It finally aired, so now we can share it with you here! This is the PSA that Mike edited for the Death Valley Fund. If you want to see it on TV, it will air on KCET right before National Parks Episode 5 on Thursday night. If you’re setting your tivo, be sure to record the show before the Ken Burns doc, too, because the spot actually airs at 7:58pm.

Or, watch it in High Def by clicking here!

– DotLot

DotLot Creative Director Mike Kirsch was tapped by the Death Valley Conservancy to edit a PSA promoting the Death Valley Fund. The 30-second spot will air on PBS (KCET-LA) September 27th during the premiere of the new Ken Burns documentary “National Parks”. (Check your local PBS station’s website for air times.)

Reps at the Death Valley Conservancy sent Mike more than 13 hours of historical, modern and aerial footage, stills and postcards. They asked for a spot that would make Death Valley look heroic and beautiful. Mike sifted through all the footage to cut a spot centered mainly around the Borax 20-mule team and amazing 35mm aerials.

The spot is being conformed to HD in DotLot this week and then will move on to a post-house in LA for color correction and output.

You can learn more about the Death Valley Fund at DeathValleyFund.org.

– DotLot

Hi Friends!

Just a quick post here to test whether we set up our Facebook page to properly display posts from blog.dotlot.com.

If you’re reading this on our blog, be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter (@dotlot).

A few months ago a friend came to DotLot asking for some help in producing a PSA for an organization he was involved with called Know Newspapers. His goal was to produce a short spot that he could put up on the website of his organization whose primary goal is to save newspapers and prevent the downfall of the printed word. 

According to Newspaper Death Watch, no fewer than 11 newspapers have failed in the past two years, and I have heard several stories of other papers in Chicago and San Francisco that are faltering, too. 

Then, today, the crisis hit our industry, too. In a lengthy email from Studio/Monthly’s Beth Marchant titled “Last Letter From The Editor”, it was announced that Studio/Monthly will no longer be publishing a paper copy of it’s monthly film and video industry trade mag. As a director and as someone who runs a stage rental facility, this is big news to me. Our little production niche has been hit hard over the past year by a faltering economy and reduced client budgets. Those people who I work with frequently all tell the same story - “We’re holding on, but it’s tough.”

I’m glad that Studio/Monthly will continue to publish its online version, and from the info in Beth’s email, it sounds like they might even be expanding their coverage. But as any grip who has ever spent six hours in a dimly-lit green room knows, it’s still nice to have a few magazines laying around. 

Here’s the full text of Beth’s email…

“Dear Readers,

Maybe it was prophetic that the coverline on Studio/monthly’s June issue included the words “to Web.” I wrote that coverline long before the decision was made to end the magazine’s four-and-a-half year run as a standalone print and digital publication. But the Web is where The Studio Group is strongest and where we’ll continue to grow. Studio/monthly will deliver the same award-winning content at www.studiomonthly.com. The magazine online will do what it’s done from the start: provide practical, well-edited product reviews, in-depth tutorials, first-person advice and analysis of emerging trends at Studiomonthly.com and through our portal, Studiodaily.com. You’ll see the site evolve, however, as we refresh it more often with the kind of dynamic content that a monthly magazine could simply not deliver.

The flow of the magazine-its visual impact, its organization and the way each article was designed and edited-was thoughtfully constructed with you, the reader, in mind. I’m proud of what we built. And I know from my conversations with many of you that Studio/monthly, when it was launched in 2005, gave you exactly what you needed: practical advice that helped you improve your kit, your skill set or your business. One special word of thanks to those who wrote to tell me over the years how much you valued the magazine in its initial print form for giving you the chance, however briefly, to step away from the computer without leaving your work entirely. You read it on set, on the train, on a plane, in a facility lobby, or even far away from the dark cave of your edit suite under a shady tree. I had hoped you’d be able to do that for years to come on a Kindle. We’ll certainly be thinking about ways to curate selections of our content for viewing devices like the Kindle.

Due to the end of the print/digital editions, the position of managing editor has also been eliminated. I’d like to thank Jessica Clegg for her talent and dedication to developing the magazine, Web site and spin-off e-newsletters into valuable components of The Studio Group’s broad and deep network of production and post-related content.

Stay in touch and come back often.

Regards,

Beth Marchant
Editor-in-Chief
Studio/monthly”

Recently I’ve been exploring and learning about Twitter. What is this thing? How can Twitter benefit me? Like most people, I had signed up at one point but hadn’t done anything with it after that.  What’s its purpose and why should I spend any more of my valuable time on it when I already have email, a smart cell phone and FaceBook?

