Dec 09, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

Say Goodnight Gracie – No More NJ Money Directly to Films

The Good News: the New Jersey Economic Development Authority will not loose money during the current recession because of bad investments on mediocre films.

The Bad News: They already lost $2,000,000.00 on Gracie.

According to this article on the Star Ledger website:

At their regular meeting today, members of the state Economic Development Authority wrote off $2 million in loans and loan guarantees they had extended four years ago to help bankroll production of “Gracie,” a feel-good movie about a Central Jersey soccer player.

Apparently they made direct “loans” to the film’s financiers, a first in NJ… and well, the rest of the story kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?

Best quote:

“We realized we’re not good at financing movies,” said Caren Franzini, the authority’s chief executive.

While this is a bad day for the big studios, who can always look to other funding sources, it’s a day of smug satisfaction for us little video guys. The State already provides a 20% Tax Credit for filmakers who meet certain criteria: 60% of the total expenses used or consumed in New Jersey, Principal photography commences within 150 days after the approval, and directly from the Definitions section of their application:

Film – a feature film, a television series or a television show of 15 minutes or more in length, intended for a national audience. “Film” shall not include a production featuring news, current events, weather and market reports or public programming, talk show, game show, sports event, award show or other gala event, a production that solicits funds, a production containing obscene material as defined under N.J.S.2C:34-2 and N.J.S.2C:34-3, or a production primarily for private, industrial, corporate or institutional purposes.

The $2M in Gracie was above and beyond this tax credit.

There are no (Zero, Zilch, Nada) tax incentives available for smaller films, videos, web-based video projects, internal training videos, corporate promotional videos, or any of the other thousands of video/film projects that might, you know, cause economic development to actually happen!

Sorry to the folks at Picturehouse (aka TimeWarner), but you already got your money. Hey New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission: it might be time to overhaul your definitions and guidelines to help us non-feature-film makers out a bit, we know you’re not going to be investing in any movies anytime soon.

Any other NJ film/video pros have any thoughts?

Aug 25, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

The Bad, The Good, and The Fugly

The Bad

According to the Indianapolis Star: Scaffold collapses, stranding workers on Downtown building

The Good

The workers in the above story were fine, because they were waring the proper PPE. (For those of you who don’t know what PPE is, PPE = Personal Protective Equipment (things like hardhats, safety glasses, and safety harnesses.)

The Fugly

Now I know you folks are trained print journalists, and the story was breaking as you shot this video, but is there really such a rush on the story that you couldn’t have at least worked on the audio, or white balanced the camera so the video at least looked a little better? There was obviously some post production editing done to the video, why not just run a simple limiter on the audio, or run a color correction filter, or something. My speakers buzz like crazy when I saw this video.

Next time, turn down the gain, or fix it in post. Please?!?!?

Aug 20, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

Cool Viral Video of the Day

Samsung, well, actually whoever their production company is, has the cool viral video of the day with their Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video:

I have no idea if the phone lives up to the video, but the production on this little gem is seamless. Nice job.

A Quick After-The-Fact:

In a big boo-hiss development, the i900 runs on a Windows Mobile OS. Oh well, the viral was cool.

Jul 21, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 2 Comments

When in Doubt…Specialize

A couple of recent things have got me thinking about specialization. (Wow, what a lofty first sentence.)

The July issue of EventDV magazine arrived on Friday, with perhaps the most memorable cover story I’ve seen in quite a long time: “Brian MacKenzie: Unicycling Glidecam Videographer.” Now, I’ve been at this video thing for a while, but I’ve never put those words together in one sentence. Talk about a specialist.

What struck me as I read the article, was just how matter-of-fact it is to him. Here’s a guy who just combined two of the things he does, that’s about it, but to us uninitiated folks, it seems like such a far-fetched combination, that no one could possibly put them together successfully. Well, he has, and seemingly quite well. Brian’s website is http://www.balanceproductions.ca/, if you’re looking for a Unicycling Glidecam Videographer.

The second thing that got me a-thinkin’ was a brief conversation with Tom Clifford (aka Director Tom,) who called me after I congratulated him in a blog comment on his new blogging gig at FastCompany. Like most conversations with video guys, the conversation turned to: “So what are you shooting these days?”

I told him about an ongoing project we’ve been doing for the Dome-Tech Group and one of their clients, Columbia University on their newest building Studebaker Hall. We’re documenting all of the building systems (HVAC, Fire Control, Building Management System, Plumbing, etc.) with reps from the installation companies for future reference; so 10 years from now, when a new boiler tech starts, he/she has access to just how each system works as-installed.

Tom seemed genuinely surprised when he said he’d never thought of that as a use for video before. (I’m paraphrasing) I suppose that’s one of our specialties here at Brunswick Media Services, but it never really struck me as anything out of the ordinary. For the most part, we do industrial & corporate video, which means on any given shoot, we’ll be crawling around a manufacturing facility taking shots of machines in action… a la Dirty Jobs, but without the slick on-camera hosting. So it was pretty natural for us to move into this kind of video: we know a bit about the machinery, we know a bit more about the video, voila: our specialty.

Sure we’ll shoot just about anything our clients need, but we’re at our best wearing steel-toe boots, and proper PPE with some Super-Axe-Hacker cranking away in front of the camera.

So what’s your specialty?

