myself."
*  Copied her script from her video and rewrote it to fit our lives and story and began editing together all of our pictures and video
*  Since she wouldn't let me pay her to share her audio and video clips, I began searching YouTube to find the songs and videos she used from YouTube. Found them on the site, googled how to download videos off of YouTube (a little program via Mozilla Firefox browser) and had everything I needed to recreate her video*
*  The only thing I didn't have that she did was the voice over actor to narrate the story.  This was going to be the hard part.  She said the bulk of her fees to make the videos went to the voice over actors.  And how the heck was I going to find a voice over actor that would make this thing all come together?  I mean the narration - that voice - *IS* the one thing that makes the spoof feel very 'Hollywood.'

Well, I have said before that my daughter's Aunt and Uncle work for Jay Leno.  So I called them first and asked if they knew anyone in the industry that could help me out who would 'sound like the narrator from the E! True Hollywood Story episodes and work for dirt cheap since I was a single mom on a budget.'  She said she could talk to John Melendez, the announcer on the Tonight Show and ask him if he'd do it for like $50.  I thought that was super cool, but his voice wasn't exactly the right type.  So I began to google 'voice over actors.'  And I found it!

I came across this site that allowed VO actors to post their resumes and clips of their demos or past work.  You can upload / e-mail your script to them and they can contact you with a quote and info on how they can help you out.  You're basically hiring them over the internet.  There is no face to face or phone interaction even necessary as everything can be done via e-mail.  They record your script in their home or office recording studios and then e-mail the audio files to you or ship them to you on DVD's or whatever.  You pay most of them via PayPal or their own online payment service.  So cool!

Well, sort of cool - because several of them came back with quotes that were still high - ranging from $300-$650!!! 

But then, I found him!  A guy named Jimmy Hodson.  I listened to his demos...his voice was amazing!  He has done all kinds of promo trailers for movies like the Devil Wears Prada, The Hills Have Eyes, Cheaper by the Dozen and on and on.  He is an announcer for FOX's college football game day and is also the voice of the Divorce Court on tv!  I e-mailed him my request and script along with the YouTube link to the video the other girl had made so he could see what I was trying to achieve.  He responded back almost immediately and said he could record the script for me the next day and e-mail it back!  And he was willing to accept whatever I could afford as payment for all of this.  SCORE!

I was uber excited.  And that was how I found Mr Jimmy Hodson...super cool and super giving talented famous voice over actor.  In the course of our conversations, he mentioned that he is married to a producer at E! and that they are friends with the guy who is actually *THE* voice of the E! True Hollywood Story.  He said he could have talked to him about helping me out with doing this but I really loved his voice the best and told him I was super happy to have him do the work for me. 

So that's how we have a famous person involved in our wedding, well, our video at least :)  And when you see the video in the next week or two, you'll realize that he is not the only famous person we enlisted to put this little creation together ;)  Stay tuned....

*  Some may think it's kind of cheesy to 'steal' someone else's idea.  But the fact is, though I copied the idea in general and the format is very similar, I did change a lot of the song selections and obviously the story and photos and videos are for the most part all personal to me and Mr Fix It - they're OUR photos and videos.  Besides, I always say there are no original ideas, just something that was recreated from a past version.  And on top of that, she did put it on YouTube for the whole world to see.  Don't we all steal stuff off of YouTube at one point or another?  I mean, isn't that why we all join those stupid Facebook groups as Fans - so we can relate to others and share in the same stuff they have done or believe in?