An Introduction to The Spark from The Spark on Vimeo.

My regular design collaborator, Brian Raszka / Raszka Design, (Check out the logo and collateral package he created for another recent project) created the video graphics for this project including the simple logo bump at the opening, the title screens, name tags and end screens. As I learned with this project and the CAAW video project, having someone with a great sense of typography design makes a huge difference in the overall quality of a video project even if the graphics aren’t that complicated. I think they turned out great!

In addition to the intro video above, I created a library of interview videos with local business leaders sharing their “Condensed Entrepreneurial Wisdom.” The videos are simple 2 minute clips with small nuggets of valuable entrepreneurial advice. Interviewees included Chris Howard (Northstar Capital), Fritz Groupe, Abbi Whitaker (The Abbi Agency), Bob Ryan (Holland and Hart), Dusty Wunderlich (DCA Capital Partners), and Colin Loretz, Tech Starter Upper and CoWorker at Reno Collective.

Freemium Business Models Explained from The Spark on Vimeo.

For production, I used my standard two-camera setup which lets me cut between shots to keep the interview interesting. We shot on location in the amazing CRV Building at DRI, The Abbi Agency office, Jungle Vino and Reno Collective.

The website for The Spark is a great medium for presenting the video content. More videos should be coming. Along with the cool things going on with Entrepreneurial Minds Reno and the weekly 1 Million Cups presentations,  I’m sure this will be a great resource for entrepreneurs in Nevada.

-Mike

DSLR VS Camcorder

The web video production world has changed. Again. That is to say, it changed about 4 years ago, then it changed a little more, now it’s changed agin. WTF does that even mean? So first there was YouTube, then YouTube got HD video playback allowing pros to put up 1080 video then there was the HD flip camera and camera phones that allowed anyone with an arm to shoot HD video, then came HD Point of view cameras like the POV.1 and later the GoPro (which wasn’t HD at first), then came High Definition Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras which let people with some skill and creativity make really awesome videos. This really upped the DIY video ante while dropping the cost of web and marketing video production (though not as far as you probably want…)

Now we have the Sony Alpha SLT-A99 HDDSLR. This has the best features of the old Sony Camcorder like audio monitoring and focus peaking, but added something that the EX1 didn’t have and no other high end HD DSLR has yet. In-camera Image stabilization, what Sony calls SteadyShot, is a departure from traditional in-lens image stabilization in that the computing to make sure the image stays stable as the camera moves happens inside the camera so that you can use any lens that will snap onto it.

The result, for me at least, is that with the Sony SLT-A99 I have three awesome features that have already helped me capture some great shots. The combination of the A99′s SteadyShot Image Stabilization, flip up LCD screen with focus peaking that lets me accurately pull focus without an separate monitor and its 1080 recording at 60 frames per second lets me shoot more freely in a lot of places and slow the resulting footage down so that I can get a lot of good moving shots before I have to set up a slider, dolly or steady cam type hand held camera stabilizer.

Here is some recent footage I got on a project I’m working on with the University of Nevada Reno. The clips are played back at full speed with no post processing other than exposure.

Sony Alpha SLT-A99 SteadyShot Image Stabilization from Arborglyph on Vimeo.

Music for this video: Music: “Machine Gun” by Zeigenbock Kopf (http://www.myspace.com/zeigenbockkopf)

Sony Alpha SLT-A99 Notes

I’ll try to post a full review of this camera as soon as I can, but for now here are some key points:

1. The Sony Alpha SLT-A99 records AVCHD video files. Those viles can be imported directly into Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) either straight off the camera via USB connection or by mounting the SD card into a card reader. You can’t get the files themselves directly into FCPX. They have to be on the card or you have to have a disk image of the card so that FCPX thinks you have connected a camera.
2. The AVCHD files look pretty good to me with great dynamic range.
3. The camera has clean full res HDMI out so you can record to an external recorder or use an external monitor.
4. It will record 30 minute clips.

For more info about this camera, read Photo John Shafer’s article on PhotographyReview.com on why your next DSLR should be a Sony.

-Mike

Fast forward, I hear more, there’s a website with my Twitter picture, we have a meeting, we have another meeting, and a clearer picture of Reno Wired is seen.

