The big one is our new website: in case you missed the launch in March, we are thrilled to have this new design up and running and so grateful to Chris Jordan for his incredible work on it. Let us know what you think.

Also in March, we spent a week in Austin for SXSW Interactive and Film. We had a great time, as always, and posted a separate round-up about all there was to see and learn.

April took us to National Harbor, Maryland for another annual event, organized by the Cancer Research Institute. We documented a lively discussion among a panel of experts during their Scientific Colloquium and are currently editing that video for distribution among industry, academic, and clinical leaders in the cancer immunotherapy field.

For the third year in a row, we are getting our fashion fix with Handbag Designer 101 as they gear up for the Sixth Annual Independent Handbag Designer Awards! Dan spent a fun afternoon in late April shooting their judging panel as they selected the finalists, which you can check out in this newly released announcement video!

Later in May we’ll film their VIP judges as they pick the winners and in June we head to InStyle to shoot the red carpet festivities and awards ceremony.

Last month we got our electro-funk on while documenting a show for Girls Like Bass and we can’t wait to do it again for their spectacular upcoming performance on June 7. More details soon about that, but in the meantime, check out stills from the set at Fontana’s.

May and June are big editing months for us: a short documentary on community-based HIV treatment access in Africa for ITPC, dance performances by students at Eugene Lang College, and interactive exhibits at the New York Hall of Science among others, so we’ll have some new videos to share soon!

As another semester comes to an end,  we would like to say a big thank you to the schools and departments at The New School for whom we’ve documented events this spring:

• The New School for Public Engagement
• India China Institute
• Vera List Center for Art and Politics
• Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis
• Eugene Lang College Dance Program
• Parsons The New School for Design
• Equity for Children
• The Center for Public Scholarship
• The Center for New York City Affairs
• Eugene Lang College Environmental Studies Program

Just a few of the videos we’ve recently shot that are now online:

• Economics and Occupy Wall Street: Solutions from the Occupy Handbook – featuring very smart people like Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Solow
• Politics and Comedy – featuring very funny people like the head writer from The Daily Show
• The Human Face of Indefinite Detention – produced for Amnesty International USA
• A fascinating debate between Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton on whether violence is increasing or decreasing in our society
• Tarkovsky Interruptus – an exceptional panel – including film editor extraordinaire Walter Murch – discussing Tarkovsky’s “STALKER,” organized by the New York Institute for the Humanities

(Remember to like us on Facebook to see all of our videos as they’re released!)

Things we like on the Internet:

• Video embedded directly in email: this overview explains that it’s on the rise and why. As we respond to more inquiries about this from clients, we want to know, would you watch videos in your email? What factors would make you more (or less) likely to do so?
• Can Immune Therapy Fight Cancer?: the Cancer Research Institute answers this question with a definitive yes and we’ve been honored to help tell them say so through video over the last several years, including interviewing several of the people featured in this New Yorker article.
• How to fake jib and dolly shots with a tripod and other tricks of the trade…

Full of ideas and inspiration (and yes, tacos), here are a few of the awesome things we saw, did, and learned at SXSW:

Screenings

- Documentary short program, including “Meaning of Robots” (edited by our friend Georgia Dodson) and several other wonderful docs.

- “Trash Dance“: A touching documentary about a choreographer working with city garbage collectors.

Talks

- The Great Cinematography Shootout: far beyond just the pros and cons of cameras, this panel went deep into the aesthetic qualities of different cinematic approaches, technical strengths and drawbacks, always within the context of visual storytelling and film (in the broader sense).

- While promoting their new book, the authors of Get Lucky: Putting Planned Serendipity to Work mentioned a couple interesting ideas that we hope can help us think more creatively on the business side:

• we tend to rely too much on predictability, planning and risk mitigation; not enough on the intersection of chance and creativity (i.e., serendipity)
• creativity is the ability to put something good into the world and chance is everything outside of your control

- In the Cut: Editing a Killer Feature Sample: this panel was a big highlight for Dan because there was so much audience interaction and a much more open discussion than one sees on a typical panel, with information flowing in both directions. And as an editor, it was a great learning experience to watch other editors getting peer feedback.

- We loved the innovative ideas we heard coming out of the panel on performance and technology, like New Play TV, Blackbox Series, and ontheboards.tv.

- Talks on next-gen storytelling, online video distribution, and branded documentaries offered a bunch of good tips for nonprofits thinking about video:

• You have to know where your viewing community lives online to be successful with marketing online videos
• “Audiences need to be told what to do” through calls to action, requests to share/like on social media channels
• Use consistent open/close branding (logo, music, slate) that becomes recognizable to your audience the instant they see/hear it
• Don’t worry about segmenting your audience online, you should be posting videos in as many places as possible
• Don’t create content in response to (audience, staff, board, constituent) expectations. Original content will deliver the greatest value, and for nonprofits, story of human empathy and dignity win out over sensation/grit.

