Parc Entertainment - A Video Production Company - Birmingham, AL

Parc Entertainment is now Red Fox Media. We have changed names to reflect a growing area of our business. In addition to our video production and post-production services, we offer website design and development. The name change has been a year in the making. You can now visit us at our new website to see samples of our work. Please consider us a resource for any future marketing and communication efforts.

PoshBirmingham.com is a website that features incentives from the finest retailers and restaurants in the Birmingham area. The website should launch in the next week, but to help raise awareness and drive traffic to the site, we were hired to produce a series of commercials. We created four commercials for Posh Birmingham - two :30 spots, one :15 spot, and one :05 spot. Some spots focus on the retailers, while others focus on the restaurants. The :30 spot posted below is one advertising some of the retailers you can find on PoshBirmingham.com.

The motivation behind the decision to transition to Red Fox Media came from two sources: First, much of the content we produce is for a client’s website. Since online video is becoming more pervasive and mainstream, more and more clients want to produce a video for their website. So, we believe that expanding our services to include website design and development is a natural move for us. Second, there have been many instances when I have been in a meeting with a client and they have asked if I provide website design services in addition to video. I have been able to pick up a handful of web design projects from these inquiries.

Although the Red Fox brand hasn’t officially launched, we have already built up a good portfolio of web projects. Most recently we soft-launched a website for Wade Sand and Gravel, a company that operates a quarry in Birmingham, Alabama and provides crushed stone to aggregate customers. They approached us because they have never had an Internet presence and were looking to create a practical, informative website for potential customers coming into the Birmingham market for construction projects.

Wade Sand and Gravel owns and operates three companies - Wade Sand and Gravel, Superior Products, and Red Bluff Sand and Gravel. We soft-launched the Wade site to meet with the client’s important bid deadline, with the plan of launching a complete package of Wade company websites at a later date. Eventually, Superior Products and Red Bluff will have their own designated sites, with a landing page that provides links to all three companies.

Our free e-newsletter is distributed every first Tuesday of the month. Included in each issue is the “Public Parc,” a forum for discussing different topics pertaining to sales, marketing, video, and social media. Subscribers to the newsletter and readers of the blog are encouraged to get involved in the discussion by posting their comments here. You can also post your thoughts on Twitter, using the hashtag #PublicParc. Here is this month’s Public Parc discussion:

If you were to do a Google search to find a video production company and/or a website design/development company, what search terms would you use?

What your video production doesn’t know can hurt you. Many people who have little experience working with video production companies usually feel a bit overwhelmed. They understand that they need to produce a video for their company, non-profit, school, etc. but beyond some basic generalities about the project, they aren’t sure what the video production company needs or needs to know. If the entire process is to run smoothly, you need to provide the video production company with some logistical details. A good producer or director will know to ask you these questions, but it’s still a good idea to have this information in-hand when you discuss the project with your video production company. Here are some details that need to be hammered out:

Project Overview

• What/Who the video is for
• The goals/objectives of the video
• The desired length of the video
• Where the final video will be shown (website, public event, seminar, trade show, in-house communication, sales meetings, etc.
• The deadline (Read this post regarding video production deadlines and how to schedule your video project accordingly.)

Technical Details About the Project

• The video format (standard-definition or high-definition)
• If standard definition - widescreen or standard 4:3
• If high-definition - 1080i or 720p?*

Responsibilities

• Script-writing responsibilities (will the video production company be required to conceptualize and write the script, or will your department handle that task?)
• On-camera talent (will the project require professional talent to be provided by the video production company, or will your company provide employees for the video?)
• Voice-over talent (will the production company need to provide this, or do you have someone available that you have used before?)

The Video Shoot (this will help the video production company determine how many shooting days are necessary)

• The amount of material that needs to be shot
• The specific people/places/products/etc. that needs to be shot
• The number of different locations
• The number of people that need to be interviewed
• The amount of archival footage, stock footage, and/or stills that will be needed

On Location Considerations

• Addresses and directions to all locations
• Contact person for each location
• Loading/Unloading zones
• Specific location protocol (security concerns, where to sign in, where the video production company can and cannot go while at the locaton)
• Staging area (an out-of-the-way place at the location where the video production company can store their gear)

I recommend taking the video production company representatives on a tech scout of each location before the shoot, so you can go over these details and clarify any unresolved issues. A good tech scout will catch potential problems before the shoot begins.

Clear, consistent communication between yourself and the video production company will be of enormous benefit when the shoot begins. Take the time to conduct thorough pre-production planning. Provide the video production company with everything they need. Your finished video will be a lot better because of it.

