BTS: Jackson Chamber goes INTO the movies

Have you ever bitten off more than you can chew? When the first few pitches for the 2019 Jackson Chamber Annual Celebration video were left on the cutting room floor, one day remained. Being the genius I am, I suggested that we put the Chamber staff into old movies that revolved around the event’s nautical theme. Below I am going to do a breakdown of the process behind pulling this video off (this was a bit of a step up in difficulty over last year’s hit Carpool Karaoke).

1. Plan plan plan. We spent several hours planning out the video. This was key because we needed to find the right videos. It would not be as easy as selecting any scene from any nautical themed video, we needed certain scenes. What we discovered was that after a certain year of movies, the camera motion had gotten so loose, that it would be difficult to “green screen” people into movies. This limited our selection greatly and we were able to come up with just one scene more than was actually used in the project.

After we selected the scenes and received approval from the Jackson Chamber, we then went to work doing a scene breakdown. Each breakdown involved light placements, sound design, camera angles, costumes, props, dialogue, and scripting. Brittany Crockett on our team did a fantastic job of sourcing much of our costume work and props. She also worked with the Chamber staff on their dialogue.

2. Having the Right Equipment. To pull off this level of green screen project well, it took a lot of lighting and the appropriate green screens in addition to decent cameras and a space to work in. We even bought chroma green duct tape for the project!

3. Details, details, details. On the shoot days, we needed to be sure we got as close as we could to match the movement of the character in the scene, the camera angle, and the lighting. Though we had covered much of this in preproduction, it is another thing to make it work with actors on set. The Jackson Chamber staff were great sports during the entire process and we all had a good time. Particularly humorous was the Free Willy jump scene where Brittany got to spray me and Hannah with a hose while I moved an inflated whale with a broomstick taped to its back over Hannah’s head.

4. Time and After Effects. After the filming was done, the remainder of the work fell to team member Ricky Santos who spent a large amount of time in After Effects keying, scaling, content-aware filling the Chamber staff into these old movies.

During all of this process, we also managed to get some Behind the Scenes shots and with the help of Greg Hammond’s AV class at South Side High school, this BTS video was made:

https://vimeo.com/331256646

We also helped the Chamber with some display graphics for the event to help take things to the next level:

https://vimeo.com/325220365


Here is the full Annual Celebration Video:

https://vimeo.com/325209545

I guess a hotdog is a sandwich?

As Will Farrell as Harry Carry made us all aware: Hotdogs are items of deep mystery. If you were a hotdog, would you eat yourself? Is a hotdog a sandwich?

I want to tip my hat to Oscar-Mayer . Here’s a shoutout for a very clever marketing idea. On National Sandwich Day, Oscar-Mayer launched a (sadly) 24-hour hotline for people to call to talk about whether hotdogs were sandwiches or not.

People got a little heated and even other brands got involved. Jimmy Johns took up for sandwiches. In general it was a very fun promo, some folks had strong feelings about the issue:

How often does a brand stir controversy while keeping it family friendly and not a PR disaster? Almost never. They got people talking about their product and brand in a fun way and no harm was done. I think the part that made it really work was the inclusion of the “hotline.” A low cost but brilliant solution to help give people some fun way to engage!

 

Behind the Scenes at the Haunted Farm

Medina Haunted Farm

Things get a little spooky at Medina this time of year at the farm in Medina. This community event is created by the Medina Lions Club and has been going on for 40 years. Since it is run by a civic group, all the scarers are volunteers and all the funds go to support local charities. We did a number of things for this project but the primary piece was the video.

Shooting a video at a farm and in the woods in the dark away from electricity was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, we have invested in the Sony A7SII line of cameras that are renowned for there excellent low light capability. We also brought several battery-powered lights with us for the shoot. The ‘hero’ image of Pennywise walking through the forest was achieved with a battery-powered 120D and two Dracast LED panels and a fog machine. (The most unnerving thing of the whole night was that Pennywise didn’t break character even when we were shooting this scene.)

The scarers were all super great about being filmed and did a great job of working with us. While the production was tricky, everything was taken to the next level in editing. Editing to music helped make the scary footage even more terrifying.

