One of my favorite clients Peachwood’s has been very busy lately with launching a new company and rebranding their restaurant and weddings/special events. We have been working hard for them and we’ve still got more to do, launching a new website and creating a new section to their current one. If you’ve never had a meal at Peachwood’s Steakhouse then you are missing out! The lunch is delicious and the dinner amazing. The dinner features a five-course meal, with generous portions at a really great price. The other arm of Peachwood’s is the weddings & special events and it is where I got married, my brother got married and we have had all of our big events from birthday parties to anniversaries throughout the years. And the Peachwood’s is branching away from their home at Pasatiempo with the creation of PeachGirl Catering & Events, a off-site way to enjoy Peachwood’s cuisine and the experience of their event specialists in a location of your choice.
Our main work with Peachwood’s and PeachGirl is executing their marketing plan, working closely with Jenifer Smith Ringel and Shannon Finney-Candelario, we have assisted them with redesigning the restaurant menus, catering menus, wedding brochures, social media outreach, advertising plan and ad creation, palettes at Costco, e-newsletters and so much more. It’s a chance to be creative in ways that is not limited to video and really take our experience beyond the television.
Tam Communications has been an extremely proud supporter/sponsor of the Santa Cruz Derby Girls since 2009, well even longer than that if you count our time with the Santa Cruz Roller Girls. Currently, we have two members of the league working for Tam –myself, aka Shamrock N.Roller and Jill Combs, aka Mojo Vixen. It’s been so awesome being able to be involved with derby at that level, nothing better than getting paid to log bout footage, produce and edit together derby videos. We have done their video production since the beginning covering all the home bouts for archival footage, producing videos after games, covering their community events, providing intro videos to the players and producing their end of year wrap up video or prom video to the league. We have had such a great time being a league sponsor and I am looking forward to continue as a player for the Boardwalk Bombshells and Tam and Susan to come watch me play!
This year’s Season Kickoff Show for the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk was Polynesian themed and aptly called Aloha Summer. This was inspired by Cirque Polynesian, one of the highlights of a jam-packed summer entertainment schedule at the West Coast amusement park. The Boardwalk’s ties to Hawaii go way back to when three Hawaiian princes brought surfing to Santa Cruz.
The half-hour special, which aired on KTVU, Channel 2, is intended to introduce the summer schedule as well as promote the Boardwalk in general. This is the fifth year Tam Communications was tapped for the project and is always one of the highlights of our annual production schedule. As usual, Tam Communications Creative Director/Executive Producer, Susan O’Connor Fraser, wrote the script and she and I collaborated on the production schedule. Lex van den Berghe and Julie Courtney once again, hosted this year’s show. Their on-screen energy and chemistry is infectious and makes for a really fun (albeit hectic) day of production.
We went a little off our normal routine this year as we typically start the day with Lex and Julie on the Hurricane deck doing all of their stand-ups together. The “stand-ups” make up the “story line” of the show including their open and close and any pieces in between. We like to get it out of the way early, before the show opens. But for this year’s show, Julie kicked off production by interviewing Santa Cruz Seaside President, Charles Canfield at the Carousel. His interview focused around the carousel celebrating its 100th birthday at the Boardwalk (a very impressive milestone). Charles talked about the Carousel’s history with and his own passion for the ride. He even pointed out his favorite horse.
While we were shooting his interview the rest of the team was setting up on the Hurricane deck so that we could roll with the interviews and still get them out of the way before the show opens. As usual, the stand-ups were a fun time with Lex and Julie cracking jokes between takes.
Once we wrapped up top, our crew separated into two teams, each with its own schedule for the rest of the day. Team A included Lex, Susan, Director of Photography, John Barrett, and Production Assistant, Jessika Wilson. I headed up Team B, which also included Director of Photography, Victor Valverde and Production Assistant, Jill Combs. Director, Tam O’Connor Fraser, and Andy Olson and Thomas Norres (our super lighting guys) floated between crews as needed.
Team A focused on season passes, interviews with Karley Pope (the Boardwalk’s Director of Promotions & Entertainment), members of the Family Stone (who performed that day and were on the summer’s entertainment schedule), and Cirque Polynesian performers. Team B headed up and down the Boardwalk interviewing the Vice President of the Millions of Memories store, employees at different games and food vendors and as many boardwalk guests as possible.
This year we had such great interviews from everyone and the Boardwalk guests did a wonderful job talking about their favorite ride and food and even played games with Julie. The day wrapped with Surf City Sky Divers landing on the beach and a concert with Family Stone.
After production, it was off to post-production where Tam did his magic to pull all the elements together including a pretty complex sound mix to make sure that all the pertinent audio was clear through the sounds of the lively Boardwalk.
The Kickoff (or what we call “Look Live” because it looks like a live television program) is always one of those events we at Tam Communications enjoy each year. It’s a long but extremely fun day of production. Each year, I look forward to it more and more because we have the process honed to perfection and we know we’re going to have an enjoyable day on the Boardwalk.
