This was really fun to shoot. In 2012 I was contacted by Spencer Stevenson, aka “Spex”, as he wanted to tell me about a new documentary that was being shot. Thumbsup Productions in the United Kingdom is responsible for starting the “Top Model” reality show craze that eventually spread to other countries around the world and they are one of the most in demand productions companies in the UK. They wanted to shoot a hair transplant video documentary as a pilot for a new reality series to be shown on the BBC. It never got picked up but the initial shoot was educational and fun. Below is the pilot that was shot and you get to see me and Spex meet for the first time and we spend some time discussion the industry and being interviewed by the crew. I even got a little teary eyed talking about a patient I once met. I still get asked if this was really the first time we met and I can honestly say it was purposely set up like this as the production crew wanted to capture our first meeting for authenticity. After our segment we all piled into my rental car and we headed to The Bald Truth compound where we both are filmed while we meet Spencer Kobren for the first time. We were then shot on video…being shot on video as the production team wanted to film us recording The Bald Truth in studio.
So as I was saying, ThumbsUp Productions filmed me and Spex on Spencer’s program The Bald Truth and we had a lot of fun recording it all. As far as hair transplant videos go this one was one of the most fun hair transplant videos to shoot, not to mention the after party was one for the record books:)
Hair transplant videos. It’s a concept that is surprisingly difficult for most clinics to grasp but it is a medium to share hair transplant results that I recognized before anyone else in the industry. How do I know this? Because I was the first person in the world to share a video of my results online. There were other videos before mine but they were expensive, heavily edited videos for marketing purposes by the chain clinics like Bosley Medical and Medical Hair Restoration. I’m talking about patient produced video where the patient shoots the video and uploads it for others to view. I was the first.When I was shooting and sharing my video online I realized that the future belongs to video and not just photos. I even had a discussion with some of the popular hair loss related websites owners telling them that video was the future and that they should invest to take advantage of this as yet untapped medium. My colleague at the time, Mike Ferko, came up with the idea to put results videos on the Hasson & Wong website (the clinic where I worked at the time) and that was the spark needed to change everything. For years, I was pushing the clinic to fund new equipment and software to really allow for the best clarity and resolution possible. Today everyone can take HD video with their phones but back in 2004 HD video only existed on high end expensive gear but eventually the prices came down enough that the doctors authorized the purchase of an HD video camera. Because of this I was able to usher in the first HD videos of before and after results in the hair transplant industry. This was my focus for a long time and I was even publishing a video of a new result every week for one year. This was extremely difficult given the technology at the time but I (along with help from one of my colleagues) did it and this really made an impact on the field. If you type in “hair transplant” in Youtube you’ll get almost 60,000 results. Unfortunately, many of these videos just plain suck. They say they’re in HD and you have the option of watching them in 720p or 1080p but the quality is really bad. There are a long list of reasons why this may be but it is clear that many of the videos shared just aren’t very good quality. Regardless, I’m proud to have helped kickstart this level of sharing because the more video you have the more you have to consider.
When I was shooting and sharing my video online I realized that the future belongs to video and not just photos. I even had a discussion with some of the popular hair loss related websites owners telling them that video was the future and that they should invest to take advantage of this as yet untapped medium. My colleague at the time, Mike Ferko, came up with the idea to put results videos on the Hasson & Wong website (the clinic where I worked at the time) and that was the spark needed to change everything. For years, I was pushing the clinic to fund new equipment and software to really allow for the best clarity and resolution possible. Today everyone can take HD video with their phones but back in 2004 HD video only existed on high end expensive gear but eventually the prices came down enough that the doctors authorized the purchase of an HD video camera. Because of this I was able to usher in the first HD videos of before and after results in the hair transplant industry. This was my focus for a long time and I was even publishing a video of a new result every week for one year. This was extremely difficult given the technology at the time but I (along with help from one of my colleagues) did it and this really made an impact on the field. If you type in “hair transplant” in Youtube you’ll get almost 60,000 results. Unfortunately, many of these videos just plain suck. They say they’re in HD and you have the option of watching them in 720p or 1080p but the quality is really bad. There are a long list of reasons why this may be but it is clear that many of the videos shared just aren’t very good quality. Regardless, I’m proud to have helped kickstart this level of sharing because the more video you have the more you have to consider.
Below is the first hair transplant result video shared online.