July 29th, 2010
Do you ever enter a URL and land on some generic page with 101 search results and a title at the top declaring that this domain is parked here for free, courtesy of [registrar’s name]?
Congratulations, you have found a domain that has been purchased, but not developed into a website yet.
Whenever I work with a client to build a website, I make sure we secure the domain right up front. Then the question arises of what to do with that domain until the site is ready. Rather than letting the domain sit parked at the registrar’s, I will create a simple placeholder for the client. Even something as basic as business name, logo and contact information will serve my client far better than the URL parked at the registrar’s (which by the way is maybe generating search income for them).
Since I am developing the full website, I don’t charge for the basic placeholder. It’s simply something I do to help my clients.
Claes
posted in business, customer service, web design, web hosting
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July 19th, 2010
Some people would not use creativity and research in the same sentence. Yet they do go together, and quite well. In fact, research is essential for good creative projects. I am currently doing research for 2 books. One is a novel I am writing (get a preview at CarensaHolt.com), one is a novel somebody else is writing and where I got called in because of my expertise.
My novel is about Carensa Holt, a college coed traveling Europe with her backpack in the summer of 1976. Doing that, she joins a myriad of others (Americans and from around the world). Since her travels are by train, I spend a lot of time constructing her travel schedules, referring to timetables from the years 1975, 1976 and 1977. When you eventually read the novel, you will only rarely see an actual departure or arrival time, but the flow of time and story will be correct. Likewise, I spend much time sifting out what places looked like back then. Some places in the story have changed very little, other places, such as Monaco have had their harbor totally rebuilt, the train line rerouted and a totally new station built. But Carensa was there when the old harbor, the old train station and the old rail line were there.
The story about Carensa takes place in Europe, but the story makes it clear that she is from Lancaster County, PA, and this spring while in that area, I made sure to take time for research. I got a better understanding of what the farm she grew up on would be like and what it is like to live there. Eventually this will work its way into the story, mostly as little details here and there or in casual remarks.
For the other novel, I am researching culture and food customs of northern Europe from several hundred years ago. There are common ideas of what people there ate and drank in the 1600s, but are they right? And what if the story calls for casual details of daily life? That is where the research comes in.
But what about a corporate video? Or a website? Do they need research? Absolutely. For the video I created for Southwest Power Pool recently, even though the client brought in a rough script, I spent time researching the history and key points to make sure everything was presented and visualized correctly. Archival images were found for historical scenes and specific footage shot to show items that are talked about.
In fiction and in narratives, good research not only helps build a stronger story, but also helps us visualize that story better. It’s just a bonus that I am naturally curious and so eager to do research needed for a project.
Claes
posted in video, web design, writing
2 comments
May 25th, 2010
Paging through some old magazines the other day, I ran across this ad from the December 3, 1965 issue of LIFE. The ad proudly points out how portable the Royal typewriter is. So portable, you don’t have to be chained to a desk to create. I smile at that ad, because I started my writing career on a portable typewriter like that. And as you can see from the image at the top of the blog page, I still have one (although it really needs a new ribbon after all these years).
Then or now, inspiration comes at strange times and in many places. So I am glad we have now progressed to very portable laptop computers, and even to truly take-anywhere writing with the iPad.
Earlier this month, an author friend had several days in New York to do research for her novel in progress. She was fortunate to get an iPad in time to load what she had already written of the story (and backstory) on it. She then could easily add notes as she dashed around Manhattan, trying to cover all the locations on her list.
I haven’t used my iPad in that context yet, but even being closer to home, it’s making the creative process easier. Somehow, I am never at my desk when that great snippet of dialog pops into my head, or what was previously a vague idea for a scene becomes crystal clear. Thanks to the portability of an iPad and the ability to record quick audio notes on my iPhone, I can capture those mental breakthroughs and later on integrate them into the developing story. At the end of the day, that is what matters: Keeping the creativity flowing, being able to quickly capture ideas and then to refine them again and again. In that respect, I don’t miss the days of typing on paper at all.
Claes
posted in computers, writing
2 comments
May 20th, 2010
How do you tackle a huge subject in less than a minute? The question is not how fast can the narrator read, but rather how can the visuals carry the story and what common thread can be woven through the story line? In 2009 the Swedish Railways created a 50 second spot that covered their history in scenes that most people can relate to. For each era, they captured some of the essence of the times. But instead of simply being nostalgia, the video focuses on how travel has changed and continues to change. There is an unspoken message that Swedish Railways has been there for your travel needs and will continue to be there, and, by the way, travel is not just getting there, but also about connecting with people.
All in all, a fine example of storytelling in a promotional message.
SJ / Statens Järnvägar – Travel toward a better SJ – (2009) :50 (Sweden)
Claes
posted in Sweden, branding, video
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May 8th, 2010
Writing comes in many forms. Technical, editorial, promotional, for video, a movie script. I’ve tried my hand at many kinds of writing over the years and depending on the project. And then there are novels …
If you pop over to CarensaHolt.com, you’ll find a site dedicated to my novel in progress.
I won’t give the story away, beyond what you can learn at the website (there is a sample from one of the chapters for your enjoyment), other than to say that it follows an American coed, Carensa Holt, from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as she (like so many other young Americans) travels around Europe in the summer of 1976.
CarensaHolt.com is designed to grow as the novel moves toward completion. The blog on there will contain tidbits about Carensa, the story and the process of writing it from my perspective. I hope you will check it out and enjoy it.
Claes
posted in Europe, web design, writing
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May 6th, 2010
Writing. The linking up of words to create meaning, structure, and feeling out of what could otherwise just be a random pile of words escaped from a dictionary. I love storytelling. It then follows that I also love words and writing.
