Posts Tagged ‘Video Production’

Happy Holidays

We’re in full throttle during this holiday season at Total Media Group, working with our clients to produce their video’s and events to launch the new year.

We’ve been fortunate to be part of some fantastic and interesting projects over the last year, from producing awesome Live Events, compelling Video for internal communications, marketing and SEO, developing new iPhone Applications and custom Video Games for trade shows.

We couldn’t do it without your continued friendship and support.

Have a wonderful and safe Holiday Season!

The Total Media Group Team

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Posted in Uncategorized

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2009

- Megan McKenna

The Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing is by far the most jaw dropping experience I get to have at work, and this year was no exception. With record breaking attendance levels of 1600 women – and a few men – from all over the world, we could feel the excitement just by walking through the halls (which was slow going with that many people!).

The GHC is a conference for women in computing of all stages in their career and education, to meet and network, learn, revitalize, and share stories. I went out to interview as many women as possible throughout the event on a variety of topics for the folks at the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology to use in their video marketing efforts. I was honored to interview college students about why they came to the event, tenured teachers on the importance of retaining and attracting women in technical fields, CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies that support women in technology, and the research director from ABI on what their research means in working towards change.

I attended last year and in addition to asking questions of the attendees, Jerri Barrett, VP of Marketing at ABI asked me to help get every person we speak to say the phrase “I am a Technical Woman!”. The goal was to create a video that would help the stereotype of women in technical fields.

We put the video together, and it was unveiled before the keynote on the 2nd day of the GHC 2009. I was floored at the response. There were cheers in the audience, and my crew and I were approached by many people wanting to be part of the video in the future. Moreover, the video quickly went viral, thanks to Jerri’s introduction of the video. She asked the attendees to “link to the video, Twitter it, post it on Facebook, and help it go viral”. They complied. Every hour more and more views were logged on YouTube. The excitement and enthusiasm surrounding this two-and-a-half minute video was amazing.

You can view the video, linked to the ABI YouTube site here, or go to the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology website at www.anitaborg.org.

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Posted in Media Design

Making Data Engaging

- Patrick Roche

How do you make forty-plus minutes of educational video content engaging?  That was the challenge we were faced with recently while planning a project for Genentech.

The training video is designed to educate Genentech’s field representatives on the company’s reimbursement program, which assists patients in gaining access to medications.

While designing the piece, we wanted to find creative ways to get a lot of text information across to the audience, while keeping the piece visually interesting.

We designed a graphic template that we could easily modify for the required text.  This would give the piece a unified look throughout the piece, while allowing us to streamline our post-production workflow to meet the tight deadline.

Since the majority of the piece was shot documentary style using a hand held camera, we also decided to shoot our host segments against pure white.  This gave us flexibility in post to add additional graphics over the host’s shoulder.

After 9 days of post with both an editor and graphic designer, we finally had a piece that accomplished our goals and worked really well.  More importantly, we had a very happy client!


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Sdan Francisco Video Production

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Posted in Media Design

Shooting Around the World

- Atticus Culver-Rease

About a month ago I was approached to shoot and edit a new branding video for Stryker, Corp.  Director Jonathan Gruber and I started close to home in San Jose, then headed off to Atlanta, New Jersey and most recently Hong Kong to capture the stories of Stryker employees, customers, patients and partners.  So in the past two weeks of shooting I’ve spent about 40 hours on airplanes, and I still have one more continent to hit.  Right now I’m on a plane en route to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and next week we head to London, England.

Jonathan and I were excited about the idea of giving this project an engaging visual style that would feel more like a documentary than a typical corporate piece.  We decided to shoot in HD with a 35mm depth of field adapter and prime cine lenses, which has let me get nice shallow focus for a more dramatic look.  If it were up to me, I’d love to shoot every interview this way from now on.  It just gives your shots so much more visual impact than you can get with regular lenses.

Hong Kong has definitely been the highlight of the trip so far, both because it’s a great city that I’d never been to before, and because it’s such a great place to shoot.  The buildings, the markets, the insanely busy streets, and the people all make for some fantastic shots.  I could have shot there for days and days, but I tried to restrain myself since I knew I was the one who would have to cut down the footage later.

Which reminds me, I was going to do a bit more editing on my laptop before the plane lands, so I should get back to it.

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Posted in Production & Events

“Life is a Banquet”

Total Media Group recently unveiled its originally produced 60-minute documentary, “Life is a Banquet” , the story of Academy Award winning Hollywood legend, Rosalind Russell.

