And, of course, dinner:

Jeff, Vicki and I went to the Richmond Show Friday night for hours devours and an awards ceremony honoring Virginia advertising in broadcast, Web, print, and radio.  It was an awesome collection of talent producing a lot of your favorite commercials and sites. I was about to Twitter on the work feed about one of the commercials that just played and Jeff smacked me on the arm and say “Hey! That’s us!”

Very positive reaction from the crowd, and what I’m sure is a ridiculous photo of me posing with the awards, and I’m on the way back to our seats.  It was a fairly surreal experience to watch the commercial play in front of that room and market that probably hadn’t seen the spot before.  Good reaction overall, I was more upbeat that the group of creatives there reacted warmly more than just about anything else.

I texted off a couple of very swear-laden texts about the event to the rest of the class and my wife, talked to a few people on the way out, and we hit the road.

We’re stoked for the recognition. Here’s the commercial once again http://vimeo.com/14561224

Here’s the press release:

Valley Production Company Wins Richmond Ad Show Award

DIGICO Shoot | Post | Design, a Harrisonburg-based video production and motion design firm, received an award at the Richmond Show Friday night for a thirty-second commercial produced in 2010. The Richmond Show is an annual event honoring Virginia’s best in broadcast, Web, radio, and print advertising.

“To go to Richmond and be recognized by the Ad Club really is an honor,” said Joey Groah, DIGICO producer and partner.  “We could not be more thrilled to be in the company of talent of the assembled ad agencies and production houses,” he said.

DIGICO received a bronze Richmond Show award in the Advertising category for a commercial they produced for James Madison University’s “25K Strong” campaign, seen here http://bit.ly/g0gli8 The commercial has been used in broadcast, online, and in-show during football games.

About DIGICO Shoot | Post | Design: DIGICO is full service film, video and motion design firm. Working with individual businesses, advertising agencies, and corporations to create advertising, corporate communication and original content, DIGICO forms lasting relationships with clients by our ability to deliver on all aspects of production including concept development, scriptwriting, field production, post production, branding, motion graphic design, and consulting.

About The Richmond Ad Club: The Richmond Ad Club is a dynamic organization of advertising professionals that’s been around since 1960. Our official mission is, “To unite our ad community through service endeavors, education and the celebration of creativity.”

http://www.richmondadclub.com/

Artisans’ Hope, a non-profit retail shop selling Fair Trade products from around the world, seeks individuals to be a part of our commercial to air on local cable channels. We’d like people representing the following nationalities:

Vietnam, Haiti, Peru (or other Spanish speaker), Ghana (or other African nation), and India.

Details:

*Receive a $20 Gift Card to Artisans’ Hope

*Commit 30 minutes, read one line (ideally in native language) while holding a product

*Be available April 11-15, 2011

*Provide a picture/head shot, if available

*Have fun

Contact Brad at “artisanshope@gmail.com”

Dr. Pete’s sister was very nice on the phone.  She was a producer on a show you’ve heard of out of New York, and had practical matter-of-fact advice which boiled down to: you will only do one thing, pick it.  You could only edit, or shoot, or write, or produce, or direct, or be in lighting, or be in VFX, or makeup, or accounting.  “That’s how it works.”

There’re a few moments I can point to in my working life as defining moments, and that was one of them.  That moment of “Yeah… I’d really like to do everything.  I might not be good at everything, but I want to try a little bit of everything first.”

I went on to put together whatever the “this” is that I do day-to-day, month-to-month, over the last decade. At times I think I should be more of a specialist and focused on one thing, that comes and goes.  I always think I’d get awfully bored and much less engaged. And there’re plenty of successful examples of generalists and specialists in the world, I tend to like to do a variety. I like the multiple skillset and our model of project managers who can plug in to different projects in different capacities and exercise a couple muscles. And I should spend some more time focusing (never “just” doing something, all aspects of production are and should be collaborative) on editing, or writing, or shooting, or bookkeeping , etc.

At lunch Saturday Dr. Pete said his sister had been laid off from that same job, seven months ago.  She’s currently applying for producer jobs on a different coast, and is applying for high-profile shows that you’ll hear about in a few months.  And she should get one of those shows, because she’s really good at the thing she does.

We provided creative from the client VO, style frames, design, animation, and a custom score produced in-house.

Here’re the style frames:

And the finished spot:

We’ll start with some general thoughts and then open up the floor to questions.  Most of the times I’ve talked to small groups there’re often more questions than time, so we’ll be mindful of trying to get everything in.

This event is part of the Shenandoah Valley Technology Council’s (SVTC) luncheon series, a series of conversations that take place up and down the Valley covering a range of topics.  We’ll be at Union Jack Pub, you order lunch as you arrive, I’m goofily stoked to try the fish and chips. There’s some networking/milling about. And you don’t have to be a member to come to the workshop! Lunch is Dutch treat, so whatever you want to eat.

So:

What: SVTC Winchester Luncheon: Advertising and Marketing: Getting the Most Out of Your Video Online, Over the Air, and In Your Pocket.

When: February 10th, 2011 11:30-1:00 p.m.

Where: The Union Jack Pub, Winchester VA.

