Tamgram

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?”

Mountain Train:

Beach Train:

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.

While shooting footage for next years commercial spot, Tam put together a fun video of his day on the wharf with these spectacular mobiles.

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?

The Flash Mob Crew

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.

We’re sponsoring the Santa Cruz Derby Girls again this season and are producing a whole new array of videos, different than what we’ve done in years past. We worked with Tall Can from SCDG’s Community First committee on ways to highlight the work the league does with their featured non-profits. The plan: create videos of four of the eight non-profits by covering events the derby girls participate in over the course of the season (Look for another post on the first two videos we’ve already created).

Another change this season was to explore ways of increasing the entertainment value at bouts. That’s where the idea of doing videos on individual players came into play—kind of like what you might see at the outset of a football broadcast when the starting offense or defense is announced.

For this effort, we traveled down to the league’s practice warehouse to shoot all the players from the Boardwalk Bombshells and Harbor Hellcats on green screen. We set up lights as we normally would for green screen—two backlights and one fill light up front. As Murphy’s Law would have it, when we powered up the lights to shoot the first of the Bombshells, our best-laid plan became the victim of the warehouse’s power issues. We blew a circuit and were unable to use the lights we brought. Time to improvise. Left with the warehouse’s top light to shoot each of the players, Tam then went into post and did his magic, making it appear as if we had the lighting we had originally planned.

In the end, we have a series of clips of all the players and coaches (and, of course, Roller Derby’s own Mildred Fierce) posing, smiling and mugging for the camera, bringing out their personalities right there on screen. These videos have two purposes—the first is to promote the upcoming game and line-up. Tam edits the video of those scheduled to play the next bout and posts it to our YouTube Channel. This gives a little extra boost for the game and for the skaters themselves. Then on bout night, as each player is introduced, we display their clip on the giant screen. This really makes the introductions more spectacular and allows the crowd to put a face to a derby name.

Check out the Bombshells first video from their March game and the Hellcats video from their April game.

For April, the Santa Cruz Derby Girls chose the Homeless Services Center as their featured non-profit. In addition to featuring them at the April Harbor Hellcats bout, where a portion of the night’s proceeds was donated to the organization, a number of League members helped out at their annual Soupline Supper & Benefit Auction. Our job was to capture the event on video to highlight the work that the league does in the community and to give additional exposure to the non-profit in the process.

The Soupline is HSC’s largest fundraising event of the year and features soups, breads and desserts from over 25 of Santa Cruz’s finest restaurants. Each year, local “celebrities”, including political figures and well-known members of the community, serve up the soup. And this year was no exception with the Derby Girls counted among the local celebs. League members donned in uniforms and other SCDG apparel headed down to the Cocoanut Grove poured beverages and assist with the night’s auction. This year’s event was another huge success and the league members that participated had a great time.

Tam shot the video with Susan interviewing HSC staffers and skaters, and even got to sample some of the yummy soups. The short piece (the second time we’ve created a video for HSC—the first time in 2009) is now streaming on the Tam Communications’ YouTube Channel.

When you think of blood and derby, you’re probably thinking someone took a nasty fall and banged up some part of their body (or worse). This would not be the connection to make in our initial video produced for the Santa Cruz Derby Girls Community First Committee. The American Red Cross, Santa Cruz Chapter, was the featured non-profit chosen for March. The head of the Committee, Tall Can, felt it was important to do more to promote the work that the league is doing for their chosen non-profits. She asked us to create videos around the events that the league members participate in and the first of these events was a blood drive.

From our standpoint, it’s a win-win-win-win. A win for the skaters who spent their afternoon giving blood and are featured in the short video; a win for the League and the great work that they do for the Community; a win for the American Red Cross who had their work in Santa Cruz promoted, which will hopefully encourage even more people to give blood; and a win for Tam Communications, allowing us to give back to the Community as well by producing the video.

The short video will play at future bouts and can also be seen on the Tam Communications YouTube Channel. And if you think that voice sounds familiar, you’re right, it’s me aka Shamrock N. Roller.

With all the GoPros we recently purchased for our project with Nordic Naturals for the time lapse we did for them, we were very inspired to see what time lapse would look like from start to finish of a Santa Cruz Derby Girls bout at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium (aka Santa Cruz Derby Girls Stadium). We wanted to capture the very first bout of the 2011 season where the Boardwalk Bombshells took on the Sac City Rollers (just a little side note…this was my first game back after having my baby, Lily), so we set-up a camera early in the day right as they were laying the track for the night and then let it run at five frames per second until the end of the bout.

It’s definitely amazing to see how you can condense nearly nine hours into 1:20 of a finished piece showing everything that happened in that span of time: lots of planning, set-up and bouting!