Going Airborne for new Georgia-Pacific Image Campaign

Drone approaching a GP employee in Brunswick, GA

Last week I traveled to Brunswick, GA to oversee aerial filming for a new Georgia-Pacific image campaign focused on sustainability. There are many steps and actions GP does every day to ensure the land and water in their communities is protected and will be here for future generations. Trying to explain those ways can be complicated and long-winded. So I developed a campaign that involves just one, maybe two shots in a series of 10 - 15 seconds spots. Each spot is a single message, simplifying the storytelling to help encourage audience retention and social sharing.

Holiday Facebook Live with GP CEO Christian Fischer

We brought the iOgrapher out again today for a great Facebook Live chat with Georgia-Pacific CEO Christian Fischer hosting Major Bob Parker and wife Captain Kathy Parker from The Salvation Army Metro Atlanta's Angel Tree Program.

New Georgia-Pacific Storytelling launches with "We Are: Brewton, Alabama"

My new storytelling initiative for Georgia-Pacific was rolled out externally this week, "We Are: Brewton, Alabama." It's a few months later than originally planned, but forces beyond my control delayed the external release. But Episode 1 of the series featuring the incredible Glen Freeman is now live.

Taking the Dixie brand to VR by Working Backwards

In order to sell a product well, you need to understand the manufacturing process. The entire manufacturing process. GP Studios was tasked with creating an immersive experience to showcase how Dixie products are made to the internal sales teams. Originally it was planned to start with the papermaking process, however I proposed starting at the very beginning, in the forest. That segment introduced a vital message to the sales team, the sustainability of forests is first and foremost in everything Georgia-Pacific does. Sustainability is a buzzword that can be tossed around, but to visually be reminded that this is more than just a word, turned out to be a key takeaway from the presentation.

Sustainable Wood Forestry Messaging with Snake Chaps

“Folks, here’s the snake chaps, be sure to put them on so the rattlers don’t get you.” Now THERE’s a phrase I’ve never heard in my 25+ years of storytelling. And let me tell you, that phrase wakes you up in a hurry. Of course my response was, “I make these look good, don’t I?”

Filming a new "Video Producing" Course for Lynda.com

This past weekend I got to film a new Lynda.com course on Video Producing. This time Rose and the crew came to Atlanta to do the filming. This time the course is all about Video Producing, or what exactly DOES a Producer do in the modern production world?

Trint: Transcriptions Redefined

A friend pointed me to Trint transcription services. They claim to have redefined transcriptions by creating a superior software algorithm to quickly and pretty accurately turn around transcriptions from audio and video files. I was very skeptical having tried software like this in the past. Well, after trying them out, I am quite impressed.

Telling a New Story for Georgia-Pacific

Glen Freeman at the wheel of his Candy Apple Red Ford hot rod.

When I was brought on as the first Creative Director for Georgia-Pacific, the main thing I was tasked with was bringing a new storytelling focus to GP's external communications and branding. In particular, transforming GP from a big corporate brand to people. With over 33,000 people working in over 200 locations across the United States, there are many stories just waiting to be told.

I Can Do That! (How am I going to do that?)

I've been working on a new e-Learning proposal for the past few weeks. Didn't know I could do that? Well, I can and can't.

See it's a video centric learning program but just showing videos and scenarios isn't enough. We really need to test the employees at each step along the way to ensure they're getting the material. Years ago I established a relationship with a really good e-Learning partner for these very situations. For this project we're going to work together with them taking point on the educational design and me on the video production. We'll work together on the overall project management and development.

Moral of the story? Work on your network of connections for really good and really honest partners you can bring in so when you get a call that says, "Can you do that?" your answer can be "Absolutely!"

My "Video Budgeting" course is now available on Lynda.com

I'm proud to announce my first training product from Lynda.com (and LinkedIn Learning) Video Budgeting.

Whether you own a production company or you’re a freelancer, we’re all independent contractors and it’s important to understand and document the full scope of work and fees to be charged for a project. In other words, creating an accurate budget.

Sailing and Filming a Cruise with an iPhone and iOgrapher

The view looking forward from our cabin balcony.

While on vacation recently, I was able to combine two of his passions. Video production and cruising. Just before sailing on the Celebrity Cruises “Silhouette,” to the Caribbean, I picked up an iOgrapher which makes a very useful camera platform for the iPhone and iPad. Featuring interchangeable lenses, cold shoe mounts and tripod mounting points the iOgrapher essentially turns the iPhone into a professional camera giving the videographer great camera stability.

The cruise was the perfect testing platform as I'm looking for new ways to work with video, especially in social media. We’re also testing some new ideas for the upcoming Contemporary Living Network and we can see the benefits of creating original content with this setup.

The one thing I didn’t have on this trip was a shotgun microphone. Since the phone is mounted sideways on the iOgrapher, the microphone on the phone is not great for picking up natural sound and spoken word. Before the next vacation, I’ll be adding a shotgun mic.

I also didn’t know about some additional apps for the iPhone that allow for manual Iris and Color Balance controls on the phone. You’ll see the auto-iris kick in quick in quite a bit with all the bright / dark areas. And the color balance does change from time to time. I'll add those apps before the next vacation as well.

All in all, very impressive to see the picture quality and especially the stability of the images. This entire project was filmed with the iPhone 6. Absolutely NO camera stabilization was added to any of these images in the video below.

Also VERY impressed with Celebrity Cruises and their Silhouette. This was our first time on Celebrity and we were so impressed with the ship, the crew and of course, the food that we booked another cruise on the Celebrity Reflection. Celebrity is just top notch, white glove treatment but without the stuffy attitude. Beautiful ship, wonderful people and a great time.

To read more on the iOgrapher: http://www.iographer.com

To read more on Celebrity Cruises: http://www.celebritycruises.com/

To find those light leaks and many other effects: http://rampantdesigntools.com

If you like the music, that's from The License Lab: https://licenselab.com/

Editing on DaVinci Resolve 12.5: Day Three

It’s Day Three of my “real world” editing on DaVinci Resolve 12.5 and this is going to be the longest blog yet as I want to show you guys a lot of the “little things” that are making editing in Resolve a pleasure. I know there are a lot of questions still out there whether this is really a professional editor. For me it’s the small things that separate the applications making life efficient and fun for the the editor. I also had a pleasant surprise today. Alexis Van Hurkman, the man who literally wrote the manual on Resolve, called to point out some of the editing specific features that I might not be aware were there.

Editing on DaVinci Resolve 12.5: Day Two

Ok, if I’m being honest about this, Day Two was really a continuation of a very LONG day one. Some updates on the issues from Day One.

The need to Transcode to ProRes. Paul Saccone from Blackmagic Design reached out to me and told me I didn’t need to transcode the 4k H264 to ProRes to get better performance. I can use “Generate Optimized Media” instead.

Editing on DaVinci Resolve 12.5: Day One

At the recently completed NAB Show in Las Vegas, Blackmagic Design took the wraps off DaVinci Resolve 12.5. It really could be a Resolve 13 but they probably wanted to avoid that unlucky number. I’ve been predicting for over a year now that NAB 2016 would be the year this tool became a full fledged non-linear editing system and sure enough, it’s a solid editing platform.