And the direct link on the SVTC site.

Someone asks about one of the final sequences (spoilers in the actual post) in ‘True Grit’, “I couldn’t tell if it was green screened or if you had actually put a camera on a horse… but there was something definitely a little weird about it.
The same with the profile of the horse head shots. It looked almost animatronic and was lit very oddly…
It’s a sequence i can’t get out of my head it bothered me so much. Could you explain what was going on with that sequence and clear my mind of these silly questions?”

Mr. Deakins gives a thorough response ““Not silly questions at all. That was a very difficult sequence, much of which had to be done on stage for purely practical reasons rather than aesthetic ones.
A variety of techniques were used.” and then goes into breakdown of the shots including VFX, lights, gear, and lenses.

Or something on the lighting diagrams (which Mr. Deakins has already posted) for ‘No Country For Old Men’:

“Hi Roger,

May I ask you some questions about the street scene labeled Las Vegas from your diagrams? How did you use the source 4′s on the street lamps and how did it look like on camera. Was it pools of light? Also on the other diagram you have the platform with a lamp attached to it, above a street light. Was it to simulate the street lamp or to make it more punchy? Does the gel combination Half CTO/Straw give the street light effect with daylight or tungsten? Sorry for so many questions, but I find shooting under street lighting is so awkward normally and any guidance would be appreciated!!

Tony”

Mr. Deakins responds “Yes, shooting under street lights is difficult, especially if you are doing a long sequence with many angles as we were in Las Vegas, New Mexico (we could have gone with natural light in L.V., Nevada).
The source 4s were used two to each pole. With wide or medium lenses they were mounted each side of the existing street light with the lens in line with the top of the diffuser. No doors were used and gels were clipped to a gel holder. Being open like that the gels would hold if the lamps were saved between takes. The effect was to give a soft pool of light which extended the light from the existing fixture and we usually has the source 4s back to a dimmer and lowered the intensity so as not to overpower the existing light. The CTO and Straw gel matched the sodium colour quite closely. The camera wouldn’t see the lamp on the far side and the near lamp would become look as if it were part of the existing fixture. We did the same trick on the Border Crossing with 1.2 HMI Pars and we also did the same trick on ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’.”

There’s more to both those posts, and so much more on those forums.  Maybe I’m not aware of them, but I can’t think of any other forums where someone who delivers the work Roger Deakins delivers is that open with his time and technique.  You can ask him about composition, style, lighting, camera settings and he goes so far to give you lighting diagrams.

What a resource. And the forum is pretty great too.

Thanks to our clients and associate companies, here’s some of what we got to  do in the last 12 months:

- production road trips to all around Virginia and to other states like D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Missouri, Kansas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles
- work for international clients including places like Belgium, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy
- finished work on our studio including our light grid
- advisory boards in education and technology
- conversations at colleges and civic groups
- our first movie premiered at a film festival

And to stump for some area/regional non-profits: if you and your company have some extra time on your hands, a lot of organizations look for volunteers to use in any number of capacities.  Semester-long projects for interns always seem to be in season… Some non-profits we’ve been able to work with include The United Way of Greater Augusta County, Harrisonburg Children’s Museum (now the Explore More Museum),  Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, Friendly City Food-Coop, Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber,  The Shenandoah Valley Technology Council, The Shenandoah Valley Home Builders Association, Red Cross of Winchester, The Harrisonburg Pregnancy Center, First Lego League VA, and the Winchester Medical Center Foundation.

2011 looks to be more of the same in the best possible sense: awesome projects with truly world-class clients and talent.  Thanks for a great 2010, see you next year.

The Foundation was interested in producing a short video that could be distributed on DVD to potential celebrity guests for the following year’s event as a way to generate more interest and attract more celebrities to be involved.  In doing so, I worked with long-time colleague Jenny Brockwell, who is a familiar face in the valley because of her time on air as a reporter at TV3 Winchester and her heavy community involvement with the chamber.  Jenny worked with the Foundation to develop a script that would provide a good amount of background information on the medical center and the golf tournament, which we then refined into a format that would work in the short running time of the video and developed a strategy to present the information visually.

The end result is a video that clocks in at just under three minutes which, given the amount of content and our goal for a short video that would keep the viewer’s attention, ended up feeling like a good length.  The shoot was executed by a single director of photography, on location at the golf tournament and around the medical center and one of the foundation’s primary beneficiaries, The Hurst Hospitality House on the campus of the medical center.

The challenge we ran into in producing this was how to effectively keep a viewer’s attention when so much of the script involved listing data about the foundation and the tournament.  In the end, utilizing Jenny as on camera talent to deliver the information seemed like the best option, given the time constraints and budget for the project, and she did a fantastic job.  The final touch was an original music score produced in-house at DIGICO.  An original score can be key in giving a video a fresh and compelling feel where a stock track can become overly repetitive or just not match the intended mood of the piece.  Once we completed the edit, we delivered the video to the Foundation and it was approved without revision, which gives any producer a great feeling at the end of the day.  We feel confident that the video will be a success for the foundation and will hopefully bring a great range of exciting celebrities to the tournament in 2011, and as always we’re grateful and excited to have provided good service to a local business in the valley.