The 24 hour event

I’m no stranger to 24 hour events. And neither is Reno and Reno Collective. For the last few years, members of the Reno hacker/geek community have been participating in hack-a-thons, 24 hour events in which participants create digital programs that may or may not turn into a useful product. The point is to spend a circumscribed amount of time completely immersing yourself in a project. Because let’s be honest here, the tratitional way of devoting an hour here and there to a pet project after the kids go to bed is inefficient and easy to give up on.

A 24 hour event on the other hand lets us completely immerse ourselves in a project, work together as a team, or in the case of Reno Wired, a SUPER team, and see something through from start to finish in one continuous effort. As a pro bono project, donating 24 hours of your time is much easier to do if it’s all at once than spread out over the course of weeks and months.

My personal history with 24 hour events in with bike races and maraton mountaineering pushes. Though I have been aware of the growing marathon coding events in Reno, they largely have not fit my personal skills until now.

Reno Wired

So the point of Reno Wired is to work with a nonprofit agency and completely redesign the brand from start to finish, or soup to nuts if you like that one between 8:00 AM Friday and 8:00 AM saturday. Reno’s Committee to Aid Abused Women was chosen as our nonprofit by Kevin Jones, Jenna Hubert and Julia Kruper. The three then acted as leads for the duration of the event keeping things on track and making key decisions in the execution of the rebrand.

In 24 hours we did the following:

• Developed a new logo
• Redesigned all print materials and had them printed by Reno Type
• Redesigned the website
• Build a new WordPress site with custom posts for the content, payment gateway for donations and integration with mail chimp
• Designed and implemented an email template with content
• Wrote new brand copy
• Shot all new photography for branding and advertising
• Produced a brand video for the website and presentations

Producing a video in 24 hours

All in all producing this video didn’t take much more or less time than my normal service for a video of this scope. But it was pretty cool to be able to get it all done at once and have a finished product the day after starting it. Even if I was too sleepy to watch it. I did have lots of help with the project.

Shooting video interviews at CAAW. Photo by David Calvert

My sister, Carrie Henderson who is an Account Executive at the Bauserman Group, went with me on the shoot and was my producer, helping stage and conduct the interviews.

Photographer David Calvert went with us and shoot photos of the facilities, staff and clients and ended up with some really great images for the website and collateral. Calvert is great at photographing people. He has an eye for smiles and genuine human interactions that really was perfect for this project. He even took a bunch of photos at the event which you can view here.

Designer, Tyler St. Pierre, set with me during most of the edit helping me whittle down the content into a 3 minute video that told a complete story. Tyler also designed the beautiful name tages in the video and the infographic slides that appear throughout. His creativity and strategic thinking was a huge benefit to the project, and it was awesome working this closely with him.

Rob Gaedtke spent a few hours finding the perfect music bed for the video. Finding the right music is hard and HUGELY time consuming. If I’d have had to do that myself, I wouldn’t have been done by 8:00 AM.

Mike McDowell helped proof the copy in the video. But a little caffeine might have helped reduce the 3 hour delay between noticing a typo and communicating it to us.

3 AM Screening of the CAAW video

In the end we made a video that I’m really proud of. It was an amazing experience to work hard on something most of the night, then pack my office with the team for the first showing at 3 AM.

A great experience

This will go down as one of the best experiences of my career. Not only did we do something that was greatly appreciated by the client, that we know will benefit the community, that we as individuals feel is some of our best work, but the experience of working with old friends and new friends from many different agencies in such a collaborative, positive and thoughtful environment was amazing. Everyone worked together beautifully and the final product was something we are all be very proud of.

Thank you all! And thank you to Kevin for inviting m to be a part of this. I look forward to participating in this event, or this kind of event again.

-Mike

They say content is the new currency in marketing. And it’s true. Something I fully subscribe to. But I don’t write about marketing. Content about marketing and social media is meta content, not content. At least that’s my position at the moment. If you look back in my archive, you’ll see that wasn’t always true. Either way, if you’re looking at this blog as a place where I practice what I preach, I direct you the place where I do that.

The Gizzard Stone is a directory of cool things to show your kid. Now, two years later, my son is almost three and I write about things like skiing with toddlers, cool places to take your kid and science. I also use it as a place to write about being a dad. Please check it out.

