1:30 this afternoon I was requested to pull together a national, public facing project that will debut in about 6 weeks.  Requires filming both in Atlanta and in Tennessee.  2 hours later, concept is completed, film crew is booked and research is underway.  This is on-top of the other 20ish projects I’m already managing.

The beauty of having a right and left brain that play very well together.  My left brain works quickly to come up with the creative and a narrative.  Then the right brain kicks in to plan out the technical, scheduling, crew and travel to execute that creative.  Doing all that in less than 2 hours, well that’s what makes me LOVE what I do.  Telling amazing stories.

Stay tuned for more blogs from the road once we get going.

The post Quick Thinking for a Quick Storytelling Turnaround appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

The only tricky part for this Live webcast for me was walking backwards without tripping or shaking the camera too much.  Shout out to colleague Karen Cole for operating the LitePanels Lykos light and keeping me from bumping into anything!

Watch the replay here.   By the way, that huge Christmas Tree you see in the opening scene is real, as are several other trees in the Georgia-Pacific Center lobby.  If you’re in the area, you should stop by and check out the trees.  You can grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate from the coffee shop too.

The post Holiday Facebook Live with GP CEO Christian Fischer appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Before the scripting even began, I followed my normal plan of attack, working backwards from the end.  How the film would be displayed influences how the project would be produced.  Video framing, camera movement, sound design, graphics design and more are all affected by how the viewer will experience the presentation.   Because the idea was to immerse the audience into the presentation, I proposed filming in a super wide format, akin to the original 1960’s CinemaScope 2,55:1 aspect ratio.  We would film in standard 4k 23.98 and then crop the image vertically to create the ultra-widescreen effect.  This was important to decide before production because the videographers had to frame correctly for the center 1/3 of the image.

I originally proposed an over-sized, wraparound screen for the ballroom.  Something that would fill the field of vision vertically and wrap out from the wall at least 25 degrees to create that ‘you are there’ feeling.  The viewers would have to turn their heads a little side to side in order to see everything.  That was going to require a screen over 75 feet wide and 8 feet tall and proved to be too expensive for the budget.  Then Director of Studio Operations, Brad Hinton discovered a ‘virtual theater’ concept whereby the viewer would be immersed in a 360 virtual theater with the CinemaScope widescreen at the front.   VR goggles using a Samsung smartphone, all triggered simultaneously so the audience experiences the film together.    Straight ahead would be the big screen, wide enough that they would have to turn their heads a bit to see everything.  If they looked all around, they would see the rest of the movie theater.  So we could create a ‘traditional flat’ presentation and our audience would be immersed into a VR theater.  It was a brilliant discovery and knowing that delivery mechanism up front was vital to the rest of production.

Since the viewers would be wearing the headsets, we had to be conscious of camera movement.  This presentation was not designed to be an entertainment attraction so we didn’t want to have fast camera moves that could be distracting or worse, make our viewers motion sick.   All camera movement was designed to be horizontal (left to right or right to left) and it would be done slowly and deliberately.  For the motion shots, we went with an OSMO rig with x5 camera to stabilize the camera moves and all other videography was done with the Sony FS7, both shooting in 4k, 23.98.

The scripting process involved many stakeholders including the Sustainability department in Atlanta, research and development in Wisconsin, Dixie brand in Atlanta, paper making facility in Alabama and the Dixie plant in Kentucky.  What I discovered was that there was no way for me to script the intricacies of the entire manufacturing process.  The better way to tell the story would be through the people who actually know the process at the facilities.  They can speak freely in their own words because they live it every day which creates a more natural piece.  So the scripting process was more of an outline and key bullet point process.  In order to keep the running time reasonable, I worked with the stakeholders to identify the key elements of each step of the process.  Then created an outline so each person would focus on only those key areas.   I designed the presentation to go from start to finish of the process with each segment handing off the process to the next step.  The two areas that were fully scripted was the opening segment on Sustainability and the close featuring the head of the Dixie brand.  I Directed the opening scene in the forest while the filming in the Naheola and Bowling Green facilities was Directed by Doug Congleton.

Once filming was completed, I pulled together the storyline from transcripts and worked with Editor Scott Franklin to assemble the story.  Ultimately we ended up with a frame size around 4096 x 1605.  It created that ultra-widescreen look and really forced your eye to look at what we wanted you to see.  Because the screen was so big in the viewers eyes, we chose a small, minimalist graphics package that would not detract from the visuals and break the ‘you are there’ feeling.   Because the audience would all be wearing individual headphones, we ensured that there was good stereo separation and sound placement to further reinforce the ‘you are there’ experience.

Ultimately the presentation far exceeded what was requested from the client and multiple divisions from GP have come back to request a public facing version be created.   Understanding the delivery mechanism of the message and working backwards from the end is how you achieve engagement results for your message.