Sassy, classy and brassy, the raven-haired Russell entranced audiences as a no-nonsense newspaper reporter in 1940’s “His Girl Friday” (with leading man Cary Grant), and in the Broadway production and the film of “Auntie Mame”, making the title character her signature role.

“Life is a Banquet” uses rare home movie footage, clips from her 30 year career and interviews with various colleagues friends and luminaries to tell the story of this gifted star and generous philanthropist. The film is narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Kathleen Turner, and features interviews with Tom Brokaw, Tina Sinatra, Haley Mills, famed designer James Galanos and a host of others.

The film’s world premiere will be at the Stony Brook Film Festival (New York) in July, 2009, followed by the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August, 2009. The national broadcast premier will be on PBS in the fall of 2009.

On October 8, a gala screening benefiting the Rosalind Russell Center for Arthritis Research will be held in San Francisco. Kathleen Turner will be on hand to speak at the benefit. The center was founded by Ms. Russell in the 1970s.

The film was produced entirely by Total Media Group. Jonathon Gruber produced and directed for TMG. Executive Producer was Aldo Panattoni. Offline Editor, Atticus-Culver Reese. Online Smoke Editor, Toshi Onuki.

Funding for the project was provided by the Bob and Connie Lurie Foundation.

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Posted in What's New

Special Presentation at the Blu-ray Disc Association Meeting

Total Media Group Creative Director Toshi Onuki and Neil Young’s Shakey Pictures were invited to introduce the highlights of Neil Young’s “Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972” at the Blu-ray Disc Association annual meeting in Los Angeles in March.

Creative Director for the project, Toshi Onuki, and Ole Lütjens engineer for MX Entertainment presented on behalf of Shakey Pictures at the general assembly. Onuki shared why he and Mr. Young determined that Blu-ray is the perfect format for showcasing Neil’s archives. The 10-disc set spotlights such technology as 24bit/192kHz stereo PCM audio and the ability to browse photos and documents while listening to the music—arguably the most coveted feature. “We wanted to preserve the ambience of the analog era and designed visual imagery to compliment it. The music comes first and visuals should not distract listeners,” Onuki said. Lütjens explained the technical side of production, demonstrating BD-Live™, which enables users to download additional content to their players or to external drives. Lütjens shared how hundreds of encoding tests were performed in order to accommodate the super high quality audio along with 1920 x 1080 HD resolution videos.

Shakey Pictures and Total Media Group worked over three years sorting through the massive amount of archive material used to create the menu design and page structure under the guidance of Neil Young and his executive producer, L.A. Johnson. The team first revealed a preview of the project at the Sun Microsystems JavaOne Conference in May 2008. Sun Microsystems develops Java, Blu-ray’s programming language.

The 10-Blu-ray disc set includes 128 tracks, 43 unreleased recordings, three live concerts, the feature film Journey Through the Past, and a 236-page full-color hardcover book. The set is also available in DVD (24-bit/96kHz stereo PCM audio, 720×480 SD video) and in CD (16bit/44kHz stereo PCM audio). The album is scheduled to hit stores on June 2 nd, 2009. Pre-order price of Blu-ray is $299.99, standard DVD set is $199.99 and the CD set is $99.

BDA is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray disc technology. The organization is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray development. Member companies include Apple, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Walt Disney and Warner Brothers.

More information about the Neil Young Archives is here.

Chicago Sun Times: SXSW 2009: Neil Young’s archives, finally here and absolutely amazing!

Rolling Stone: Neil Young’s “Archives Vol. 1″ Set for Release June 2nd 2009.

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Posted in What's New

Salix Phamaceuticals’ Product Launch

Total Media Group produced the product launch for Salix Pharmaceuticals new GI product “Apriso” at the Phoenician Hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona in February 2009.

The focal point of the event was the 80’ long by 15’ high multi-blend projection screen, which allowed to the ballroom set and atmosphere to be instantly transformed to suit any mood or media configuration.

At the opening night gala, attendees walked in to a room that featured a massive desert sunrise. The 3D animated time lapse slowly transitioned the scene from morning to night, culminating with a desert thunder and lightning storm. The massive screen and surround sound totally enveloped the audience in the storm.

Setting the tone for the them of the meeting, “The Salix Revolution”, the set was transformed into a post-modernist design of logo and design transitions to kick off the Opening Video, featuring roto-scoped executive testimonials keyed over the primary design background.