Across several panels and discussions about video production, especially for advocacy and cause-related purposes, we heard lots of tension over what matters more: the tools or the storytelling? In one talk, we heard that “authenticity now replaces production values,” and then an hour later, a panelist elsewhere said, “low production values send the message ‘we don’t care that much.’” Someone else noted that cinematic tools are now so accessible that often story is entirely missing from online video.

Other Cool Things

- The Digital Bolex: It made us smile to see these inventors attempt something so complex and support it by Kickstarter. Their camera won’t be the killer tool for everyone, but it has the potential to be a real milestone in terms of crowd funding and DIY filmmaking. We wish them great success with the project!

- Interactive Doc Showcase: with so many web video campaigns trying to be interactive in some way, it pays to look at the rich interactivity that filmmakers are now exploring. It’s easy to throw up a bunch of short videos on a theme and call it interactive because the viewer gets to pick which one to watch next, but it takes careful planning to create a deeper web of meaning.

- Live visuals by Dan for the final rounds of the AMODA Laptop Battle. It was great to play alongside visualists Tommy Blackburn and VJDK.

- e-180: A new site to connect people who want to learn from each other, the way you might introduce two friends to each other. It’s Montreal-based, but growing quickly to other cities.

Participatory community research has always been central to the mission of CUNY’s Institute for Health Equity, but the Photovoice project was their first experience with this powerful methodology that puts cameras in the hands of community members to document and advocate for social justice. To help the Institute implement this pilot project during the summer of 2011, we played a multi-faceted role, providing technical assistance as trainers, documentarians, and editors.

To jumpstart the project, we worked with Masters of Public Health students on digital storytelling and the use of Flip cameras so that they could, in turn, train the youth participants. We also designed a workflow to help the graduate students manage all of the video assets that the young people would produce.

As the graduate students went to community-based organizations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan to meet the youth filmmakers, our cameras followed along to document the project itself, both before and after they made their own videos, capturing insights about the role of video in raising awareness of health inequities. Our footage not only gives broader context and narrative in the final project video, it also serves the Institute in the longer term as easily repurposable documentation of their work and impact.

At the end of the project, we edited a short documentary to bring together the youth videos to highlight important concerns such as access to healthy food, sexual harassment, and pollution, and to demonstrate that young people in New York City are indeed aware of and concerned about improving community health. Following screenings of the final video, the youth filmmakers have had opportunities to give us feedback and move from the role of producers to editors before the documentary is officially released.

First, in case you missed it mid-month, we are happy to announce that our new demo reel is finally online! Please watch, share, and most importantly, let us know what you think.

With that released, here are a few things that really kept us busy over the last 29 days:

• Pre-production on a new project with the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, with whom we produced a video last fall about their work with HIV/AIDS programs in the Caribbean. We’re thrilled to be working with them again over the next few months to produce a short film about their small grantmaking programs in Africa.
• Helping Glowing Pictures out on the projections for One Step Beyond, the monthly party at the American Museum of Natural History
• Filming an afternoon of panel discussions about the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement: The Means of Social Change, Ultimate Goals, and Short-Term Tactics.
• Kicking off a new season of events with the Center for Public Scholarship by shooting a great talk by former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, discussing his new book in conversation with former (and possibly soon-to-be-again) Senator Bob Kerrey.
• As part of the series of Public Art Fund Talks at The New School, which we’ve always enjoyed shooting over the past few years, documenting this talk by artist Roger Hiorns.
• Documenting the work of The New School’s Creative Arts Therapy program, including a faculty event on arts and social engagement and three workshops in the Mind-Body Healing Through the Arts series.
• And just last night, a talk by sculptor Lucy Skaer, our first event of the Vera List Center’s spring season and one in a series produced in partnership with SculptureCenter.

As always, this is just a sample of what we’ve been up to, but you can keep up with all of our comings and goings on Facebook and Twitter.

Our latest favorites

• In an interview with NPR, George Clooney commented on something that, as documentarians in this mobile, digital age, we have been noticing for a while now, especially when trying to capture audience reactions at events:

  the presence of cameras in the hands of every observer doesn’t just mean too much attention and too much recording; it means the loss of the ability to experience things directly.

  Hear more about putting down your cell phone camera (and, you know, what it’s like to be a famous movie star).

• We cannot stop watching these young North Korean accordion players covering A-ha’s “Take on Me.”
• And yes, by now everyone has commented on the new (and apparently first ever) Chipotle commercial. Well, we liked it, too. Of course we love the animation and Willie Nelson. But we really love the simple, show-don’t-tell way that Chipotle is sharing their sustainability story. And we are fascinated by its transmedia journey: it was on YouTube for months and received millions of views there before airing on television as a commercial during the Grammy’s, which generated social media buzz and drove even more viewers to the video online. Here’s more from Mashable on this unconventional new media strategy.

