Forrester Media's Atlanta Video Production Blog

More than a flash in the pan?

Georgia received a good bit of attention when the State Legislature approved generous tax breaks and incentives for film and television production companies willing to produce their projects here. Michigan has received equal attention in their even more liberal incentive package that has just passed - perhaps in hopes of having some minor offset to their dwindling automotive industry.

Canada had incentives for a long time before the term 'run-away' production came up in Hollywood once the locals there realized that work was moving over the border to save money. Unions and others petitioned to basically make the incentives illegal as it was causing Californians to lose work.

Most recently California, on the verge of bankruptcy, has approved a 25% tax credit for Hollywood in hopes of stemming the amount of run-away production.

Here's the problem with incentives: They're only good until someone comes up with a better one. Odds are, the movies and TV shows shooting in Georgia right now are only here because of the incentive. It was strictly a financial decision for the studio - not necessarily because they love us here, which is too bad.

Odds are, productions that were once considering Georgia are now considering Michigan, or perhaps even staying home in Hollywood. They're following the money - or in this case - the savings.

Georgia has a great talent pool, both above and below the line and having these productions in town benefit all of us who work here and spend our money here. We've directly benefited from having these productions in town and we appreciate the business they provided.

My hope is that we made a favorable enough impression that they will want to return even if they won't save quite as much as shooting in Detroit. Besides, you can't get sweet tea in Michigan!

March Madness....April foolishness!!!!

Ah! yes March madness is about to wrap up...(come on admit it how many teams do you have left in the final four)I have one. I find it hard to watch the games....how can a 40 minute sporting event be dragged out for two and a half hours on television. I know advertisers pay those high priced salaries of the players (hey hang on a minute aren't these college athletes and they don't get paid)...where does all that money go.
Well enough of that (my colleagues here at Forrester Media think I *itch too much on my blogs)the month of March was not too bad and it looks like April could be busy. We have some real interesting projects coming up both in the studio and in the field. On Wednesday we will spend the day with one of our favorite corporate clients in the beautiful city of Temple, Georgia.
Talking of Wednesday be very careful about believing what you hear and see....yes it's my favorite day of the year April Fools. I used to play pranks on my family but have got to old for all that(or they know me to well). My best was giving my Dad the newspaper (you can tell how old i am yes we used to have daily newspapers delivered) and I would remove the center pages and replace it with the days before...it took him a while to catch on before he would say "hey i think this is old news"(comedy at it's finest). My favorite prank, though, was carried out by the BBC who sent a correspondent to Italy to talk about the spaghetti shortage. He stood in a field with spaghetti hanging from every tree...classic television.
Oh well that's it and as I said take everything you hear and see on Wednesday with a grain of salt...good luck...

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web streaming

So I am sitting here watching President Obama give the first ever "online townhall meeting" at http://www.whitehouse.gov. Im impressed with the quality of the video being streamed. Just the fact that I am able to view the live webcast is impressive. Years ago a big fashion show was streamed online and the entire webcast shut down because there was not enough bandwidth for the millions of users that watched. Looking at the video I'm currently watching, it does not look pixelized or delayed, and it's displayed at a large size. CNN is broadcasting the townhall as well and the audio from www.whitehouse.gov is several seconds in front of the audio from CNN. All of this is so impressive to me. We have come a long way from from dial up! Now imagine this, you've lost your job, you're late on your mortage, you need questions answered from President Obama, but you have a dial up modem! I cannot imagine how hard it must be to view this webcast! The digital divide in this country is growing increasingly every day! I'll be interested to see what happens in the future to close this digital gap, from the digital TV transition, which is postponed time after time, or how to bring broadband internet to those who need it.

Shout Out Time :)

I would like to dedicate this blog to Digital Juice.  Now if you live in the editing world or really anywhere near it, you probably know Digital Juice.  For those who do not, here's a quick description.

Digital Juice is a privately held royalty-free content provider for the professional video, print, and presentation developer. The company, founded in 1992, sells packaged content products direct to customers. The company currently has over 140 products available including animations, music, sound effects, stock footage, illustrations and still graphics. (thanks wiki!)

Now what this means is a lot of the fancy transitions or graphics you see in programs may have come from a digital juice library. (I know Disney Channel uses them, namely Hannah Montana.  Check out the transitional wipes some time!)  They are so great and really enhance the look and quality of a project.  And once you buy it, you own all the rights!  (royalty free)  So no worrying about people coming after you trying to sue you!  And their music libraries are pretty good!  We have almost exhausted the one we have now, but there are lots of different libraries to choose from. 

They also offer jumpbacks (animated backgrounds)  which I have used for almost every project I have worked on.  I have even altered them, by cropping to create lower thirds or changing the color by applying an RGB effect.  The editors tool kits are awesome too, they come with sets that all match, so you have a lower third, transitional wipes, backgrounds, moving elements... and it all matches. 

Now I could sit here and ramble on about all the great products Digital Juice offers...but I think it would be best to check it out yourself!  They have video examples of all the effects and you can listen to samples of the music too!

www.digitaljuice.com