So I started by learning a little more about it in plain English. Thanks to CommonCraft,  I got a simple and clear understanding of Twitter’s function and uses.

I love the action hands with the cutout pictures. It makes the message so clear as it’s not distracted with typical heavy graphics and digital sprinkles of eye candy. From this video I started to understand its basic uses. I began to follow people of interest from a variety of areas: video production, social media, friends & family (of course), public servants, and some celebrities, why not?

I’ve come to see that little messages lead to interesting and hard to find information. For instance, @mashable Reading: “10 Golden Rules of Social Media” - http://bit.ly/4by3vD. Or other entertaining pages: “Three Wolf Moon!”, fun Amazon reviews : http://bit.ly/s8gVL.

So now the question is, how can I take advantage of this tool for DotLot and myself? One way I’ve begun is to search the chatter on Twitter for what other production companies are talking about or sharing.  For example: @nilsbreckoff: Cranking up for another fine day of video production, or @Xcelus: We are putting two new marketing scripts into video production. A JR Golf video and ecommerce video.

Lastly I’ve found little nuggets of information that is very useful that has been right under my nose. For instance check out the Speech Search from Adobe.

Moving forward I can see myself using Twitter to research companies we’re doing business with or are targeting. This little bit of information will give me more insight to the target audience, the users and the advocates, and see what messaging is getting a good response and what’s not working. Our job as media professionals is to help our clients connect with their audience in the best way possible.

I’ve leave you with this last bit I found on Twitter from @carloguillot. I think all media production people can relate to this video:

You can find me @NBHaus.

We had a lot of fun making this next commercial. At one point, the earliest concept even included a ninja, but that part of the concept got axed due to time constraints. What we ended up with was an awesome little spot that features a wily granny in spandex. Nothing wrong with that!

Be sure to watch it in HD on YouTube!

– Mike

This commercial was made to promote the integrated car audio systems that DTS has available through several different auto manufacturers. We shot multiple locations in and around Orange County.

Special thanks to all the cast and crew who worked their butts off on one very long production day.

Be sure to watch it in HD on YouTube!

– Mike

Hey, Friends. 

During Q4 last year we produced 3 commercials for DTS in order to help them promote several of their new consumer audio technologies. I’ll be posting them over the next few days. Here’s the first one, which covers their broadcast audio technologies.

You can also watch this video over at our YouTube Channel.

– Mike

DotLot™ is ready for a brand new year of digital video engagement. We’re already working on some great projects for Western Digital, Fisker and 6 Hour Power. 

Also in the works for the next few months is a continuation of our work with creating stereoscopic videos for interactive websites. We’re working on ideas for a currently top secret website project. More on that in the next few months. 

In case you’re going to be in Las Vegas this week, look for us at CES. We’ll be visiting the DTS booth where the three commercials we produced during Q4 last year will be on display in full DTS surround sound glory.

Coming this fall … Adobe is going to release the next installment of its production suite, CS4. And after learning about some of the updated features, I have to tell you I’m quite excited. Here are some of the new or enhanced features I found most entertaining.

After Effects (AE), added several features making it even more user friendly while opening your creative genius with more tools. For instance you now have the ability to use adjustment layers like you do in Photoshop. Very nice! Also you can use the advanced clone tool to remove video blemished or add elements to your production. Adobe’s website mentioned filling a stadium of people which was fitting for DotLot and TBG as we just worked on the Madden ’09 rich media advertising. Here’s another great feature … import FLV files directly into AE. How many times have you wanted to edit or import a FLV into your production? There are so many other new and enhanced features that I implore you to look at. After Effects is an even more powerful than before.

Another Adobe tool we use often is Premiere. Here are some of the new / enhanced features YOU should be aware of: native tapeless workflow for RED, Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, and AVCHD. This is an awesome timesaver for us and keeps the content in its truest form. Premiere added per-sequence settings to mix content with different editing and rendering setting for each sequence. It’s something we ALL have been waiting a long time for. You can now edit multiple clip’s effects, speed/duration and transitions, all in one instance, another great timesaver. Import FLVs, cool! Blu-ray authoring. Finally, here’s a rather interesting one, automatic transcription generation with speech-to-text analysis where Adobe uses a built-in speech-to-text analysis to create a XMP metadata which allows you to make corrections to transcription. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

This blog is not the place to review all the awesome new tools Adobe has updated and enhanced. But I will tell you that with all these new features, you will see Adobe gaining more ground in the post production world, especially in online videos. Now have fun and explore all that Adobe can offer your productions.