Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

Marczyk Fine Foods

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

 Pete Marczyk of Marczyk Fine Foods, an urban grocer. Known for locally grown produce and Niman Ranch beef, the market also specializes in hard- to-find cheeses, specialty goods, wines and gourmet prepared foods. He’s also a Redsox fan and a good friend of mine. I asked him to be in a short Wine show pilot. We shot in his store for 15 minutes and came up with this.

Pilot

Crack Dancing

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

In case you haven’t seen it.  Please enjoy.

Crack Dancing 

Windish RV

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Just shot and cut these spots for the Altitude Network  and Comcast in Denver Colorado.

The client is Windish RV out in Lakewood. They were looking to attract a younger crowd and try to “modernize” their business.  I shot it all in about 3 hours and hit post production for 20.

Clip 1

Clip 2 

Clip 3

Clip 4 

video resume denver

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

another great article

link

Video resumes have long tickled imaginations in Hollywood (can a blond legally apply to Harvard via VHS?) without making much of a dent in the real world. Enter Aleksey Vayner. The Yale student submitted his video resumes, titled Impossible Is Nothing, to investment bank UBS last fall. It became a YouTube classic, while its karate-chopping, tennis-acing, deep-thought-having star became the joke of Wall Street. But another funny thing happened: Vayner’s vanity creation awakened recruiters and job seekers to the possibilities of marrying the video CV to the Internet–and that may just revolutionize the job-search process as we know it.

So who will be the YouTube of video resumes? Jobster, an online job board, is teaming up with social-networking site Facebook to launch a career site featuring video résumés in March. Vault.com another job board, concluded its first video-resume contest last week, its prize a shot at (what else?) an investment-banking job. Smaller players 62ndview, HireVue and Resumevideo are all launching widely this spring. Workplace bloggers speculate that YouTube plans to start its own video-resume channel, although the company is noncommittal. Says Jason Goldberg, CEO of Jobster: “I can see a day when video as part of the résumé is the norm.”

Job seekers aren’t waiting. On YouTube, there are already 1,590 entries listed under resume. Not all are what you would call serious (“After losing his powers at the end of X-Men 3, Magneto is forced to apply for a job at the local Starbucks”). The best ones, though, are smart, colorful and effective. Benjamin Hampton, a recent graduate of Washington State University in Pullman, posted a 5 1/2-min. video on YouTube last fall, thinking it would be something different to send to employers. (To view Hampton’s video résumé, go to TIME.com. With his brother at the camera, the resume “took me 45 minutes to film and 30 minutes to edit,” says Hampton, 23. But that was enough to impress Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. The public relations firm interviewed him–in person–a short time ago.

Not many employers are trolling YouTube for candidates, which is where the new online services come in. Resumevideo sends online “postcards” of job candidates to a network of mostly not-for-profit employers. 62ndview wants its site to be a portal for job seekers, who would view videos of potential workplaces, and for employers, who could check out potential hires. HireVue sends webcams to job candidates, who use them to answer real-time interview questions. Employers can view the clips immediately online, saving time and money by eliminating the first round of in-person interviews.

The thing is, not all people are cut out for their three minutes of online-video fame. A Vault.com post features a blue-shirted manager with a knee jiggle and a boring spiel. A job-seeking techie on YouTube admits charmingly that he has no experience editing videos–and then packs his with gimmicky cutaways. One software engineer scores his with gangsta rap. And did I just fast-forward through that video on HireVue because of the guy’s bad teeth?

The paper resume is egalitarian, more or less, and that’s why human-resources people are wringing their collective hands over visually enhanced job applications. Many recruiters won’t even accept CVs with photos attached for fear of lawsuits. Some companies even block out the candidate’s name, citing studies that showed bias toward the white-sounding ones. They’re worried that video resume will invite lawsuits by candidates who could claim bias based on race, gender or age–indiscernible on paper but not on video.

No one has yet filed a major lawsuit for discrimination by video resume. But George Lenard, a St. Louis, Mo., employment lawyer, can envision a case centered on “disparate impact.” If an employer requires applications by video, then those without video cameras and broadband-equipped computers might argue they lacked access. Of course, he adds, the live interview process is hardly infallible. He cites a 2000 Princeton study that examined orchestras’ penchant for hiring male musicians as an example of “disparate treatment.” When screens were put up–now a common practice in auditions–the gender skewing disappeared.

Once the rest of the YouTube generation enters the workplace, “video resumes are going to be as ubiquitous as PDAs or iPods,” says Mark Oldman, a co-president of Vault.com. Just leave out the gangsta rap. For your sake and ours.

video resume

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

this is the new thing… here are a few interesting articles

fox news

NEW YORK — Fallon Rechnitz set her video-capable digital camera on a stack of books. She then hit the record button and spoke for about 30 seconds, instantly producing a video resume she plans to send to potential employers.