This video had amazing organic results! With over 100 shares and 15,000 views in the first couple of days, it spoke to a few things:

1. The Community is invested in this project. It takes lots of folks from lots of different groups of people to put this on, which connects the project with lots of different tribes around the area. It is also entering its 40th year so that leaves a legacy to connect to.

2. This is the first year they have promoted the farm in this way. There is a novelty to this video. People seemed to really enjoy that.

3. The production value of the video made people excited about the farm. If we had shot this on a cell phone, people would not have been as interested in the content. The high production value makes it worth watching!

So without further ado, here is the video:

Medina Haunted Farm 2018 from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

Not Sorry, Reese’s Halloween Win!

Reese's Candy Converter

Reese’s Cups, as we all know, are the greatest candy made! Their marketing team came up with a great idea this past Halloween. During a season where they probably sell some of their highest amounts of product, they were not inclined to sit on the sideline. They introduced the Reese’s Candy Converter.

The Reese’s Candy Converter was stationed in NYC and was loaded with 10,000 Reese’s Cups. Children (and probably several adults) were able to bring there “junk” candy to and exchange it for Reese’s Cups.

The free press generated on this is huge – with over 5K shares generated on their twitter account alone. This helped bring Reese’s to the mind of lots of people on the internet if they weren’t already thinking about getting Reese’s on Halloween.

They also positioned themselves as THE candy to have at Halloween. Usually, I feel like arrogant claims of superiority are bad for a brand, but when they come in such a fun way, it is hard to argue with!

The novelty of the idea and the expert execution of the concept made for a viral social media darling that is becoming more and more rare. My only question is, where did all of the traded-in candy go?

Client Spotlight – JCVB Video

JCVB Tourism Video

Video projects are pretty varied. Sometimes you show up with a little idea of what you want to shoot and allow the location and subject matter to direct you. Sometimes, however, you have to plan every shot out ahead of time. This was one of those times. With Paige from the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, we planned out every shot of this video. Part of the reason this was so important was the goal. We used motion tracking to display statistics in places all over the Jackson area.

This meant going to several locations and filming very specific shots. Then, we combined them with music to give them a unified feel. Using the motion tracking abilities of Adobe After Effects, we were able to insert the explanatory text and numbers into the different scenes. We also used ‘practical effects’ (noncomputer generated effects) and incorporated numbers that were already in use at locations when we could.

Three great examples of this:
1. At the Old Country Store, we used the practical effect of shaped mashed potatoes (Sculpted by JXNTNWKND Host Paige Keith) in combination with digital effects to leave words on the table.2. At ComeUnity Cafe, we used the practical effect of a hand-lettered (Hand lettered by Renae Adelsberger) number with a digitally placed explanation for clarity. This was done to match the style of the menu used by Comeunity Cafe.3. At Rusty’s TV and Movie Car Museum, we were able to use the existing number of the General Lee to illustrate a point with digital words next to it.

It was also fun using real music for a video! Most of the time, we use stock audio. That can be bland sometimes. LoLo, a local Jackson artist, allowed us to use her song “No Time for Lonely” for this video. Using that song added a great beat and excitement to the video!

Here is the video:

Visit Jackson Tourism Stats Video from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

 

 

Is This the Best Example of Branded Content?

Jack Ryan

Not a clickbait title. I think this might really be the best example of sponsored content I have seen. Amazon Prime Partnered with Vice News to do a series of videos promoting the new Jack Ryan series. My favorite of the series is entitled: Cheated Death with a Former CIA Operative – Inspired by Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

In this video, Vice News does it what it does best- tells stories in a real and gritty way through the video. They tell the life story of a former CIA Operative, Nic McKinley. I imagine their target audience for this campaign is men who like action, military, and adventure movies. So hearing from a CIA operative is a great way to catch their attention.

This video has a lot going for it:
1. Great production value. It has good quality and a variety of shots to help keep the viewer engaged.
2. It’s not overwhelming in its promotion of Jack Ryan. A few brief mentions but is very much about Nic McKinley.
3. Thrilling Stories. Nic does a great job sharing exciting stories from his career.
4. Behind the Scenes: Nic talks about his life as CIA and the bad side of his life as a CIA Operative.
4. The pivot. Near the end of the video, VICE News turns the story to talk about Nic’s current life in which he is fighting human trafficking.

