03/24/2025
We started shooting dance studio recitals April 1987. We went from regular VHS to SVHS to Hi8 to CompactC to DVCam to 3/4 to digital recording on laptops to SD memory cards. We sent videos out on VHS, DVD and now on-line and Flash Drives.
Yep, many years. Cameras went from 4:3 format to 16:9 format to 1920X1080p.and even 24 frame. Now we're using 4K
Unfortunately we've tried to hang on since the pandemic. With everyone having a cell phone and not even listening to the studio owners when they ask to please not record. Etc, etc.
Sharpshooter Video Productions is closing down. The few studios I still shoot for will just know us as Joe Fortunato - Videographer. We've had to sell 2 out of our 3 vehicles. We sold both our trailers and let go all our crew people. Now it's just me and I kept the best of my equipment and are selling off all the others. Kinda hard because things move so fast that some our equipment is obsolete or not worth 5% of what we paid for them. Today I sold a 5 thousand dollar Video camera for $500.00. Why? Because it's HD and purchased 10 years ago. In today's video world.. it's obsolete. Sad really, but like many of the wonderful dance studios I've seen go out of business. I guess my time was up too. I'll still have the parent company "JAF Media" which does corporate videos, instructional videos, music videos and infomercial but the Recital Dance side of the business is down to 5 schools when we used to do 25 to 30 each season. So thank you to my past clients. I've seen some amazing performances with some really talented kids. Sometimes it wasn't even like work because I was being entertained while staring at the video monitor.