-M

For me, one such idea was hatched in a random conversation with another Reno entrepreneur at Reno Collective one spring afternoon last year. What came of it is a framework for converting wasted time into community activism using the social rewards that drives modern media. This one should generate much more value than a digital Ft. Knox of cat memes.

This is a project that is under way and we are looking to run a Proof Of Concept test very soon followed by a larger beta test before launching a full open version.

Please help us out by liking the CauseBot Facebook page, and signing up for the beta version of CauseBot.

CauseBot is a Facebook Application that lets people who’s employers have set up with CauseBot cash out their unused vacation hours and donate them to the non profit of their choice. CauseBot uses real social rewards, real assets and real people to help causes we really need in our community. For those who long for something to talk about on social media that you can actually be a part of, who want a like to mean something other than that your cat is cute, who want something to share that’s worth sharing and who know that the community around you needs your help, whether you get that raise or not, CauseBot might be for you.

CauseBot is made by:

-Mike

This Drupal site was designed by Reno based web designer Brian Raszka. Brian is a frequent partner with Arborglyph on web design projects as well as video production projects that require custom design.

I worked with DRI Public Information Officer Justin Broglio to create the video above back in December to promote the capabilities of CAVCaM and the incredible DRIVE6 immersive 3d virtual environment. This was a really cool project. Experiencing the DRIVE6 was a trip. Soaring above the surface of Mars, fighting virtual wildfires and touring the psychedelic Crayola Land while holding and looking through a camera was dizzying.

The facility is located in an amazing LEED Gold building with beautiful concrete walls and giant windows that create spaces with amazing light. I’ve since been back to shoot interviews for other projects there. It’s really nice!

As usual I used my two-camera setup to shoot these interviews, as well as a new wireless microphone system. The 40 inch slicer came in handy getting the exterior panoramas, reveals in the server room and the opening shot of the DRI sign. One of my favorite camera gadgets is my GoPro Hero2. In interval mode it’ll take an 11 mexapixel image every few seconds. I used that to get the closing time lapse sequence. Not bad for a $350 camera.

I’m happy to be working on more video projects with DRI that will be completed in the coming months.

-Mike

The first video is a piece meant to welcome new students to the school that was distributed to incoming freshman on a usb flash drive. We interviewed student ambassadors and had them tell about their experience at Bishop Manogue and help incoming students feel more comfortable. The in-class footage and the footage of the Mass in the chapel was also shot by some of the ambassador students.

For this video I used motion control time lapse to illustrate the comings and goings of students on a typical day. The system uses a 40 inch slider, motor and controller to move a camera along a linear path over a 10 to 30 minute time lapse period.

ambassadorforvimeo from Bishop Manogue High School on Vimeo.

The second video is a presentation that the admissions director can use when speaking to parents of prospective students. This has become their primary tool for communicating all that the school has to offer incoming students. The cool thing I got to do on this video was meet Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval down in his Carson City office. Also had the treat of running into the illustrious Julie Ardito on what I think was her first day as the governor’s Director of Community Affairs.

Admissions Video 2012 from Bishop Manogue High School on Vimeo.

Thanks for reading. For more Arborglyph videos check out my portfolio on Vimeo.

-Mike

I have changed the focus of my work recently. Or at least the focus of my social media and video work. I write the blog The Gizzard Stone and create video and interact on social media under that handle. I’ve always operated under the idea that you have to practice what you preach if you want the credibility to get people to trust you with their brand. This is how I do that these days.

Creating Killer Content

I think my original title was something like 1o Tips on Creating Great blog and Video Content for Destinations. Jenn shortened it. Which is ok, cause I had more than 10 tips. Anyway, the slides are below and links to the videos mentioned in the slides are below that.

 Video Gadgets

Generally, I believe that what makes good video isn’t all that hard to do. What gets in the way of that is usually bad equipment and unskilled users. To that end, get the video gadgets below, and practice and your video will get better. Maybe even killer…

• Photography & Cinema Pistol Grip
• Photography & Cinema Shark Clip
• Giottos Mini Ball Head
• Handy H1 Audio Recorder
• Blue iPhone Microphone

Video Channels

Vimeo Killer Content Channel
YouTube Killer Content Channel

Hope this is useful. If you have comments or questions you can post them below, or send me an email.

-Mike