The pivot at the end is what sealed the deal for me. Amazon allowed VICE to create a promotional piece that stayed true to who they were AND help promote a great mission that Nic is running in his post-CIA life. You can watch the piece below, let me know what you think about the brand integration:

 

Client Spotlight: RIFA Jackson’s Co-Op Video

If you took a time machine back to the fall of 2010, you would find me working at RIFA. I would be giving tours to potential donors and volunteers, managing volunteers, and being assigned social media marketing because I was the youngest person in the building. In fact, RIFA is one of the starting places for this entire Adelsberger Marketing thing!

So when I was called about this video project, I was glad to work out a deal to work with RIFA. This video involved two different shoots at two different locations as well as 6 interviewees. They all had the goal of conveying a complex program that not everyone has heard of. While this is not a tear-jerker like some nonprofit videos we have the pleasure of making, that does not take away from the value of this program.

If this video speaks to you, be sure to reach out to RIFA about volunteering or donating!

RIFA-Food Co-Op from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

 

 

Client Spotlight: West Tennessee State Fair

West Tennessee State Fair

The West Tennessee State Fair just concluded and we had the pleasure of helping them promote the Fair! We attacked promotions on a few fronts: video, photography, and social media.

Since we were not able to film at the last Fair, we recorded the first night of the Fair and released two videos on the following afternoon. Here they are:

 

We headed back on other nights to get additional photos and videos to use in the future. This will allow us to augment the videos from this year to use prior to the next Fair. Here are a few of those photos:

 

 

We also leveraged the things people love about the Fair as content for social media. We promoted each band that played and encouraged people to tell us what is their favorite Fair food. People love Fair food. We garnered 41 comments on this post.

State of the Camera Gear 2018

Camera Equipment

One of the bad things about being in the photography and video industry is that there is always something new to buy! So here is a glimpse into the equipment we use on a daily basis:

Photography:

Nikon D500

Favorite Lenses:
Nikon 50, 1.8
Tamaron 70-200 2.8
Tokina 14-20 F2

Lighting:
Vivitar On-Camera Flash
Godox Ad200 Flash
Apurture LightDome 36 inch softbox

Video
Sony A7SII (x2)

Favorite Lenses:
Sony E 50mm f/1.8 OSS Lens (x2)
Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN

Lighting:
Apurture LightStorm
Dracast LED500 Silver Series Bi-Color LED Light

Sound:
Sennheiser MKE600 Shotgun Mic
Sennheiser ew 112-p G3 Camera-Mount Wireless Microphone System with ME 2 Lavalier Mic

Stabilizer:
Zhiyun-Tech Crane v2

Facebook’s Newsfeed Principles: Part 2

This is the second blog as we discuss Facebook News Feed Principles. If you missed the first one, start here.

This is a continued look at the Facebook News Feed Principles. These are drawn from the Facebook website and I am going to talk about them to help them make more sense for you!

Publisher Principle 2: People on Facebook Value Accurate, Authentic Content

In other words, people don’t want Fake News. But do they really?

I think this point might be more aspirational than reality. People really like whatever happens to align with their world view, it’s a phenomena called “Confirmation Bias.” “Confirmation Bias” is that our brain sees things in the world and makes special note of the things that line up with what we already thought. It notices and engages with things that confirm our biases.

Facebook seems to be focused on being sure people do not share content that is misleading or “click bait.” Click bait is a style of content that that has an intentionally misleading title in order to get people to click on the story. Once someone arrives at the page, the content is not related to the title that got them to click. The title is used as bait for the user.

But on a positive note, if we focus on making authentic content, I believe people will be more interested. Authentic content could include your real staff instead of models. Food actually served at your restaurant instead of stock photos. Make your brand the feature of these programs rather than stock photos.

If you are posting links or sending people to landing page, make sure people are seeing what they would expect. You know, treat others like you want to be treated, do not treat them like you are a marketer.