“Five hours in five minutes.” That was the challenge set before us when, after a day long meeting, the Executive Director of the Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education (PELIE) called with an idea for a video.

Over the course of five hours, Jewish educators from San Francisco and Philadelphia had delivered powerful testimonials about the impact of a three year pilot program, Nurturing Excellence in Synagogue Schools (NESS), and someone had set up a video camera and captured all of the proceedings on tape.

Although we are often involved in every step of a video project, sometimes a client doesn’t know they need our help until after the footage has been shot. Projects like the NESS video present both a creative challenge and a technical one.

The creative challenge: could something be made of all this footage to be shared with stakeholders who weren’t in the room that day? The story was there — everyone at the meeting heard it — but how do we get to the point? And could we do so in a way that invites new stakeholders to “get it” so that they want to be part of it?

The technical challenge: the video camera  (a basic consumer camcorder) was set up with no special intention beyond documenting the meeting. The audio and video was not only full of stories from passionate educators, but also backs of heads, lunch being eaten, soda cans opened. Could we distill it to only the best of what was recorded? What other audio and visual elements could we use to highlight the story of the pilot program, not the story of the five hour meeting?

First, we developed the script by asking meeting participants to share their top three “takeaways,” which we collated and categorized in order to make selects from the footage that aligned with each point. We also used simple text animation and kinetic typography to emphasize these key points as well as audio in the video.

Although the organizations involved did not have footage of NESS in action, all had still photographs from prior print publications about the program. By incorporating these existing assets, we were able to illustrate the story without having to shoot new video, which the project budget and timeline did not permit.

The video was initially released on YouTube; several months later, the Bureau of Jewish Education of San Francisco, a PELIE partner in the NESS initiative, screened the video at a celebration in honor of the Bay Area educators in the program and custom versions of the video were created for each synagogue to use for their own promotional and educational purposes.

Spread over two days on the sprawling grounds of the New York Hall of Science in Queens, World Maker Faire brings together people of all kinds: inventors, hackers, and tech geeks; musical electricity makers, homespun circus acts, and a fire-breathing mechanical dragon, and overflows with curious fair-goers of all ages. With something exciting happening every minute of the weekend, we were charged with getting footage that would serve multiple purposes for the host organization: promotional material for next year’s Maker Faire as well as NYSci itself, sponsor recognition, and documentation of their programs in action.

Working as a crew of two, we served as both videographers and producers, constantly in motion with an eye on the schedule so that we could film the many unique, ongoing activities without missing special moments that only happened once or twice throughout the weekend, such as the massive Mentos in Diet Coke experiment (yes, done live by the guys from the YouTube video!). There were many angles to cover, but one priority we kept in focus was showing how well Maker Faire aligns with the goals and mission of NYSci. From closeups of a father and son soldering together to coverage of kids at play in the permanent exhibitions, our footage highlighted the intergenerational play, discovery, and learning that show how NYSci makes science education fun for everyone.

We collaborated with the staff to respond on the fly to special coverage requests and tried experimental angles, like tracking shots through the crowds by way of golf cart and solar-powered carousel. Always game for an adventure, we couldn’t pass up their offer of roof access and climbed — with all our gear on our backs — many stairs and a ladder to the top of the Great Hall to get a bird’s eye view of the faire and a spectacular panorama of New York City.

On a journey that took us across the island of Hispaniola in just five days, we documented the work of four organizations in the Dominican Republic and Haiti that are saving lives by providing access to HIV and AIDS treatment among these countries’ most vulnerable populations.

Even the seemingly simplest project can require nitty-gritty, methodical behind-the-scenes work. With quite a few laughs along the way, we processed hundreds of video clips and their metadata to ensure technical quality and accuracy as well as front-end elegance for the interactive agency, Ammirati, as they prepared to launch JerrySeinfeld.com.

We are excited to share our new demo reel highlighting just a few of the documentary, event and performance video projects we’ve been privileged to produce. Thank you for watching. We’d love to hear what you think.

Many thanks to the clients and collaborators whose videos appear in this reel, as well as to The Octopus Project, for use of their music.

• New York Hall of Science
• Microsoft
• Independent Handbag Designer Awards
• International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, a project of the Tides Center
• Cancer Research Institute
• CUNY Institute for Health Equity
• New York Festival of Song
• Loose Change Productions and Spiderwoman Theatre
• Girls Like Bass
• koosil-ja/DanceKUMIKO

And if you are interested in learning more about what we do in the way of live visuals and projection design, check out Dan’s demo reel (which is getting its own refresh soon).