StudioNow Blog

On Saturday, March 31, 2012, TEDxNashville hosted its third annual event titled "Impact - Making a Difference" at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Distinguished leaders in technology, entertainment, design, science, art, education, government, public policy, healthcare and other areas shared remarkable discoveries and ideas focused on creating positive changes in our society.

- Naivete trumps the curse of knowledge -


StudioNow has been instrumental in the genesis of TEDxNashville, beginning the first year in 2010, with leadership from Account Management director Annie Klaver. Helping to bring the unique and inimitable style of Nashville to TED, StudioNow has been the lead sponsor for the event and has produced the videos of all the talks for the past two years (see 2011 videos here). What kind of material was covered this year? Here are a few samples:

StudioNow videos just won five ADDY Awards from the American Advertising Federation, including a Gold Award. Digital ad agency Moxie, which called on StudioNow to create video ads for Verizon's powerful 4G LTE network, took home the local ADDYs in the Atlanta market for its "Weightlifter" video (see below) and four others.

The ADDYs, which are judged on creative excellence, are said to be the world's largest advertising competition.

StudioNow's videos were selected from 250 entries by a panel of ad execs. Winners move on to the regional competition and possibly the national competition.

Every so often, the nature of a business requires something beyond the basic b-roll footage to bring the company to life. We recently shot a video for Patch.com whose client in Redondo Beach, California wanted to capture the full spectrum of activity at their year round indoor swim facility.

They asked that their video portray their dedication to providing quality swim instruction to customers and "their families in a FUN, FRIENDLY and FAMILY ORIENTED environment." Take a look at the video below and decide for yourself:



Great job to filmmaker Chris Low for taking the challenge!

As the Southeast's only statewide nonprofit dedicated to eating disorder awareness, education and prevention, Eating Disorders Coalition of Tennessee (EDCT) serves a diverse audience of community and clinical members. Their mission is to offer hope, help and support to all who are impacted by disordered eating, and they asked StudioNow to help create a compelling video for the cause.

Our task was to create a video for their annual banquet, held this year on April 12th. StudioNow producer, Lindsay Frail, met with the organization members to talk to them about their stories and came to find out that almost everyone involved has either had or has a family member with an eating disorder. Lindsay said "I only knew what the general public knows about eating disorders, which isn't much. My friend had recently just told me she had an eating disorder so I went to her for ideas for the video. When I told the ladies of EDCT about my ideas and where they came from, they asked me to be in it!" See the video below:

With the summer travel season getting under way, StudioNow has been partnering with MapQuest to launch a new content feature series spotlighting America's national parks. Each of the 58 parks has its own page complete with guide content and a panoramic cover photo from renowned outdoor and adventure photographer QT Luong.

As if 8 performances a week and raising kids weren't enough, these parents regularly audition and prepare for their next job. Working with CafeMom, we follow Monica and Irene through busy days with kids and costumes - not to mention navigating the New York City subway with a toddler in a stroller!

Mamma Mia! All In a Day's Work

A driving mission at StudioNow has always been to expose our filmmakers to challenging opportunities, to empower them in a wide variety of production environments, and to expand their portfolio with compelling projects.

To that end, we are excited to announce a new relationship with the New York Video School. NYVS' proven teaching techniques can help all levels improve their video making skills. They offer hundreds of online tutorials for all aspects of the video making process:

NYVS is an online video and film school for everyone... or anyone that wants
to make better videos. Whether shooting videos of the family, crafting the next
cinematic masterpiece, trying to become the next YouTube sensation or using video
to showcase your business, NYVS is for you!

Nominees for the 2011 Nowwies below. To see the winners, watch above!

Best Voiceover
1 Scott Fortney for E-Mergency
2 Bobbin Beam for Carlsbad Beach Inn Resort
3 Jeff Preston for Rookie Sports Bar
4 Diane Merritt for All American Remodeling

Best Animation
1 Todd "WTF" Hallam for Horrible Things Book Trailer
2 Sam Hakes for One Love Book Trailer
3 Ken Walz for Above The Influence-ONDCP "Concrete Riders" Graphics

Best Business Profile
1 Chris Low for Nourmand Law Firm APC
2 Jimmy Newson for Left Coast Kitchen & Cocktails
3 Lafe Blobaum for Chef Rob & Company
4 Robert Chapman for Bird Rock Massage
5 John Morgan for Peas & Thank You

In anticipation of the upcoming Nowwies (Jan 31st at 7p CT), we produced a short video highlighting the successes of 2011:



As the Tuesday night awards show will attest, we accomplished what we did because of our network of filmmakers.

The first annual Nowwies Award Show will air on January 31st, 2012 at 7PM Central Time. The event will be available on vimeo.com/studionow and will feature special guests from the StudioNow staff. Close to 40 nominations have been received for best videos from last year. Winners will be announced in 11 categories.

You do not want to miss this event!

The eighth and final installment in our How to Shoot A Business Profile video series offering strategies to streamline your post-production workflow.



See Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 of our How To Series.

If you are just starting out editing together pieces and keeping tabs on various projects simultaneously, its tempting to skip over the first step of creating a comprehensive organizational structure. If you have been editing for ages, working in an organization-less environment is almost impossible to imagine, a recipe for perfect chaos. The above video walks you through setting up a system to keep track of your projects, assets and all the various corresponding media.

This tutorial focuses on best practices in Final Cut Pro, but should translate to other platforms just as well. For the actual output settings on a given project, make sure and always confirm the specs provided on the project page, but you can see a Support Document for export and encoding tips help.

And if you are using Compressor 3, here is the StudioNow preset that you can drag onto your source file, and save for subsequent use.

The important takeaway here is that it is critical to implement a organized workflow that streamlines the amount of time required by every edit. Heavy front-end organization can dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend editing, improve your overall productivity, and most importantly, provide small shots of sanity as projects spiral or re-emerge after they have been long forgotten.