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Update(1/19):Olegna Productions' "Corvettes at Carlisle Video Series" Takes Home the Awards

Angelo DelMonte and his IAMA "Corvettes at Carlisle the 2002 Video" received the International Automotive Media Conference's (IAMC) Bronze Award of Excellence at the recent 2003 IAMC Awards, hosted at Sardi's in New York City. This award of Excellence is the third award received for the 2002 video and continues a tradition of the whole video series receiving an IAMC Award.
The International Automotive Media Awards (IAMA) recognizes and encourages excellence in all forms of automotive media. Judging is by peers and all entries are judged on a point scale based on their own merit. Other winners of this prestigious award this year are Meguiar's "Car Crazy", "Motorweek" and "Automobile" magazine.
Olegna Production's started producing the Corvettes at Carlisle video series in 1998 and has won an IAMA for each of the five videos in the series. The entries are always one year behind the award due to the entry cut off date falling one day before the actual weekend that Corvettes at Carlisle is held.
The 2002 Corvettes at Carlisle video has also won two other prestigious awards earlier in 2003 by receiving both Telly Awards' and a Communicator's Awards' statues.
"This is the first video of our series that has won all three of these celebrated awards," said series creator and producer, Olegna Production's owner Angelo Del Monte. "We've always taken home one or two awards but this is our first hat trick so we're quite excited. All these awards have been very gratifying to our effort and commitment of making an exciting, informative and entertaining program. And the IAMA is especially rewarding because it is judged by automotive people and not just judged on production values" Del Monte continued.
Del Monte founded Harrisburg-based Olegna Productions in 1985 and is frequently called on to provide video for major networks as well as to create commercials, multi-media presentations and corporate promotional productions. Olegna also offers full web design and production and prides itself on going the extra distance to meet its clients' needs.

Photo Courtesy of Warner Photography

Update(9/9):We're very sorry but...
There will be no 2003 Corvettes at Carlisle video.

Economically we could just not continue a project that we committed so much of our resources to that could not hold its own.
We started this project in 1998 and considered it an opportunity of a lifetime. Here was a chance to incorporate my lifelong love of automobiles with my day job, which is producing videos. Also at that time I actually thought that this was a sure thing moneymaker. How could it not be with all the Corvette enthusiasts that come to the Carlisle event and then all of those who couldn't attend? Or what about those folks who just wanted to find out more about America's premiere Corvette Enthusiast event? Well, we had a rude awakening when we sold a total of 24 videos at the show the first year. Carlisle was kind enough to do a mailing for us that helped bring some sales in, but still not enough to make a profit at it.
We thought it was an important project so we figured let's try it again next year. Beside which it was always envisioned as a yearly tape that people would want to collect and own each consecutive year. We figured as more people found out about the video they would then want to buy the back issues that they didn't already own. So the next year we set up our own booth (all with free help) and set off to make an even better video.
We kept on like that for a couple of years. The booths got bigger and the tapes got better. Then we set up a website to promote and sell our videos. The videos would get rave reviews in the press and they would win numerous, prestigious awards, as did the website. A small group of dedicated Corvette lovers would buy our videos year after year. But we still could never make money at it. We kept the costs down as much as we could. Many talented people would work at reduced rates just because they enjoyed working on the projects with us. Many close friends and neighbors went through "training by fire" to become cameramen, production assistants, soundmen, salespersons, etc. But there are only so many times you can impose on someone to work hard for free or less then they could be earning on a regular day.
To all those people who have helped over the years; my wife Susan, Carol and Vinny Somma, Rob and Julie Yates, Ron Guyer, Mike Kirchener, Andy and Tim Obeck, Nicole Miller, Dan Shaffer, Mark Kaufman, Adam Schmidt, R.J. Harris, and all the others thank you so much for helping me realize my dream project. Even though we can't continue each of you should feel proud to know you contributed to a video series that by production standards was a success. And many, many people truly enjoyed our work. Unfortunately there weren't enough of you out there to enable the series to continue.
To those of you who bought our tapes all I can say is thank you so very much. I hope you don't feel that I've let you down too much, because no one is more disappointed with this decision than I am. But bills need to be paid, equipment loans must be satisfied, insurance kept up and new jobs need to be found. And with all the time and effort we expended on the videos, it cut into the time needed for our regular business productions. That's also why we were always late with delivery since the Corvette videos always had to take a back seat to real paying jobs. It could never sustain itself as a profitable enterprise.
Some have said we should cut back on the quality, but what's the point of that. I have been a big fan of all the Carlisle shows but especially the Corvette show. I had attended at least a dozen of the Corvette shows before I started taping the event in 1998. In fact I even shot one of the first TV commercials for the event way back in the early 1980's. So when it came time to document the event, I wanted to make something that I could be proud of and a video that I felt was worth the time spent watching it. I have seen a lot of videos that are just garbage and there was no way I was going to do anything like that. Beside I'm sure each one of you who bought my tapes work just as hard as I do to make twenty bucks. I wanted to make sure you got your money's worth. And doing an inferior job to the best I am capable of would be a cheat. I'd rather put a mask on and take your money that way.
We are still trying to keep this in a positive light. We made a lot of good connections over the years, we have a lot of good footage to work with and we still have the enthusiasm to do a quality project that car people will enjoy. We have some new ideas to keep working in the automotive video field. So we thought this was the time to try them and see if they can become profitable.
Keep checking back to our site and we'll keep you posted on what we plan to do next.

Again, to all of you who did buy our videos over the years, thanks ever so much for your support.

Angelo Del Monte

Olegna Productions, Inc.

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