Rechnitz is at the forefront in the hunt for employment. Video-resume services are only starting to emerge on the Internet, and the 22-year-old Arizona State senior believes the visuals can give her a leg up after graduating this month.

“I feel like my personality is what really seals the deal and if they can see my personality I’d get a better chance of getting the job,” said Rechnitz, who is applying for news positions with television stations in Arizona.

The job search has come a long way since the days of printing resumes on high-quality, linen paper and stuffing them in matching envelopes. Employers typically accept electronic versions of traditional resumes these days — many now require them — while incorporating their own research of applicants’ social-networking personal profiles.

“You lose a little bit of formality. You as a candidate lose some of the distinction you might have had from a resume that looked good and matched well,” said Brad Karsh, author of “Confessions of a Recruiting Director.”

So to stand out, some job seekers are now turning to online services such as WorkBlast.com and ResumeBook.tv, or posting their clips on a video-sharing site like Google Inc.’s YouTube. No longer limited to mailing video on tape or a CD, they are e-mailing links to employers directly or adding them to traditional resumes.

Kevin Epps, 49, said he was getting interviews for more senior positions after posting his video resume late last year. (None turned into job offers, but in a twist the Las Vegas company that produced the video, Harrington Reed Inc., wound up hiring him.)

Some video resumes, like Rechnitz’s, show a candidate speaking directly to a camera, while others are mock interviews. Some blend in visuals of related work or extracurriculars such as playing the piano.

Many employers welcome the chance to see a candidate before committing to an interview. Laurine Sargent said she wished she had video clips accompany the roughly 60 applications she received for a recent opening at her Phoenix-based real-estate firm.

“After a while (resumes) would become hypnotic,” she said. “Everybody today knows to say the right things they know employers are looking for.”

She said she invited a dozen candidates for interviews and might have cut that in half had she seen their presentation skills ahead of them.

Others, however, remain skeptical, worried about the time it would take to view all the video and the potential for discrimination based on race, age and other factors that wouldn’t be apparent strictly from a traditional resume.

“Employers have told me for years that they will throw a resume in the trash if it has a picture attached or included,” said Shirley Rasberry, the career-services director at Texas Christian University’s business school. “They want to be sure there is no chance of being accused of any kind of discrimination. So a video resume would have the same effect.”

Job seekers also open themselves to looking stupid, and not just by choosing weird or inappropriate e-mail addresses.

“It’s almost like handing a job candidate a loaded gun,” said Scott Erker, a senior vice president at the human-resources consulting firm Development Dimensions International. “You can be quite casual when in fact you want to make sure you’re tops in professionalism.”

He said many video resumes come across as auditions for “American Idol.” Because the concept is relatively new, he said, applicants don’t have good role models and turn to what they see on television for inspiration.

Job seeker Aleksey Vayner was widely mocked last year when his seven-minute video resume was widely circulated online. It shows footage in which he claims to lift 495 pounds in weights, serve a tennis ball at 140 mph, ski as a national qualifier and break a stack of seven bricks with his hands. He was seeking a job in investment banking.

Patricia O’Keefe, assistant career director at the University of Denver, said neither employers nor students have brought up video resumes, and the university hasn’t been pushing them. She favors waiting until employers resolve any issues related to discrimination.

Tyler Redford, chief executive of ResumeBook, acknowledged that employers and career centers have been skeptical, and fewer than a third of its users have posted a video resume, even though it is a core feature.

But Redford and other supporters believe discrimination could occur at the interview stage even without video resumes, so that alone should not deter job seekers.

As for concerns about the time it takes to view all the video, “it’s a matter of where you work it into the process,” Redford said. Employers could save time overall, he said, by reviewing video before asking the finalists to travel for interviews.

Even if an employer never sees it, producing a video resume could help a job candidate prepare for the interview and boost self-confidence, said Tim Apolito, a University of Dayton instructor who has been helping criminal justice students prepare video resumes long before YouTube and the online services came around.

Some advocates believe video resumes may make sense in certain fields like broadcasting, marketing and theater — the ones where job seekers are already asked to send in portfolios of past work. Unlike a portfolio, though, a video resume merely shows how one performs in front of a camera.

“A resume is really a marketing piece but not necessarily showing the scope of your work,” said Julia Overton-Healy, director of Mansfield University’s career center.

Nick Murphy, operations manager with WorkBlast LLC, said video resumes aren’t meant to replace other job-search tools, nor are they limited to professions in which employers deal directly with the public.

“Even people who are hiring software coders, (they) are going to sit in a cubicle somewhere,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to learn a great deal about people and their personality and their potential with the company.”

