So summer is over, its fall 2012 and I am back strapped to my desk chair in sequestration and isolation doing site updates, blog posts and new releases.Along with that mentoring our newest crew member Kyle and posting his latest photos along with the rest of the Crew,Matt, Adam, Brad and Myself.

Question #1 (big one): The one question that was asked and answered all summer was:  Will you be updating why no recent posts or updates.

Answer: (The Short Answer): As you now know The Muscle Mafia, The Movies and the Websites hit the Internet 10 years ago, we have grown TREMENDOUSLY in so many ways, but the one way we have not grown so much is in trusted staff here.  There is Matt, Billy was helping when not at college, 1 or 2 other trusted soles who helped me in the office, but truth be told I am 1 guy, doing the job of 20, filming, photographing, writing, mentoring the guys, editing and releasing.  As if that was not enough I also do 90% of the hair pulling, keyboard throwing technical coding and site development; this includes the compression and preparation of the films for our streaming theaters.  With that I have all the office work and management (bills & expenses, emails, computers, blah blah) that every other big company has with 4 times the staff.  I enjoy the creative process of filming, photographing and creating the crew, but the back end shit… torture.  But it needs to get done.

Having said that, this is not all I do, there is life outside of The Muscle Mafia and balancing the 2 worlds is something I have talked about in previous posts; things like, gym, family friends, dating. Also, although some might not know it, yes I am human and need a break once in a while, time to recharge my creative energies.

I am by no means complaining, my concept for The Muscle Mafia too off like a bat out of hell and hasn’t stopped since, thanks to you  I just stating the facts.

But this summer there were added delays for a month and a half because I was preparing for our 10th anniversary shoot and celebration and Kyle joined the crew who is someone I felt deserved (and deserves) my undivided attention as you will read in the Post Kyle Joins The Crew.

So, as I know I have said before in previous blog posts answering this question, consider us a duck on a pond; on the surface we look like we are moving slow, but underneath what you cannot see is me (we) peddling fast and furious.
Thank you for that question because it means you still love what we do, and it was asked almost daily, so if you want to know something… just ask!

Question #2:  Will you be doing anything special for your 10 years? What can we expect?

Answer:  Yes, I kind of answered that in question #1 but I won’t tell you here see and read for yourself on this page: 10 Years and 10 More Let’s Go! and watch 4 months’ worth of video edited down to 4 minutes in the music trailer.

Question #3:  How is your summer Carlo, shooting any good stuff for us to look forward to this summer?

Answer: Hell yes!  This summer was crazy, I’m not sure if this was a good sign or a bad one, but summer 2012 in the New York area was one of the hottest most humid on record.  It was the summer of thunderstorms, lightning storms and tornado touch downs in New York.  It seemed, and The Crew will agree that almost every shoot we planned happened to fall on a day where some weather warning was being posted and we were expecting some vicious rain, wind and lightning.

And it did, on one of our bigger shoots with Matt and Brad the temp outside was 90 degrees and the sky went black and in came a storm that would later make headlines and national news. The electric kept going out, that means all the house lights and the video lights were of no use, and yes no air conditioning.  So what do you do when “shit happens” and Plan A doesn’t work, a quick thinking creative “Boss” goes to plan B.  We used candle light, lots of candles that Keith happened to have on hand (thanks Keith).  The lights would come on and off, but it was not very cool yet so we set up fans to move the air around.  The Crew were champs, this shoot lasted well into the 3 am hour but we got some incredible film footage, very interesting moods and the heat along with lots of sangria and vodka got some of the crew very close which made some for OFF THE HOOK hot film.

But, for the biggest shoot of the summer, which most was planned outdoors, our 10 year special anniversary shoot the weather could not have been better.  So, all in all, everything happens for a reason, we roll with it and I take it as a higher power giving us a blessing to keep this thing going another 10 plus years!