The post Taking the Dixie brand to VR by Working Backwards appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Rockin the snake chaps.

So why was I wearing snake chaps in the first place?  Well it was just another day in the life of a Creative Director running around the woods of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.   Each year Georgia-Pacific is audited by an independent auditor to ensure we source our natural fiber in a sustainable manner that meets rigorous environmental standards.  I was tasked with bringing that story to life, but of course it could not be told wholly by GP.  A company saying “we’re good stewards of the land and forest” is not nearly as strong as independent third parties speaking freely about the company.   I developed a storyline and production plan that would create a natural sound piece with no scripting.  The people would tell the story in their own words.

Bill and Nick filming on Fred Hight Jr’s land

In pre-production meetings two of the key messages that came out are that there is more forest in the United States today than 100 years ago and one of the reasons for that is consumers using paper products incentivizes land owners to plant more trees.   That was an aspect of paper products and the timber industry I had never heard, but it makes sense.  In a sense, sustainable forestry is gardening on a grand scale.  Instead of hundreds of acres of crops like corn, beans and apples, you have thousands of acres of trees.  The more people use paper products, the more acres of forest are planted to meet the demand.  Thus, more trees today than 100 years ago.

Nick and Bill filming in the woods on Fred Hight’s land

Working with Bill and Nick from Mother Nature News, we spent three days roaming the woods of Hattiesburg, MS with our trusty Nissan Armada 4×4 to tell the story.  I really wanted a cinematic look to this story, so the crew filmed with the Canon C100 in 24p mode and long lenses to allow a lot of separation between our on camera talent and the background.   I Directed the shoot, conducted the interviews and then created the first outline for the post production edit.

Long lenses allow a more cinematic look by separating the talent from the background.

Telling the story was the team from the GP Leaf River Cellulose facility, PwC Auditor Cheryl Woode and the Atlanta based GP Sustainability team.  Local landowner, Fred Hight Jr. set up the story brilliantly by telling us about his land which led directly into the sustainability story.  Cheryl, the auditor, confirmed that not only does GP meet the required standards, but exceeds them.   GP’s Forest Certification Manager David Brabham delivered the message on incentives to using paper products.  And finally Fred closed out the story with a declaration that his land will be here for many years to come.

In Post I pulled together the transcripts into a loose story and then turned it over to Nick for the edit.  We worked together very well to create the final story.

Our trusty Nissan Armada 4×4 sitting proud under a gorgeous sky in Mississippi

The entire piece came together to tell a well rounded story on the commitment of GP to ensure forests are going to be here for many years to come.  Our very success depends on it.

You can see the story here on MNN’s site.

The post Sustainable Wood Forestry Messaging with Snake Chaps appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

The way the service works is you simply upload your audio files and get your transcripts back in near realtime and often faster than realtime. I just uploaded 4 hours of interviews yesterday and had all the transcripts ready in just over an hour.   What’s AWESOME is that the text is sync’d to the audio file.  Click anywhere in the transcript, click “Play” and you hear the audio play back as you read. No more searching through the video to hear what the SOT actually sounds like.  This sync to sound is just the icing on the cake for me.   Oh and if you highlight any portion of the transcript, Trint tells you how long that SOT is.

There’s also a Adjustable Timecode feature allowing you to set the start TC time for an interview.  Perfectly matching it up to the original TC from the video.

Just had to pass along this tip.  Hope it helps you too!

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WalterBiscardi.com is advice, inspiration & training from working creative professionals on all aspects of the creative industry from pre-production to post to growing your career and business. Learn from working editors, photographers, sound designers, colorists, producers, directors and more to not only learn the basic skills, but real-world, insider knowledge on getting the right job and then building your career in the Film, Television and Creative Media Industry.

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The Gingerbread House is typically associated with Christmas but I don’t see why you couldn’t use a gingerbread design to celebrate many of the Holidays we share this time of year.  It doesn’t even have to be a house, the beauty of gingerbread is you can carve it and make it into just about any design you desire.

Now it all starts with a good, simple recipe that is easy to cut into shapes and holds those shapes well when it bakes.  I found this one on Epicurious.  This makes plenty of gingerbread to build a good sized design.  If you plan to eat the gingerbread, I would add more of each of the spices.  It’s good as is, but for my tastes, it would be better with a bit more spice.  Oh and you don’t need to let the dough sit for 6 hours.  1 hour is really all the dough needs.  So start out by making your dough and get it into the fridge to chill.

Now create a design.  That same recipe offers a great starting point with a simple house.  I recommend actually drawing out their house on paper or cardboard and assembling it to give you a sense of scale and how much the gingerbread will build.  I felt like I had enough gingerbread to make about 2 of those houses from the amount of gingerbread the recipe made.  Now that you know the scale of the original house, design something yourself.