Unleaded Digitizing

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

the process of digitizing doesn’t require the highest skill set, but it does require high end equipment to do it correctly.
Unleaded offers the highest end video suite for digitizing all forms of media.
Analog Video formats that we can digitize:
beta
vhs
svhs
minidv
dvcpro
dvcpro50

output video formats of media once digitized:
G3
image sequence
Apple formats (TV, Ipod, Iphone)
AVI
Quicktime (.mov)
Windows Media (.wmv)
BMP
DivX
FLC
MPEG-4
Flash ((flv.)

analog images (still photos) that need to be digitized will be done through our Epson Pro scanner at a minimum of 300dpi for archival purposes.
images files can be saved in the following major file formats:

JPEG
TIFF
RAW
PNG
GIF
BMP
PDF

Archiving:
we backup all video projects on 2 separate external drives for archival purposes.

firefly video

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

 this was for an assignment in school. a light study. turns out it was pretty good and showed in a few galleries in San Francisco and came in second at the Columbia Student film awards.

firefly

Affordable Holiday Videos

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Unleaded can help you out with your Christmas party slide show or Holiday video. I’ve worked on projects ranging from basic slides to scripted narrative, just depends what you want out of your christmas party. These projects are always fun to work on and I’m sure I can help add some excitement to the party.

insane video

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=4262

walking through the video process

Monday, November 26th, 2007

There’s always a process that works better than others. At Unleaded Media, we’ve found the following process to work optimally:

PRE-PRODUCTION: Define the Purpose

The video process begins by choosing the purpose of your video. Any effective communication is defined by clarity of purpose. Your corporate video should be created to convey one single message, promote a single product or service, or express one singular goal or intent. The key to a successful video is keeping it simple and limited to a solitary goal or intent. A cluttered disorganized video will leave the audience confused, antagonistic or wary.

Identify the Target Audience:

For your video to be right on target we must know exactly who we’re trying to reach. Clients or employees? Management or rank and file? Young or old? Once identified we can choose the style, pacing and music that motivates that group.

Develop an Outline:

An outline can be developed in-house or contracted out to a professional writer or your designated producer at Unleaded Media. The outline requires your concentrated attention. Now is the time to make revisions and offer suggestions. Pass it around to all the people who will have to approve the script and final video. Changes at this point in the production can be made easily. Later on, when production is under way, revisions can be costly, time consuming and laborious.

An outline should remain flexible. It is simply a good starting point for the ideas and message that the video will communicate. Ultimately, the outline should guide the video, rather than limit it.

Create the Script:

It is very difficult to shoot using the outline as a guide, although in a pinch it can be done. Shooting without a script adds immeasurably onto the production and editing time. A good shooting script for a video production is indispensable, like blueprints for a house: without a carefully designed script a project will wind up costing more than expected and be less than successful in conveying your message.

Scriptwriting for TV is different from other forms of writing. Visuals, not words, carry the message most strongly in video. Studies show that people learn most and remember more of what they see. We can either write the script or provide script consultation to help you write effectively for TV.

Additional Pre-Production Factors:

Meetings between the producer and client will determine a shooting and editing schedule. If talent (actors) are involved a casting and audition session will be arranged.

During this pre-production period we will arrange and book the Unleaded Media crew, designing and building of sets, plan graphics, locate and rent props and scout locations etc.

PRODUCTION: Shoot Day:

The Unleaded Media crew arrives at “call time” and establishes a centrally located “stash area” where equipment that is not immediately need is stored. We request that this room is secured since there are many valuable items left there. The crew must be totally wrapped within ten hours after their arrival to avoid overtime. A lunch break of thirty minutes to an hour is scheduled during the day.

Within a half hour to an hour of arrival we should be up and running, doing our first scene. Most clients are surprised to see how much time is involved in setting up each scene even though we work very fast. We believe that good videos are a result of craftsmanship, and rushing the job detracts from the final results.

Scenes are usually shot out of sequence which can be confusing for the uninitiated but is a more efficient use of time. We will rely on a representative from the client or location to keep us informed as to schedules, availability and arrange the cooperation of personnel. At this time they will guarantee the technical accuracy of what we are filming by watching the monitor or replays since it is prohibitively expensive to return for a re-shoot.

You may also elect to have top executives speak on camera. We realize this can be an unnerving experience and we are very experienced in helping the person relax. If the subject is expected to look and speak directly to camera, rather than be interviewed, we strongly suggest using a telepromptor.

POST PRODUCTION: Reviewing & Logging Footage:

The producer reviews the footage (rushes) to make sure we have everything in the can.

Off Line Edit:

This is a very rough version of what your final program will look like although it will not have effects or graphics.

If anything is incorrect or not to your liking we still have time to change. If you are comparing our cost estimate to others, please make sure that theirs includes an Off Line Edit. If they don’t know what that means…run!

Some clients opt to skip this stage for budget reasons. And perhaps that is OK for a very simplistic video. However, your On Line Edit will take longer, which may mean going over budget. Worse, other executives and departments may want changes after the On Line Edit is completed and that is very expensive to do once the audio is mixed and effects are laid in. We strongly recommend the Off Line Edit to allow for creativity, save money and avoid time delays.

On Line Edit:

Here’s the stage when everything comes together. You’re invited, and sometimes requested, to sit in.