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The Human Face

In an era where "economically uncertain times" has become one of the most common phrases we hear on a daily basis, people are looking for things that they feel like they can trust. And more and more often, companies are finding that they need to give their potential customers a human face to relate to as they carefully consider how to spend their increasingly limited budgets.

For most of us, when we look for a new product or service provider, we go to the internet. Websites are typically a company's opportunity to make a first and lasting impression on prospective clients. And yet, all too often these websites are fairly impersonal, focusing on products and services and pricing packages and a short bio of the business credentials of the team that makes up the company. But these don't really give the client a good idea of who they will be working with. This doesn't give them any idea of those people's personalities. It doesn't give them an opportunity to feel a personal connection with another living human being.

More and more, my clients are coming to me to give them a human face on their websites. Web video is affordable and internet speeds and video compression are capable of giving the vast majority of the wired public access to high quality videos. So, except for camera shyness, there is very little reason not to include video on your company's website. People, now more than ever, need to trust the people that they will be giving their money to. Open up to them, give them the opportunity to get to know you and your company and feel like they already have a personal connection with you before they even pick up the phone to call for the first time.

There are countless types of videos that you can do to create a human face for your website.

1) Let your team introduce themselves and what they love about working at your company.

2) Let your clients introduce themselves and what they love about what you have done for them.

3) Give your prospective clients a glimpse into what a day at your company is like.

4) Give your prospective clients a chance to see you just being you, talking about the things that you are passionate about, and how you bring that passion to your work.

5) Show them how you found your way into the industry you are in. Most of us start of down a path in our lives that branches many, many times along the way and frequently some pretty fascinating events lead us to where we are today. Share those stories with potential clients, sharing your journey is a very personal way to share your background and expertise without simply listing off your past employers.

6) Just play with it. Fun simple little animations about your service/process/product. This can be as low tech as using drawings on a white board or paper cutouts. Google, Microsoft, and UPS aren't afraid to utilize lowtech animation, why can't you use it?

7) Share a personal story, how your work has create a positive impact on other people in a powerful way? Does your company donate to charities or non-profits? Does your company volunteer in the community? Share these stories.

Reaching out to another human being on a personal level may just help you and your clients find a little more certainty in uncertain times.

What's Your Z? Episode 03

What's Your Z? Episode 03 from Goldie Jones on Vimeo.

The latest addition to the What's Your Z? family. I really had fun with this one. Probably because I finished it at 3 in the morning, but I am a firm believer in sleep deprivation contributing to the best creative efforts. :) Enjoy!

Subversionz Media's Carbonfree Partner Page has Gone Live

As promised, I am officially announcing that the Carbonfree Partner page on the Carbonfund.org site has gone live.

You can take a look here: http://budurl.com/j42w

The Video Rich Event

How many ways can video add to your event? If I could create my dream video package for an event, I would do any or all of the following:

1) Pre-Event Teasers:

Create a series 10- 20 second fun, catchy teasers to build excitement about your event. Links to these videos would be email to potential attendees, possibly with a VIP pass code to download them to their iPhone or smart phone of choice. Maybe (for example) even encourage attendees to collect all five for a door prize!

If you have an exciting VIP attendee/celebrity/musician/speaker that will be at your event, try to schedule an hour of their time prior to the event to capture a couple shots and catch phrases from them to use in the teasers.

A couple of well written zingers (a la SNL promo spots) released over the weeks leading up to your event could help build the anticipation and excitement around your event.

2) Video Blog

Spend a little time each week sharing with the world what new preperations have been made for your event, reveal your exciting guest speaker, tour the event facilities and show the attendees where to find the best booths, speakers, networking lounges, any little insights and insider info you can share with your audience on how to get the most out of your event before they arrive.

3) VJ

Live visuals mixed onsite at your event. If you are having a DJ or musician at your event, most venues also have screens or monitors. Turn those monitors into an opportunity to get your brand/product/or message in front of your audience in a very visceral manner. A motion graphics designer can create custom graphics integrating your logo or any other image or graphic of your choice into visuals that can be mixed with other images to compliment the audio at your event. Fully integrate your brand into your attendees sensory experience.

4) Case studies, high energy vignettes, spoofs . . .