I was inspired by a classic 1970’s TV home.  No particular reason other than it seemed like a silly, fun thing to build.  So I started by drawing and cutting out the various pieces.

You really need to draw it all out AND assemble the house to make sure it all comes together.   I highly recommend an Xacto or Sheetrock knife to cut the paper using a straight edge.   Just tape the pieces together and make sure it comes together like you want it to.  Oh and label all the pieces so you remember what they are when you break the template apart to cut the gingerbread.

The roof was the trickiest part because it’s a two piece roof with a long slope on one end of the front of the house with a side roof coming in at a steep angle.   I was able to make it work, not perfectly but good enough to cover the mistakes with icing later.

Now it was time to cut the shapes into gingerbread.   I put parchment paper on either side of the dough as I rolled it out to keep it from sticking to the board and the roller.  Then laid the template shapes onto the dough and cut through both layers of parchment.  Remove the top layer of gingerbread, but LEAVE the bottom layer attached to keep it from sticking to the baking pan.

Something to keep in mind is that any pieces that will be inside the house and not seen, such as supports for the roof, can actually be cut out of stiff cardboard.  There’s no need to bake interior supports.  This was my very first gingerbread house so I didn’t think of that, but I will next year!

Now you bake the pieces, let cool completely and start assembling.  Well actually I recommend you do a bit of the decorating while the pieces are flat as it’s easier.  The royal icing was always a bit too thick, it really does need to be a bit thinner to be more sticky to hold the pieces.  Just cut the corner of a ziplock bag to use for piping the icing.  As you assemble, anything that you have pre-attached to the walls may fall off, but you can just stick them back on.

Be sure to have a nice solid platform to build your house on such as a thick cardboard base.  I cut a piece of thick cardboard and covered it with parchment paper.  This makes it easy to move the house around once it’s built.

I’ll admit the initial assembly of the house was a bit ugly.  Could not get the first three walls to stand up square.  I ended up putting a piece of cardboard in as support to help these first pieces stay up and used a few coffee mugs to keep the very heavy “gumdrop wall” from falling forward.  Then it was actually fairly easy to get all the walls up.  Some of the baked walls didn’t quite line up, but that’s what icing and decorations are for!

For trimming the baked pieces, you need a REALLY sharp knife, such a straight razor knife and a light touch.  Just let the sharp blade do all the work with just a little pressure.  It took me about 10 cuts across the gingerbread to get it to cut all the way through, but I didn’t break anything and got clean cuts.

So this project took one day.  A lazy Sunday afternoon and it was fun.   It was a reminder that the Holidays should be fun.  So get your hands a little dirty, make something silly and have a little fun!  Save the stress for when you’re back in the office.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, it was “The Brady Bunch” house that was the inspiration for my design.  I drew my design from this photo.  Why be normal, right?

The post Take Time for Fun over the Holidays! appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

See it’s a video centric learning program but just showing videos and scenarios isn’t enough.  We really need to test the employees at each step along the way to ensure they’re getting the material.   Years ago I established a relationship with a really good e-Learning partner for these very situations.  For this project we’re going to work together with them taking point on the educational design and me on the video production.  We’ll work together on the overall project management and development.

Moral of the story?  Work on your network of connections for really good and really honest partners you can bring in so when you get a call that says, “Can you do that?” your answer can be “Absolutely!”

The post I Can Do That! (How am I going to do that?) appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

New client calls asking to meet and discuss a potential project using my services, which happens to be media creation and creative design.

Meeting goes great, runs well past the original scheduled time, good discussion all around. I promise a proposal for the project.

Proposal is sent, client responds with thanks and……………. radio silence. Instead of telling me “no we’re not going to use your proposal” the company simply goes radio silent.  

Not only is this behavior unprofessional, it’s just plain rude.  You called ME. YOU asked me to come in and give you a proposal. Now that you have the proposal, the very least you can do is respond with a simple yes or no.

Many of my colleagues say it’s a result of the younger generation now moving into positions of responsibility that’s degrading the professionalism from companies.  In my experience, I don’t see that. This unprofessional behavior stretches far and wide from young to old, small / startup to multi-national, billion-dollar companies.  It’s now the norm to simply ignore a proposal rather than give a proper response.

Maybe companies are scared to deliver bad news? I really don’t know what started this level of unprofessionalism throughout the business world for such a simple task as responding to a proposal. But I’ll offer some advice to those of you who choose to hide behind emails.

Business owners are Ok with “No” or “Sorry we’re going with someone else.”   It’s part of doing business. All of us own “big boy” and “big girl” pants, we can handle rejection.  Besides, the sooner you give a definitive answer, the sooner we’ll stop annoying you asking for an update.

So stop hiding behind your email and phone barrier. Be a professional and provide an answer. I’d love to hear from others on their experiences.

