CUD - Joe York Film about Georgia Cattleman Wil Harris

Here's a wonderful profile of Georgia cattleman Wil Harris who was a traditional cattleman until he opted to go the organic route about seven years ago.  Production wise the sound's a little hot at the opening of the film, still you are drawn in as Harris drives around his pastures in a pickup calling his cattle.  The film gives you a great feel of the cattleman and his love of his cattle and his land which has been in his family for three generations. 

This easy to spot brand of high quality video production, one telling the stories in context with the lives of its subjects, instead of straight forward head and shoulders interviews, is the difference between average and great story telling.  Show them your audience the story, don't just tell them.  The more we can show, the better the video production we can offer. 

A video production company may sell you a production price that tells the story with simple, quick head and shoulder interviews, all with the same neutral background, but will that production tell your story in a compelling way that will keep your audience focused on your message?  Not likely if you bore them to click elsewhere.  In this admissions video production that we created for the Upper School of Riverdale Country School, we chose four RCS students, and followed them so we could see them talking about the things they describe. See the first video (the one with the lacrosse ball on the field) at the following page:  RCS Upper School Video.  It's far more interesting than just seeing them talking - head and shoulders with no action. 

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE PRODUCTION SPEC SHEET aka RFP

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE PRODUCTION SPEC SHEET aka RFP

To ensure you can make an apples to apples comparison of each company’s bid on your project create a spec sheet outlining what you envision needing for your production.

There are four phases of production.  Each one has its own unique requirements and equipment.  To make sure you get it all on the table specify what you want in each phase of the production.

Here is an example of a SPEC SHEET FOR A PROPOSED PRODUCTION

PRE-PRODUCTION

2 trips to client (Atlanta, GA) for pre-production meeting and location scouting.

3 days of Producer research and scripting.

PRODUCTION

2 Videographers for 2 days on location in Atlanta (interviews only).  One videographer for remaining two days.  All 3 locations are situated within a half hour drive from client’s corporate HQ in Atlanta.
Producer and Production Assistant for all days of shooting.
Teleprompter for 2 days of field shooting only.
Hair and Makeup Artist for all four days.

POST PRODUCTION

Editor and Producer complete Post Production.  Please send web links to editors’ work.
Deliver to client Rough cut at least two weeks before final cut deadline (May 25, 2012)
Royalty Free Music Only
1 Voice Over Performer (non-union)

DELIVERABLES

Project will be edited on Final Cut Platform. 
Full Copy of final project will be delivered to client on a suitable hard drive.
Digital Copies of Long and short version of project (5 and 8 minute versions) will be delivered to client electronically. 

Final Note - Include all travel in budget.  Max Corporate Per diem allowed- $175 night.

Looking back - great 2011 video - Old Spice

Although I was not blown away by the online Old Spice campaign, I am impressed by the production transitions in this video.  Still puzzling through them.  Kudos to Old Spice for creating an overall campaign that was so immediate and responsive to viewers.  Clearly it resonated and got buzz the marketing team could only dream of.

Top Graduation Speakers

It's graduation season and with it comes the painful ceremony.  The Graduation speaker is usually a horrible sweaty piece of the ceremony we must endure to get to the meal at the end of the ceremony.  But once in a while you get a great, inspired speaker, with a messsage the young grads mights remember.  The Daily Beast has compiled a top 30 list of the greatest graduation speakers of all time.  Here's a link to one of the members of that list, Mr. Bill Cosby.  

And here's a link to the whole story with links to many of the speakers doing their things.  It's good fun... not particularly inspiring from a video production POV, in fact it makes much better radio, but it's still good fun to listen.  Daily Beast Top 30 Graduation Speakers.

Feel the Game: Lead the Charge, Brand Jordan...

This might be one of the top 3 commercials I have ever seen, if not THE best.  Why?  You are on the court.... great sound mix, great action shots... it all works.  This spot takes you on the court like nothing I have seen in a long time.  This commercial rocks.... and it's not even a great copy (on YouTube)!