Teaming up with our friends at Yellow Bus Advertising is always fun and often a little adventurous and this time was no exception. As the new agency of record for Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, the team at YB contacted us to bring “The Magic of Trains” to the screen. The first two spots to roll down the tracks feature the Mountain Steam Train and the Beach Train. In order to capitalize on the busy season, we had but four weeks to go from concept to air.
It was key to bring the magic and mystery of the trains to the spots and to appeal to both a young audience and their parents and grandparents as well. This wasn’t difficult as the trains are so amazing on their own. Add in a great cast of characters, mix in a little mystical music, some aerial shots, and unique angles, and out comes two great spots that our client and their client were ecstatic about.
Casting is always a little bit of a challenge. Getting the right mix of ages and gender, while ensuring ethnic diversity representative of Roaring Camp Railroads’ target audience and park visitors. We set up our desired cast listings on SF Casting, followed by a day of auditions at Peachwood’s Steakhouse in Santa Cruz. But by the end of the day, we had a great group of kids, parents, and grandparents.
With two HDV cameras and two GoPros, we were prepared to capture all angles of our day. We spent the morning shooting with our families in the photo booth area and the general store. Then it was time to head out on the first train ride of our day, the Mountain Train, which would take cast and crew to the summit of Bear Mountain. We shot most of the way up, allowing our cast to just enjoy the ride they were taking. There wasn’t much direction needed for the talent as their experience alone was giving Tam just what he needed. Once we reached the top of Bear Mountain, we departed the train to capture the kids checking out the train engine and taking photos with the conductor.
We enjoyed a leisurely ride back to the Camp and it was time for lunch. After lunch, we were right back in it to obtain shots around the camp with our kids. I remember one of the parents coming up to me and saying, “Is he really getting paid to do this all day?” I thought this was so great that these kids were having a wonderful time while still “working”.
After our last shots at the Camp, it was time to climb aboard the Beach Train down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Another relaxing and enjoyable ride where the kids spent the entire time looking over the side of the train at what was coming by. When we arrived at the Boardwalk it was time for some last few shots of the day, capturing our cast coming off the train and again, more shots with the conductors at the front of the train.
This was such a fun day and I ask myself the same question that parent asked me, “Do I really get paid to do this?”
Verigy, an Advantest Group company, is at Semicon West this week with its new V93000 Smart Scale Test Platform. The company manufactures advanced semiconductor test systems and solutions used by leading companies around the world. We at Tam Communications were pleased to be tapped by Verigy to help with this exciting product announcement.
The project involved shooting in Cupertino at the corporate headquarters and in Germany at the company’s facility outside Stuttgart. Traveling to Germany, shooting and traveling home in less than a week was exhausting but necessary to meet a rigid schedule to be ready for the launch and product training. In addition, as I travelled east, one of the people we wanted to interview for the project was headed west. That meant, Tam and Regan head to head to cover the Cupertino production along with Grip/Gaffer Thomas Norres.
Back home, we dove into post-production including creating 3D animation and effects by Aaron Dingman and Mike Baxter respectively. Tam spent long hours in the edit suite compiling the program including adding in Alan Varner’s voice over.
Since Verigy’s customer base is international, we needed to take that into account in pacing. It’s always a challenge – to make it fast cut and upbeat but also palatable to an audience where English is a second language. The video is not only playing back in the Verigy booth but is also being used on the company’s website and will be used in one-on-one presentations.
This is the third project we’ve produced for Verigy in the past few years.
Our work with the United States Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Channel paved the way for a spot we did for Sacramento-based The Glass Agency, who was producing a television commercial for the California Department of Boating and Waterways. The concept of the spot is, even heroes wear life jackets, so you should, too. We provided them with rescue footage that we have in our archives from almost 20 years of work with and for the Coast Guard. But the final commercial needed more than just the rescue footage. It called for close-ups of rescue personnel putting on their personal flotation devices (PFDs), shots of hands closing the buckles, to be intercut with the rescue footage. If it wasn’t in our library, it was still no problem. We got in touch with Coast Guard’s District 11 Public Affairs in Alameda and they coordinated the details so that we could head down to Station Monterey to shoot the crew performing these shots for us.We worked with the crew at the Station shooting multiple takes of them putting on their PFDs at different angles and focal lengths. It was a win-win for the Coast Guard where boating safety including life jackets is part of their message.
The final product is a hot and edgy, well-edited and produced 30-second commercial (also some :15 were made from it) that will appeal to a young audience of boaters. Check it out!
What a blast!!! We just posted the video for the “flash mob” we produced at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on YouTube, check it out!