Jul 18, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 1 Comments

A Couple of Quick Hits (Part Deux)

Playing catch-up here lately. Here are a couple of fairly unrelated things I’ve come across for your weekend (and beyond) reading:

1. Via Seth’s Blog:
   Mike Laurie over at Ship’s Biscuit has put together one of those masterful blog entries that you come across every once in a while: Viral Marketing Review: Using and Identifying Design Patterns.

   I can’t imagine how much time and thought went into this piece, but if you’re even a little bit interested in adding viral video to your marketing mix, this is a must read for trying to understand just how big a topic this really is.

2. A big congrats to Director Tom on his new big-time blog Let’s See That Again! over at FastCompany.
3. Looking for a quick way to see what’s happening in the blogging world on a specific topic (You should answer yes here): Guy Kawasaki et al have put together a service I’ve been using for a while, but haven’t had an opportunity to write about: until now.

   Alltop gathers the RSS feeds from the top blogs on a given topic, and presents them on one page. Topic areas range from the useful to the absurd, but it’s a quick way to scan the top blogs out there. In particular, I’m a big fan of the Small Business, Marketing, and Ireland topics. Give it a try, you may find your new favorite blog

Back to work, have a good one.

Jul 17, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

Kudos to the Extreme

Steve Hudgik over at The Safe Workplace Blog pointed me to this campaign from the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia , Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Worker’s Compensation Board of PEI (Prince Edward Island for us Yanks). The campaign has 3 videos (titled Bucket, Ladder, and Nail) produced by The Extreme Group, one of which (“Nail”) won a Bronze Lion at the 2008 Cannes festival.

From the Extreme Group’s website:

Extreme Group, along with the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia , Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Worker’s Compensation Board of PEI have taken home a Bronze Lion in the Product and Service, public health and safety category for their “nail” television commercial at the 2008 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. This is the first time a Nova Scotian agency has taken home one of these prestigious awards.

Aside from being visually compelling (in as much as a spot about a bucket can be visually compelling) the spots are effective, direct, and flawlessly produced… everything a safety spot should be… and I wish we had a hand in them.

OK, here’s where you can take a look at the videos:

http://www.extremegroup.com/work/42
or
http://www.worksafeforlife.ca/doit.php?cat=Advertising

Congratulations to the Extreme Group folks.

Feb 18, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 5 Comments

Video Production Rates

We’ve been using a great service called HitTail for the last year or so, which gives you a basic idea of where people are coming to your website from. It keeps track of the words and phrases people search for when they come across your site. One of the top phrases people search on is “Video Production Rates.” Lately though, I’ve seen that phrase replaced with “Cheap Video Production” or something to that effect.

Jan 08, 2008, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

Tales of cellos, organizational performance, and Lavado de manos

One of the best things about this business is the broad range of businesses and topics you have to get to learn about during the course of any given day/week/month.

I wish I could remember who said it, it may have been Harry Beckwith, it may have been Tom Peters!, but “you never know where your clients will take you business.” Case and point(s): December 2007 – January 2008:

Organizational Performance

Altus Training Solutions
We just completed the web site for this training and organizational development firm in Camp Hill, PA. Earlier in 2007, we did the logo design for them. In the market for a little team building? Give Susan a call at Altus Training Solutions… and yes Susan, I think you have the coolest business cards in all of Camp Hill as well.

Cellos

Ashley Bathgate
OK, so this one is still technically in the works… We just launched the web site for this amazingly talented young cellist in advance of her Carnegie Hall debut in February 2008. In addition to the web work, we’ve designed the concert poster, post-cards, and are currently working on the program for the evening. Check out a few of her performance videos on her YouTube Channel.

Lavado de manos

Perhaps the most challenging (in a good way) project has been the translation of the Hartz Mountain Corporation cGMP video for the Bloomfield, NJ facility into Spanish. Since the last time I read this much Spanish was 5th period in St. Thomas Aquinas HS my Sophomore year, we were lucky to find a great partner in CTS LanguageLink. Oh, BTW… Lavado de manos = Hand Washing.

and the rest

As they say, meanwhile back in the studio…
- Currently working on the finishing touches to a promo video for a totally rad, local 80s cover band Amethyst
- Localized a few TV spots for the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ.
- Assorted ongoing projects with various organizations great and small…

Gotta run and do a press check, shoot a couple of scenes, debug a javascript, and whatever else comes up today.

Nov 27, 2007, Posted by Mike in the category, 0 Comments

Our latest video for The Gutster

We just finished this short viral video for our friends at The Gutster. It was truly amazing to watch these guys take down an entire house in 1 hour. I love fun projects like this.

Sep 28, 2007, Posted by Mike in the category, 1 Comments

Solid Thinking on Video Production

I’m a little late to the party with this, but well…no excuses.

If you don’t know about Thomas Clifford, you should. Tom is a corporate video producer, OK, some would say he’s THE corporate video producer.

I “cyber met” Tom through Squidoo, and his lens Corporate Video & Remarkable Storytelling last year. Right off the bat I knew I liked this guy, and his take on corporate video production.

Last month (August 2007) Tom published a “manifesto” through ChangeThis called Bring Your Brand to Life: Harnessing the Power of Remarkable Corporate Video Stories which is not only the most helpful guidebook I’ve seen for people thrown into the “go out and make a video after you finish your real job” cauldron, it neatly sums up the way you should be approaching all of your corporate communications.

I’m HIGHLY recommending it for all of our current and future clients.

Go download it now from ChangeThis, or from Brunswick Media Services.