Over the course of the meeting, the set was transformed into more desert scenes, animated design-intensive backgrounds, a game night featuring video games projected onto the giant screen, and a 3D animated Taj Mahal panorama for the closing Awards Banquet, set to a theme of Bollywood.

Total Media Group produced and designed all aspects of the meeting, including the set technical and creative design, all videos, all meeting graphics, the keynote presentations, breakout sessions and our signature closing candids video, produced in the unique set screen ratio all onsite.

Producing for Total Media Group was Aldo Panattoni. Technical Director was Jay Koller. Screen design and animation by Steven Gregory. Candids Video was photographed by Shingo Kohara and edited onsite by Steve Miller.

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Posted in What's New

Stryker Endoscopy Product Launch 2008

Stryker Endoscopy, a division of the Fortune 500 medical device titan Stryker Corporation, took over Hangar 0 at Marine Air Station at Miramar ( San Diego) one night in July, to launch three new products for their sales force. The event, produced by Total Media Group, was themed “Best of the Best,” paying homage to the film, Top Gun, shot at the base in 1984.

The open air set design was set against a backdrop of actual fighter and transport aircraft flanking the stage. All audio and lighting was flown from the hangar ceiling creating a true open air set, capturing the essence of an operational military base. The dramatic multi-truss lighting package and design, including custom gobos sweeping the hangar, and Top Gun military decor throughout, completed the atmosphere.

As the revelry ensued, “Secret Service Agents” guarded the Top Secret products placed in attaché cases on pedestals at the center of the stage.

At the culmination of the evening’s celebration, the lights dimmed and the announcer called everyone’s attention to the stage. Blaring sirens signaled the approach of a genuine Marine Rocket Launcher. The vehicle had seen actual combat in the Iraq war. Spotlights captured the vehicle as it traveled across the tarmac and stopped at the foot of the stage. From the vehicle emerged legendary engineer Dr. William Chang, inventor of the endoscopic three-chip surgical camera. With great drama, Dr. Chang took the stage to unveil the new products to the roar of the approving crowd.

Total Media Group provided all creative and theme development, production and staging for this exciting event. TMG also produced the remainder of the week-long event held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego.

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Posted in What's New

Cisco Live! 2008

Total Media Group once again provided their video  production expertise for Cisco Live! 2008, Cisco’s week long user’s conference at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

With over 10,000 Cisco customers and partners in attendance, Cisco asked Total Media Group to capture the attendee experience on video daily. Using state-of-the art high definition Sony HDCAM cameras and their event production experience, Total Media Group was able to document all major aspects of the event with flare.

The finished segments were displayed on multiple plasma monitors at the center of the convention hall, uploaded to the Cisco Live! website in real time and played back the general sessions.

Additional footage was used for several post-event deliverables including Cisco Live! 2008 online commercials promoting next years event.

Total Media Group worked under the direction of Executive Producer Donna Rutley and the George P. Johnson Company.

Cisco Systems is the world’s leading supplier of data networking equipment and software. Cisco Live! attracts the company’s customers, partners and users each year by hosting live demonstrations, hands-on workshops and speeches by industry leaders.

 

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Posted in What's New

“CSNY Déjà Vu”


Posted by Total Media Group, Neil Young’s film production company premiered its latest project “CSNY Déjà Vu” at the Sundance Festival 2008 in Park City, Utah in January 2008. The Shakey Pictures film, a 96-minute documentary about political and musical connections between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and their concert audiences during the band’s Freedom of Speech Tour of Summer 2006, closed the festival.

“CSNY Déjà Vu” contrasts the politics and protests of the Vietnam War era with stories of soldiers and families who are affected by the War in Iraq. Highlights of the concert footage include performances of songs from Neil Young’s album “Living with War.”

Post-production by Total Media Group consisted of twelve months of Avid offline editing by Mark Faulkner and one month of Smoke online editing by Mike Derrossett and Toshi Onuki under the direction of Neil Young. The film was created from 200 hours of multi-camera concert footage and behind-the-scene interviews in HDCAM. Sound design was done at Total Media Group by the Magic Shop.

The Sundance Film Festival is an international film showcase held each January in Park City, Utah as the core program of the Sundance Institute, a non-profit cultural organization founded by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford in 1981. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival included 125 feature films from 34 countries selected from 3,624 submissions.

“CSNY Déjà Vu ” credits:
Director: Bernard Shakey,
Screenwriters: Neil Young, Mike Cerre,
Producer: L.A. Johnson,
Cinematographer: Mike Elwell,
Editor: Mark Faulkner

More information about the film is found here.

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Posted in What's New