The idea of the flash mob came from Creative Director/Executive Producer (and lover of musicals) Susan O’Connor Fraser, she was inspired by the dance sequence at the end of Slumdog Millionaire and some other videos on YouTube and wanted to do something at the Boardwalk that would be fun and entertaining. The first challenge: the song. The Maids of Honor, a Santa Cruz alternative rock band had created such a great version of the “California Sun” jingle for the Boardwalk radio and television commercials, but had never had the full-song version of the featured (other than on closing credits of the Boardwalk’s summer entertainment preview). We felt that this would be the perfect song and a great way for it to be featured in its entirety and so that it could get some real play. Challenge met.
The second challenge: Get the Boardwalk on board. We approached the Boardwalk about the idea in March and were given the greenlight in early April. We were on our way and by the end of the month we were working hard to pull it together in time for our performance date of June 11th.
But how to get our dancers? We reached out on Facebook, Craig’s List, local dance studios, high schools, colleges, cheerleading organizations, etc. to see if we could get a great mix of age, color and dance experience. It was important to us that we have it feel like real visitors at the Boardwalk who spontaneously broke out in dance and then returned to their time at the park. Interest was slow at first and then it started picking up speed as word of mouth took off through social media. We understood we were asking a lot of our participants—learn the dance, hopefully attend four practices plus the performance day but by the first practice we had a committed group of dancers that were beyond excited about the project.
Photo by Donaven Staab
We brought on Quelddy Angelina, a local dancer and dance teacher, to choreograph the moves. We recorded the dance and then posted it on YouTube so the dancers could practice between our collective practices. For me, it was so fun to be able to assist with the moves that we wanted to see in the dance and to work closely with Quelddy to bring our visions together. In the end, it was a fun dance that was easy to learn. This was an important aspect of the dance because we wanted people to be able to see what we were doing and join in if they wanted to during the duration of the dance.
Once we had the dance choreographed and everyone practicing, we went into pre-production mode. Where were we going to place cameras? How many cameras? Who was going to shoot what? Where would the dancers enter from and when? We decided on three roving HD cameras and five stationary GoPros.
Tam checks cameras. Photo by Donaven Staab
Two days before performance day, we had a dress rehearsal at the Boardwalk by the carousel, the spot for the mob. It was early in the evening, the Boardwalk was closed, but there were still patrons milling about. We started practicing the dance and the patrons all stopped and watched, we even had some join in and start learning the dance with us as we practiced over and over again. We finalized our entries, got the dance dialed and called it a night. The Boardwalk was so happy with the final product, we decided to add a third performance to our already planned two.
The day of the flash mob was electric, the dancers were excited, we were ready to do our first live performance. The first dance was perfect, everyone nailed it, and the patrons that were present had a great time. In between performances, we took the time to shoot some little scenes with our dancers so we could show them enjoying different parts of the Boardwalk prior to the dance starting. The other two performances were just as great and by the end of the day, we were still buzzing from the performances.
After the weekend ended, we went straight into post-production to create the second aspect of the flash mob, the edited dance. The final product delivers a highly entertaining two and a half minutes of good fun. It’s definitely an experience I will never forget and am excited at the thought of producing more of these in the future.
Great concept for a trade show attract video, a corporate morale booster, or sales meeting video, don’t you think?
One of our new clients for 2011 is Nordic Naturals. They approached us to produce a video that would capture the final steps of the build out of their new facility located in Watsonville. By the time they brought us on to the project, the exterior was complete, most of the interior was done so what was left was the furniture being built and everything being moved in. The goal for this video was to create a feel-good piece for employees and to have a video that could play at their open house…a fresh start in a new and unique facility. On its hilltop, overlooking northern Watsonville, the facility, by design, resembles a Norwegian fishing village.
We met with the Nordic team at their new location and decided we were going to capture the build out downstairs of the cubicles, the game room, the lounge area and the cafeteria. For the day of their opening, we would add a fourth camera outside to capture arrival and a fifth camera upstairs to obtain employees entering their offices for the first time.
This was the first project where we used GoPros stationary for a long period of time, in multiple locations, capturing events in still mode. Throughout the build out, we used different fps (frames per second) in different locations. Depending on how much action was going to be happening at any given time, determined how many times we wanted the camera to take a photo. For a month, the four cameras clicked away and I traveled to Watsonville every few days to change memory cards and download the images to my computer.
It was finally the first day for employees to go to work in their new location. We arrived early to set our outside and upstairs camera and to reposition other cameras previously set. There was a welcoming ceremony and then employees were allowed to get down to business. During the day, we interviewed employees about the new building, what they liked about it, what they were looking forward to, what it meant to them. There was definitely a buzz in the air as everyone settled into a new home.
The building itself is absolutely amazing, very aesthetically pleasing and love the fact that it’s green (not the color but how it was made). Makes sense considering sustainability is an important component of the company’s philosophy—Healthy People, Healthy Planet. My favorite area had to be the warehouse. It’s so spacious. They really created an environment for the employees there to be efficient and just watching how everyone works together with the machinery was really fun.
The final video was definitely a collaboration (what we like best) with the Nordic Team, giving them an historical piece to remember where they came from and where Nordic Naturals is going.