There is an endless variety of visual content that can be created for keynote speeches, smaller sessions, kiosks, distribution to mobile devices. Any information you have for your audience can be packaged into a visually stimulating video presentation. Let your imagination run wild.

5) Roaming Camera Crew

Conduct onsite interviews, find out what people think, what they learned, what they loved, what they hated, how they plan on using the information they gained after the event is over. Capture the excitement and energy of the event. Included an editor in your camera crew and create fast turn around videos that can be shown at later sessions or dinners. You can even give footage to your VJ to mix in with your branded motion graphics.

Use all of this material after the event in a wrap up or thank you message or as a part of a multimedia press package and save it to build up excitement for your next big event.

These are really only a few suggestions. There are so many possibilities for using visuals to create a lasting impression and so many ideas that can be developed specifically for your company, your product, even shaped to the specifics of your venue and it's unique opportunities for creating a media rich environment for your attendees. What can video do for you?

Subversionz Media is now a Carbonfree Partner

In an attempt to offset the carbon footprint of my business, I'm starting off 2009 as a Carbonfree Partner with Carbonfund.org.

Subversionz Media has long practiced a "reduce, reuse, recycle" approach to life, as well as purchasing green energy and being mindful of our energy consumption in our day to day work and personal lives, but I felt that we needed to do something more concrete to offset the impact of our industry which consumes so much electricity and requires a great deal of travel through out the year.

Carbonfund.org provided us with an opportunity to actively contribute to maintaining an equilibrium between business and our social and environmental responsibility. Subversionz Media chose to partner with Carbonfund.org because we felt their nonprofit status and the broad range of their carbon offset activities gave them the strongest foundation for making the most out of our donation to their work.

I will keep you posted about when our partner page on the Carbonfund.org site goes live.

Deconstructing a Project, Part 2

Crossfader.com Marketing Video from Goldie Jones on Vimeo.

Production is always quite an adventure and a test of your quick response problem solving skills.

We broke this shoot down into 2 shoot days and 2 locations. Day one was spent at the beautiful Landreth Studios filming the scenes with the photographer and the videographer. Day two was spend at the Sea Sound Lounge filming the scenes with the DJ and the dance club scene.

We started off day one with the photographer and the breakdancer scene. While they were setting up the lights and camera equipment and once the breakdancer was finished with wardrobe and makeup I pulled her aside for some quick still shots which I then used to create the poster featured in the video and the images that we see the photographer manipulating on his tablet computer.

Once we finished working with the breakdancer and photographer we began to reset for the videographer/liquid dancer scenes and realized that we were missing two lights that had been on our lighting list which of course led to an emergency run back to the equipment rental house to pick them up and set our schedule back slightly, but crisis averted and the shoot moved on.

Working with dancers is fun and we got great shots, but they get hot and tired fast after dancing for shot after shot after shot under the hot production lights even with lots of water and fans. Each dancer had to perform for a couple of hours for what ended up being a matter of seconds worth of footage in the final video.

Day two was the really eventful day. We begin to set up for the DJ scenes in the club we had rented for the day when I see our laptop that had been provided for our DJ to use is this beautiful Alienware green laptop. Now, this might not seem like a problem, however, all of the computer screens in the video as well as the video screen in the club were green screened and keyed in later (the second unit shot the computer screens days later). Keying out green screens removes the color green from the shot, which means keying a green screen on this laptop would also remove the laptop. After recovering from the initial shock and consulting with the DP on the best plan of attack we resorted to a Luma Key (which means we covered the screen with white instead of green) and shot the laptop screen with as static of a shot as possible in order to ensure a clean key in post production.

Then the real fun begins: crowd scenes. Extras who had been promised free drinks and appetizers began to flood into the club and we finished resetting the lights and dressing the club for the final event scene. The DJ (fun fact: the lovely lady DJ is my sister who is in fact an actual DJ) was swept away into makeup and wardrobe to get dolled up with our four featured dancers. Finally the stage is set, the actors take their places, the extras have been shifted and adjusted to fill the space and not cast long shadows. The DJ starts playing music to give the dancers something to react to and for the next couple of hours we have our own little dance party with the camera rolling.

Up next: Part 3, Post Production