It’s Father’s Day now and I’m enjoying some time with my family and my three sons Will, James and Tyler. We’re lucky because we all four are involved in the same general industry……acting, film, video and the internet.

They’re all full grown adults now but we all remember the not-so-long-ago days when I was still the the ‘senior’ family member and they were ‘under my wing’. Growing up is just as exciting an experience for the kids that are doing the growing as it is for the dads that are doing the bringing-up.

Surely there were times when I pushed them further than they wanted or thought they could go. They understand that now. In fact, we have joked about how I was like their ‘Director In Residence’.

But that’s true isn’t it? Dad are the director of the household. And the moms are like….producers.

In the acting business sometimes directors catch a little resentment because it’s their job to make sure that everything is done to a certain standard. But it’s not always easy for the director to do his (or her) job either because he a lot of different elements to blend together into a good move.

Sometimes there’s some ‘sparks flying’ on the movie set but everybody usually makes up and really enjoys the big party thrown when the filming of the movie is finished. When the ‘flick’ is ‘in the can’ and everybody has a chance to look at it, then directors, actors and everybody else involved in the movie realize that it was all worth it.

All the work, all the trial-and-error, all the experiments, all the training, all the rehearsals, all the re-takes, all the hours in make up, all the tough stunts, all the coaxing………all that stuff. It all boils down to ‘results’. In the film business (which nowadays includes Hollywood and the internet, right) either the movie makes money or it doesn’t.

That’s the director’s job…..to make sure the movie makes money. He’s got to take what the producer gives him to work with and put it together in such a unique way that the finished whole is bigger than the sum of it’s parts.

Just like a dad.

Dad’s all have pretty much the same tools to work with. They’ve got a job, they’ve got a wife, they’ve got a certain amount of productive years, they’ve got a brain and a certain set of talents. And of course they learn how to make sons and daughters.

On this Father’s Day I hope we can all remember how much we owe to our dad…how much we appreciate what he does to navigate our ship-of-family through time and space to a successful

arrival. It’s sometimes lonely up there…..’at the helm’.

If your dad is still around, I hope you’ll take the time to spend some personal time with him this Father’s Day. Be sure and tell him that you love him and appreciate him leading you through all the temptations, bad influences, and dangers that all kids are subject too.

Tell him that you appreciate the sacrifice that he made to raise you to where you’re on your own now. He might have done some things better…we all know that. But hindsight is always 20-20.

But you’re here now…safe and sound. And in spite of the problems we’ve got in our economy, you’ve still got a lot of opportunity if you want it. If it wasn’t for ‘dad’……there’s no telling where you’d be and how good or bad you’d be doing.

Why not go see dad and spend some time with him?  If you’ve got a video camera, take a few videos. The videos can be sentimental, goofy or a combination of the two.

Time will fly by faster than you expect and it won’t be long before dad won’t be with you. And as the years go by those videos will help you both appreciate what it was like to be a son with a great dad and a dad with a great son. Those moments you save by video will become more and more valuable as time goes by.

In the meantime, me and my sons will be celebrating our Father’s Day and no doubt some of the conversation will be about the NicheCeleb program that we’ve recently produced.