Client Spotlight: United Way 2019

https://vimeo.com/343727502

One of my favorite parts of my job is helping people tell their stories. This year the United Way of West Tennessee‘s First Ladies Luncheon chose to focus on a story from an organization they support – The Scarlet Rope Project. Tiffany was kind enough to share with us her story of survival and the life-giving work of Scarlet Rope.

We also worked with the United Way to create a promo to help let men know they were invited to the First Ladies Luncheon. This was a fairly organic project. It evolved as we shot it with board members and the fantastic Becky Fly, who was a great sport about the whole thing!

https://vimeo.com/343727428

 

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.

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.

 

 

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

Client Spotlight: Leadership University

This video shoot was a little more complicated than most that we have completed for a client. It involved shooting at a high ropes course and about 5-6 other locations and dates. It involved 4-5 different cameras with different gear for each. But to capture the excitement of the ropes course and to capture the variety of locations and actions was well worth the extra effort.

One of my favorite parts of this was including a GoPro trained on the faces of some of the students. It helped capture the excitement of jumping out of a tree! This video needed to be fun to help capture students’ imagination and attention.

Here is the Leadership Jackson recruitment video for 2018!

Client Spotlight: BizTech Roadshow

If you haven’t heard by now, Adelsberger Marketing and theCO are in the middle of a 15 county tour of West Tennessee with Kevin getting a chance to speak at all the stops and theCO bus showing off the latest in technology. We have had great turnouts so we wanted to take a look at the components that have gone into making the event successful.

  1. Cool Branding: Katie Howerton of Our Jackson Home and theCO put together a great brand to make the tour folks look cooler than we really are. This brand has been implemented across all of our components to give a unified feel to the marketing. 
  2. A great place to find out more: We created a simple but branded website to help direct people to find out more. BizTechRoadshow.com has a video explaining what the tour is and provides information about each of our tour stops that are open to the public. We chose to leave the details off there to help make the site more streamlined. We put the details on Facebook events that were created for each county that was open to the public.
  3. Facebook Events: We created Facebook events for each of the stops. We really like using Facebook events because it helps create a reminder system that people are native to. If you RSVP for an event on Facebook, it opens you up to additional communication from us. This means we can send you reminders and notes about the event. Facebook will also send reminders the day of the event which will help people to remember.
  4. Facebook Video: We created videos for almost every stop on the tour, depending if they are open to the public or not. We did this in a way that allowed to us to use some parts of the video multiple times to cut down on editing and shooting time. Each of these videos is specific for the county that we are visiting so our local partners are able to share a video that is talking about their specific location. It was worth the extra time to do custom videos because people like to feel like they are being talked to specifically not generally.
  5. Facebook Ads and Retargeting: We have run a good amount of ads for each location on the tour. We have been able to target folks via Facebook based on interests that they have in Entrepreneurship and Social Media. Additionally, we target folks who have shown interest in the event with messages saying: “There is still time to RSVP.” These have been effective.
  6. Local Partnerships: The most important part of the tour is the local partnerships to execute these events. Having these events with a local entity, mostly chambers, gives us added credibility as we go into a town to talk. We are also providing in demand content which in turn helps the chamber seem more valuable to their members.  It is a win-win for sure!

We have a few more stops left and we hope to see you come out to the BizTech Roadshow!

Behind the Scenes: Jackson Chamber Carpool Karaoke

This was a fun one!

 

The Jackson Chamber is one of my favorite clients. They like to have fun, are pretty laid back, get me the information I need, and let me be creative with our projects. That makes for a great combo of traits. When we got together to talk about ideas for this year’s annual celebration staff video, Alexis and Jill decided they wanted to go after one of the trendy styles – a Carpool Karaoke video.

We started with research. I googled and googled how James Corden films his videos and came across this great video from the Met Film School with some excellent tips.  We then set a date to record and I went over to LensRentals.com (A Great Tennessee based Firm!) and had 3 GoPro Hero 6s and suction cup mounts sent over for the shoot.

Normally with Carpool Karaoke, Corden and a guest(s) sing different parts from a lot of songs. This is great if you have two celebrities who are ready to ham it up on camera. We saw it as a weakness during research. If you do not have Adele and Corden, sometimes it can drag a bit depending on the guests. To counteract this, we decided to have everyone sing the same song, which would allow us to use the most entertaining bits of each group, to help keep the video funny and fast moving.

 

Disclaimer: I did not pick the song. But the choice worked out great. It was somewhat ironically funny and had enough vocal parts that people could get into it to add some hilarity to the shoot.

We shot in one afternoon. Starting at lunchtime, we borrowed the executive director’s SUV and set up our 4 cameras. I had a GoPRO Hero Session which we mounted on the sunroof to get a good view of the folks in the back seat. (This turned out to be important because 4-Runners are built like tanks and you can’t see the back seat from the front.) GoPros provided the right size and camera abilities for this task, and the Hero6’s got pretty good audio. (I did have an H4N recording but something went wrong and it failed me, which has happened on a few occasions.)

Each group went through and we had a fun time.

The editing was tricky. I needed to put four cameras in sync and then edit all 8 different groups into one final video edit. To accomplish this, I synced the four cameras based on the 8 groups. I could usually do this by finding a clap or a door closing as my match point. Then, I found each song start in the car and synced it to the audio track. I then had all 8 groups synced to the audio at the start of their own timeline. This allowed me to see approximately what time I made each cut to bring a group into the main timeline and make the next cut at the same time spot on the timeline on a different set of people. This made editing take just 4-5 hours instead of probably 8-9.

I believe in content marketing. With a shoot this intricate and fun, I decided it would be worth the investment to have someone there to take photo and video of this event for Adelsberger Marketing. The photos throughout this article are from Ricky Santos and the behind the scenes video is from Brooks Neely.

Here’s the video:

 

Behind the Scenes: Carpool Karaoke with the Jackson Chamber from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

Here is the Carpool Karaoke video:

Client Spotlight: JDDC Griswold Christmas

Sometimes I get to have a lot of fun in my job!

I have been working with the Jackson Downtown Development Corporation (JDDC) for a few months now and we are having a blast! In December, JDDC was planning their second annual Griswold Family Christmas. It’s a fun event where folks get together, have a catered dinner, and watch the holiday classic: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

While brainstorming how to promote this video, we decided someone needed to dress up like Cousin Eddie … well … in our case he was nicknamed Cousin “Neddy” (for those not in the know, the theater that the event was held in is called the Ned).

We started with a shout out on social media for someone with an appropriate RV to volunteer to be in the video shoot. Through the power of social, it turns out we had a friend one circle out that had the perfect vehicle that tied with the elements of the Cousin Eddie look. The pieces of the video came together perfectly!

This video did three things well:

  1. It surprised people. The thumbnail is someone dressed as cousin Eddie, which is pretty surprising. Even more so when the audience realizes it’s someone many folks in Jackson know. Surprise from a carefully selected frame helped get people to stay with the video.
  2. It was funny. The humor of someone in that getup and pulling off the character kept people around for the video. This was all Matt. He played his part perfectly!
  3. It helped sell tickets! We sold tickets for this event and this video helped do it! Becuase of the interaction on the video, it helped the organic reach of the video. Then, when we applied the ad budget, it went even further! Lots of people saw the video which helped us sell those tickets. It will also help us in the future when we retarget folks who have previously interacted with JDDC on Facebook!