So many times in media projects, the writing appears to be an afterthought. Oh, yeah, we have to have words in there. And so those words either state the obvious, already clear from the imagery, or the words don’t seem to connect with the imagery at all.
Or there is the other extreme, where the person in charge of the project is all focused on writing it, but has little or no understanding of the visuals, and the result is something that may be technically correct, but does little to relate to those visuals it will go with. Neither approach will do much for the final project.
Because we start telling your story in writing, you know that we will put in the effort to research and do our homework, so that the words, when penned, actually mean something. At the same time, we keep in mind the context those words will be seen in, so that they will work together with the imagery around them, as a whole telling your story. Because we love the storytelling, we could do no less.
Claes
posted in writing
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May 5th, 2010
Film & Company LLC took an important step forward recently by joining the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. Our mission is to help others tell their story, in a variety of media. What better way to do that, than to join forces with a large number of businesses and organizations of all sizes, who are actively investing in the future of Central Arkansas?
While Film & Company is fortunate to have clients in a variety of places around the country, and we take pride in being able to travel just about anywhere as needed for a project, we also believe in building into the area where we are based. Ultimately that will benefit all of us, including our friends far away, as we will continue to be able to create outstanding media solutions near and far.
Claes
posted in Little Rock, business
1 comment
April 27th, 2010
The floppy is dead. Or will be by March next year. That’s when Sony will stop making and selling floppy disks. I remember storing images on those things in my early Photoshop days (which was also back when I used an Amiga for broadcast graphics and 3D animation, but that’s another story). I could get 1 image on a disk, if I kept the file size small enough. That was also around the time that a 40MB hard drive was quite exciting and I used a positively cavernous 135MB hard drive to store graphics files on.
Of course, then Apple defied the industry and brought out a couple of computers without floppy drives. While the world gave a unified “GASP”, I started pulling data off those shoeboxes full of floppy drives onto the newfangled CDs. By the time I actually owned a Mac without a floppy drive, I no longer had any data on floppies.
Now Sony announces that they will no longer produce floppies. I admit, I thought they stopped years ago. But undoubtedly, somewhere, someone is still using a floppy or two. (Here is a high profile user who is probably stocking up now: NASA scavenges for parts for Space Shuttle. Keep in mind that while the story is old, those Space Shuttles are still flying.) Most of the rest of us have moved on to more contemporary ways of storing data a long time ago. For one thing, while a floppy isn’t big by itself, consider that the 12 million floppies sold in Japan last year all together only hold a bit less than 17TB (terabytes that is) of data. Or put another way, that is 17 1TB hard drives, or about 2 shoe boxes worth. I don’t even want to think about how many shoe boxes all the floppies would take. I bet even Imelda Marcos in her shoe buying days didn’t have that many boxes.
The moral of the story seems to be that while we want to keep our data safe over the years, we can’t count on any of today’s formats to be around forever, and it might be a good idea to migrate away from a storage medium before the last, lone manufacturer announces that they will stop production. Of course, there is always ebay …
Claes
posted in at the office, computers
1 comment
April 22nd, 2010
I watched a corporate video production recently and as I listened to the interview cuts that together told the story, I found myself wondering: “Why is that music always there?” No matter who was talking or what was being said, the music was always there. If one piece ran out, another immediately started.
I love music in media for what it can do to set and create mood. Done right, the musical score can make an otherwise mediocre video quite watchable. But if the music is always there, it becomes little more than elevator music that gets tuned out. Sometimes I get the feel that the constant music bed is there to hide any imperfections in the voice track.
If you watch a movie, or TV drama, you will note that the music comes in and goes out, all depending on what happens on screen. That is the music working with the story telling. Sometimes to emphasize the story, silence is needed or we need to just hear words spoken with no distraction. At other times, we need music there to bring out the full effect of the words.
The above all refers to interview segments, with someone on screen talking. Sometimes a video uses a narrator and the music is left going under the narration as well, even though we see people and events on the screen that in real life have audio associated with them. There may be good reasons for using music, as the music will better capture the story and mood than natural sound would. Or it may be a montage that is done to the beat of the music. But all too often, it seems that music is used to hide the fact that no audio was recorded when the video was shot, or that audio was of poor quality.
Music is a tremendous asset and I have great respect for composers who can sit down with a video (or sometimes even just a script) and create music that captures the story. That’s why the music in a video deserves better than to just be a sonic wall-to-wall carpet.
The video, and your story, deserve better too. As a client, you should receive a rich audio track with your video, one that uses a skillful blend of interview voices, narration, music, natural sound and audio effects — all to tell the story effectively.
Claes
posted in audio, music, video
1 comment
April 21st, 2010
A movie in a bullet. That is what you can get from Scottish indie film maker David Paul Baker. His film Mission X, an action drama about a film student who follows a band of mercenaries, is available in the traditional ways: DVD and download. Now David has added one more option: Get the movie, a Making of Mission X feature and a personalized thank you message from the filmmaker as digital files on a USB flash drive that is shaped as a bullet.
Gotta love it. This is a clever way to add value to the product, while creating another marketable item that stands out. Too many times I think we leave the creative packaging by the wayside, figuring that only the big studios can afford to do stuff like that. David is showing that an indie producer can do creative packaging.
Want a review of Mission X? Check out this podcast from The Editing Bin. Then get your own copy in the most unusual and creative indie film packaging this year. David is taking pre-orders now for a May 6 release.
Claes
posted in Scotland, branding, independent films, video
1 comment
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