Once again privileged to create a dynamic book promotion video for Tremendous Life Books. This time author Mary Anne (Wihbey) Davis discusses her new book “The Sales Messenger.”

With Mary Anne located in Dallas, TX, a local crew did the taping and provided the video to us via ftp server. Toss in some color grading, graphics, book shots and music – voila!

Thanks to our friends at Graphtech, our new pens have arrived! New year, new SWAG.

We have multiple lens tubes for the source 4 ellipsoidal fixtures. This allows us to easily change the size of the beam without loosing any light output, resulting in a brighter light, with less energy consumed. Also pictured are color gels, which allow us to change to look of a light

The main camera for this shoot was a Sony EX1. This camera shoots full high definition video in a very portable form factor, allowing us to quickly change setup positions. Also pictured is the client video monitor, allowing clients to review footage as it’s being filmed.

Three source four pars shot through rosco grid cloth to soften the beams. We were fortunate enough to have a high ceiling with beams to be able to hang “theatrical style” fixtures as frontlight. We had two banks of these, one on each side of the set. Though we did face a challenge of getting a ladder on location to hang and get power to these lights.

PHFA – Counselor from Steve Kownacki, Final Focus Prod on Vimeo.

Last week we finished up a spot for PHFA. We actually shot 2 similar ads in the same location; each shot for each script was shot in an order that went something like this… Location 1, Line 1, Script 1; Location 1, Line 1, Script 2; Location 2, Line 2, Script 1; Location 2, Line 2, Script 2; and so on throughout the day. This eliminated repeated camera & lighting setups.

Keep in mind it was 27° that day at a location without electricity. What to do? Plan. We took along a super-quiet, power-filtered Honda generator to run the HMI lighting and the builder was kind enough to supply an awesome propane space heater that we ran between takes – not just to keep the donuts but to warm the air so the talent’s breath wasn’t so visible.

The Bowman Agency assisted in casting James Thompson. Thanks to McNaughton Homes for the location.

Final Focus Productions Fall 2010 from Steve Kownacki, Final Focus Prod on Vimeo.

We had a smidgen of time recently so we re-worked the showreel to include a couple new shots and a new piece of music. If you look at our prior demos, many of the same shots were used but with a different style of music, changes the whole impression of the shot.

Anywho, you can see just what greenscreening is all about.

Price Of Leadership from Steve Kownacki, Final Focus Prod on Vimeo.

Another great offering from Tremendous Life Books. In between the big projects that take weeks or months to complete, we can sneak in little gems like this that we shoot in 2 hours, 4 hours of editing and it’s on the web. Tracey was taped with a JVC HM-700, the book shots with a Canon 7D DSLR and the photos were scanned. The brochure opening up was a scan animated in After Effects.

12 Paradoxes of the Bible from Steve Kownacki, Final Focus Prod on Vimeo.

We were recently presented with a shaky video clip and a book and requested to create an online video for Tremendous Life Books. So we grabbed the DSLR and shot the book, added a few graphics and my editor and I supplied some VO. A few hours later… voilá!

The first step was to process the video to remove the shake; then clean up the audio as best we could; setup the book with some nifty lighting and get product shots; shoot Steve (hey! just get that thought out of your head.)… shoot Steve thumbing through the book; record Steve & Ryan reading the book quotes to break it up a bit; create some graphics and put it all together.  All together a little over 4 hours of work with proper planning.  Can’t stress enough about planning.

Don’t forget that the typical FFP value-add of re-purposing the project for your own website, broadcast and wherever else you want to put it will give that many more impressions.

TED announces its Ads Worth Spreading Challenge. Full article here.
An open invitation to the global advertising community to reinvent, inspire and engage audiences with a new definition of what advertising can mean in the digital age, using TED.com as its platform.

TED invites the business community to submit their most forward-looking video campaigns to the contest by January 10, 2011. A judging panel will select up to 10 winning video campaigns, which will premiere at TED2011, February 28-March 4, 2011, for the gathered audience of 1500+ thought leaders, and will appear on TED.com for free for one week in March.

During the week of March 21-27, 2011, the winning campaigns will occupy every available postroll ad space on TED.com,garnering roughly nearly 7M in free advertising impressions. In addition to appearing as post-roll after TEDTalks, each ad will also have a permanent page on TED.com, allowing the ad to be rated, shared, commented on and linked to, perhaps earning large numbers of additional views.

Submissions to the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge must be made in the form of a video, which can vary in length from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and submitted in a common digital, downloadable format as detailed in our submission guidelines.

Videos must be promotional in nature, but can promote a company, cause, product or idea. It can promote a product, company or cause, but is likely to do so indirectly rather than directly — for example, by showcasing the values, motivations and questions of the organization’s people. The ads may be commercial, PSAs or self-promotion.

The campaign should be new — created between January 2010 and January 2011. Ideally, it should be new creative, but it is possible to submit campaigns that appeared elsewhere. Submissions must be received by midnight EST, January 10, 2011.

All entrants into the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge will be notified as to whether their video has been selected by Friday, February 25, 2011.