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*Don’t let the higher number - 1080 make you think that it’s better, or has a higher resolution that 720. Both are official high-definition formats. The difference is mainly in how the two formats record an image. The “i” in 1080i stands for “interlaced,” and the “p” in 720p stands for “progressive.” An interlaced image is created by breaking the image you see on your screen into two separate “fields” - upper and lower. Scan lines reproduce the image on the screen by scanning horizontally, top to bottom. On the first pass, the scan lines recreate every even line. On the second pass, the odd lines are recreated. The horizontal lines are interlaced to show you the complete picture. In HD video, there are 1080 horizontal scan lines. A progressive image is created by scanning the entire image in order, all at once, much like a single frame of film.

A disconnect now exists between advertisers and consumers. People don’t like being interrupted by hard-sell advertising messages. They don’t like the idea of being “talked to.” They would rather be “talked with.” They crave conversation and engagement. The old rules of broadcasting to large audiences are slowly giving away to “small”-casting; that is, carving specific messages for a niche audience. For example, a few years ago I shot a video for a hospital. Rather than create a broad overview commercial for use on television, they specifically targeted those interested in nursing. They launched a microsite for their recruitment campaign and placed several short videos throughout. Each video featured a nurse from a specific area of the hospital talking on camera about his/her discipline. The nurse also spoke about the surrounding community - its social scene and nightlife. The campaign was successful because it spoke directly to a niche group. The videos used terminology the audience could understand. And it didn’t interrupt them with a hard sell. The following video humorously illustrates the current relationship between advertisers and consumers. The challenge for marketers is to adapt to this growing change in the way products and services are advertised.

Last Wednesday (1/27/10) we debuted a new video that was produced for the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham (RPCGB). The RPCGB is a community development organization that represents six counties and 84 municipalities in central Alabama. By leveraging state and federal funds, the RPCGB provides various services to its member governments that help facilitate growth and development. These programs are incredibly far-reaching, so they approached us and asked us to create a 4-minute video that would give viewers a basic introduction to the organization and the services it offers. We shot the video with the Panasonic HVX-200A at 720p/24p.

Any entrepreneur will tell you that adaptation is an integral part of a successful business. Companies have to study the marketplace. They have to watch and listen, and be willing to evolve as technologies, trends, opinions, and public tastes change.

2010 marks Parc Entertainment’s seventh year in business, and during that time we have been able to work with a variety of clients on some great projects. To date, we have branded ourselves as a video production and post-production facility. But we realize that today’s media is more integrated than it was just a few years ago. Video is now a big part of a company’s web presence. Clients that come to us for video production services often ask about web design and development. And web designers are often asked about video production. They each go hand-in-hand.

As marketing content becomes increasingly connected, we realize that clients need compelling and visually stunning content. They need a production facility that can engage, inspire, and entertain an audience. That’s where we come in. In an effort to give our clients what they are looking for, Parc Entertainment will soon be Red Fox Media. In addition to our video production and post-production services, we now offer full website design, development, and SEO for our clients. By February 1, 2010 we hope to launch our new identity and we encourage you to send us an email, call, or stop by our offices so we can discuss how our production services can benefit your business.

To see some of the website projects we have already completed, you can click on any of the following links:

Southern Fastening Systems

Industrial Health Council

Shelby Academy

As you market your services to potential clients, it’s important to remember that perception is everything. If people see you as knowledgeable and experienced, they will be more inclined to listen to what you are offering. Image is key.

I recently came across a website promising visitors that success can be found in a video production career. On the home page is a brief video, featuring a spokesperson who covers a few introductory items in a “how-to” lecture format. The spokesperson was well-prepared and, based on what he said, seemed knowledgeable.

But something wasn’t quite right with the image they were presenting. This is a site for a company that wants you, the viewer, to consider them as a valuable resource in your fledgling production career. However, the quality of the home page video was unimpressive.

It was shot with a standard consumer camcorder under flat lighting conditions. The camera was pointed at the spokesperson standing in front of a dry erase marker board, creating a presentation that failed to engage the viewer.

It seemed that the on-board camera mic was used, rather than a lavaliere or shotgun mic. Therefore, the audio sounded thin and the levels were too low. The auto-focus was left on, meaning that during the video the whole scene would fall out of focus as the camera tried to calibrate itself.

Visitors to the site might come away from watching this video with a little less respect for the company, because little consideration was given to the image being portrayed to potential clients. A more effective video would have included behind-the-scenes footage of the production process: on location shooting with high-end equipment, in the studio working with the lighting gear, in the edit suite putting everything together, etc. This would have given the viewer a general overview into the production world and would have been far more engaging than a single shot of a spokesperson in front of a marker board.

Remember, perception is everything when it comes to marketing. Position yourself as a knowledgeable expert in your field and constantly re-evaluate the image and brand you are communicating to potential clients.