The post The Business of Hiding (behind emails and phone screening) appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Whether you own a production company or you’re a freelancer, we’re all independent contractors and it’s important to understand and document the full scope of work and fees to be charged for a project.   In other words, creating an accurate budget.   

In this course, learn how to plan and create professional budgets and proposals for video projects.  I provide detailed information and advice that’s applicable to the various types of projects video professionals handle in their business operations. Learn how to tackle client assessments, develop a working concept, put your budget together using Showbiz Budgeting, and present your budget and proposal.

The ability to properly budget time, people and materials will help to make sure you don’t get stuck paying for all those “little things” that can turn profit into loss. 

Topics Include:

Completing a client assessment

Discerning between client needs versus wants

Developing a working concept

Creating time and crew assessments

Coming up with the budget

Presenting the proposal

Revising the budget

Knowing when to walk away

Duration:  2h 15m

This course is built upon my over 25 years of experience in the video production industry and I really hope it helps you to grow your business.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.

The post “Video Budgeting” – My first training course from Lynda.com appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

It seems that Microsoft has decided to take advantage of the current stagnant nature of Apple in the computer world.  Oh sure Apple introduced a “touch strip” calling it “new” but PCs have had a version of the touch strip for a few years now.   And of course, Windows PCs have been available with full touch screen displays for years now as well.  But Microsoft sees an opening to not only the creative world, but the general public through some very innovative and “Mac-like” products.

Apple has, rightfully, become a lifestyle company built around “things” with the centerpiece being the iPhone.  The iPhone put Apple on a completely new track arcing away from computers and towards consumer goods.   The iPad, the Watch, the AppleTV.  All consumer goods designed to make the lives easier of those who own them.  They’re all mini-computers to be sure, but they’re consumer items with more or less specific purposes.  And consumers have rewarded the company well.  So it appears that Apple’s current position is the general consumer doesn’t need much more than a laptop these days and they don’t really want a touch screen.  I personally believe Apple is just waiting for the death of the “computer” as an item in the home and you’ll just use your phone / tablet / watch as all the computing you’ll need along with a wireless keyboard to use cloud based apps via your TV or tablet.

Now how did Apple come to be “THE” lifestyle company to the masses?  Well it wasn’t through blazing computer sales.  Apple computers sales ALWAYS lagged behind PCs.  Generally far, far behind PCs because you could only get them from one company, they were more costly than PCs and you couldn’t just build one easily of the shelf.  Only “artists” would use a Mac because….. well we liked working with them and they were generally “cooler” than PCs.

That “cool” factor helped Apple when it was ready to make the leap from computer to lifestyle company.  Enter the iPod.  10,000 songs at your fingertips and in your pocket.  No matter what the competition threw at Apple, the iPod was too cool to beat and Steve Jobs was the ultimate cool salesman.   The iPhone sent the company to the stratosphere and suddenly computers were no longer front and center at Apple.  The iPads and MacBook Airs followed along with the Watch as the old bread and butter towers of yore faded to the background.    But it was those cool computers that gave Apple the clout and the consumers the confidence that their innovative devices not only looked good, but would work reliably.    And now we’re at the point where Apple is no longer a computer company first.

I believe Microsoft sees an opening into the hearts and minds of both consumers and professionals alike by re-inventing the computer experience around touch screen.  Consumers are already used to touch screen tablets and phones.   While the Surface Tablet has steadily improved, sales are far behind the iPad, though Apple is no longer the dominant tablet maker with less than 25% market share as of Q2 2016.   So by taking a step “back” and re-invigorating the personal computer experience with an over the top Surface Studio and more powerful Studio tablets, Microsoft has suddenly become the “cool” computer company.    Their Surface tablets run full desktop software putting it on par with the MacBook Air.  Microsoft has a buzz around their products that resemble the Apple buzz of old.

So taking a page from the Apple playbook, Microsoft could use the reinvigorated computer experience which includes Windows 10 as an entryway into the full lifestyle experience.   The Windows Phone failed to catch on and the Zoom audio player never got anywhere.  But the living room is probably the next great battleground with streaming video services and devices.   If Microsoft gets the Surface re-launch right, they could re-introduce Microsoft as an innovated lifestyle company.   Right now Microsoft, HP and other PC companies are getting noticed for innovation in the computer space while Apple treads water.

As for me personally, I have probably made my final Apple purchase as I’ll trade in my current MacBook Air for a Surface Tablet.  For my professional computers, the 27″ 5k Retina iMac will be my final Mac for work.  What will replace it remains to be seen, either a custom PC desktop or the Surface Studio.

Where does the computer and lifestyle space go from here?  It will be interesting to see how this Apple / Microsoft story plays out over the next 2 – 5 years.

The post Could 2016 Be The Year Everything Changed? appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.