No matter how prepared you are, whenever you shoot on location something is going to come up that is totally unexpected. I don’t know why this is, I only know that it’s never not happened to me in over 25 years of production. Often this unexpected occurrence can be a “shoot threatening” emergency that is totally unforeseen. For instance, I can recall my sound man informing me, “I’m worried, I’m peeing blood” as we sailed away on the Royal Princess from Acapulco toward the Panama Canal with our next stop five days away. (Fortunately there were great doctors onboard.)

Other times this can be just a little glitch, such as the time we were shooting a custom video production that required a water slide.  As we were ready to lock and load, we discovered we had the wrong tape for the camera we were using. It literally would not fit into the carriage. And it was Saturday.  The nearest resource for the correct tape was twenty miles away.  And they were closed. At the time this seemed like more than “a little glitch” but we solved the problem and got everything done, though we chased the sun all day because of the delay.

Knowing that a curve ball is going to come my way every single time, I’ve developed several policies to “prepare for the unexpected”. The best one is to be thoroughly prepared for all the normal contingencies. But on any shoot at least one thing will come up that is totally unexpected. So I’ve come up with a corollary to the “be prepared” motto, and that is “be really flexible”. So much of location production depends on keeping a cool head and being able to come up with creative solutions to unusual situations. Experience helps, but only as a calming influence. The problems do need to be solved. Which brings up my third policy for location shooting, “never get complacent”. Even when you feel you’ve got every fire put out and every weird event handled, don’t stop watching for more. A recent direct response TV commercial shoot we did for a toy company really brought this home to me.

The company wanted to shoot two spots, one featuring a toy digital camera and the other a stuffed pony that kids could actually ride and scoot along by bouncing on the saddle. We really needed three days to get all the shots on the storyboard, but the budget only allowed for two. We decided to shoot over a weekend so we wouldn’t have to deal with school issues for the kids. Still, it was a pretty tight schedule and one that made me nervous. As luck would have it we found a location in Studio City with the perfect house interior and, right next door, the perfect driveway for our ponies. This would allow for maximum production time as we could prep one area once we were up and shooting at the other.

Oops! I was 30 minutes away from the crew, the clients, and the kids coming over for lunch with no where to go to the bathroom and raw sewage flowing onto the lawn just a few feet from where that lunch was being set up. It was Sunday. Way too late to call the honey wagon folks. Fortunately I had a very resourceful Production Coordinator who was instantly on the phone and with offers of money and food enticed a Roto Rooter company to make an emergency stop.

They were there and gone within twenty minutes with the problem handled. When the cast, crew and clients showed up for lunch, the only evidence was a slight lingering smell. No one was the wiser and we went on to produce a great commercial spot which ended up selling out all the Giddy-Up Ponies for the 2008 Christmas Holiday Season. But as I said earlier, you just gotta remember that “Sh!t Happens”.

Snehal Patel is the visual director at The Association.  His film roots date back to the age of seventeen when he hosted, produced and directed his own television show “Digital Basement”.  He worked in Bollywood, India following graduation from film school in Chicago.  After four years in Bollywood Snehal settled in Los Angeles and now trains professionals about new camera technologies and digital post production work flow for The Association.

The Association is hosting Canon camera classes in the form of Boot Camps throughout the summer to train new Canon users on its abilities.  In these classes, Snehal teaches participants the technical skills that are required to use the camera and many of the attendees can participate in a live shoot! All attendees are given a Canon certification for the Canon 5D/7D.

Snehal recently shot an action short titled “Flawless” with director Kevin Shahinian.  He served as a producer and a second unit director.  The Flawless team actually consisted of many Boot Camp graduates that came on to volunteer and use the HDSLR’s in action.  The cameras were used for the all the principal photography and Snehal said that “we got the shoot done because of the cameras…we did two and half weeks of shooting in just a few days”.   The Flawless team was composed of Canon pros so it made perfect sense to bring on graduates as well as Snehal, the HDSLR expert.

“FLAWLESS” The Official Trailer from PACIFIC PICTURES on Vimeo.

The cost effectiveness of the Canon cameras can reduce budgets by 85%.  Week long shoots can be minimized greatly and new footage can also be extracted.  The camera worked great for “Flawless” Snehal explains: “We were on a low budget so saving costs was huge” and the Canon certainly did the job.

Motion control and Multicam techniques are being explored in the upcoming Boot Camp.  These effects are most commonly attributed to the hit film “The Matrix”.  The advantages of the camera are vast and its amazing abilities are revolutionizing the film industry almost overnight.

Multicam is an array of Canon DSLR and still cameras that are computer controlled and can be programmed to snap an image all at once, or in a linear or non-linear sequence.  The resulting images are put together to make motion that is unbelievable!  Reel EFX has been working with these rigs since 1996 and provide full-service shoots and post for commercials, films and TV shows with multicam shots.

During our June 25th Canon Boot Camp, we will be using Reel EFX’s multicam system to get a shot for a high-end commercial that will be filmed during class. We will also use a motion control rig and various other setups for the Canon 5D and 7D. Sign up now and learn how the pros do it! Our Canon camera classes provide Canon Certification on the Canon DSLR 5D and 7D.

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 13 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

I’ve already covered the importance of a company blog several times in this series, so I won’t go over that again. Besides, it’s pretty self evident from the graph above. However, I would like to point out that video has had a pretty big increase since 2009. Are you using custom video production as part of an effective marketing campaign?

One thing to watch for with video is that they don’t just optimize for search the same way long tail keywords research helps written content. Since the search engines can’t “read” video or pictures, you have to make sure to add that content in the right places, wherever the video content is being posted.

If your budget allows it, direct response TV ads  can be an excellent and cost effective way to drive awareness and traffic to your website. Since the cost of retaining a direct response advertising agency like The Association is higher than using a free blog, it’s a good idea to get primary and secondary research done on your target market. That kind of consumer analysis can go along way, if properly done, in weeding out uninterested people from calling in after viewing a direct response TV ad.

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 12 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

Another way to interpret the graph above is that less than 20% consider their company blog “Not Useful.” That’s a pretty low number. Myspace has taken the biggest hit of all the sites, which I don’t find surprising. If you currently find Myspace useful, I’d love to hear how exactly and what kind of business you’re in.

The social networks seem to be averaging out the same. I consider Linkedin, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all vital network for an effective marketing plan, if only because they help the name of a person, company, product, service or organization (or all of the above) improve their visibility to search engines.

This is because the online “foot print” of a single website is comparatively small compared to these much larger social networks. By carving out some “real estate” on Facebook and other big social networks, you can “borrow” their visibility for your brand. So make sure the most effective networks above are part of your enterprise social media campaign.

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

Students attending The Association’s canon camera classes receive our Canon certification on the Canon 5D/7D. This next class is the Pro Level I course and is open to both industry pros and new videographers/cinematographers alike.

At the Canon Boot Camp this Saturday, May 21st we’ll be giving away a Redrock Stealth nano DSLR Rig , a couple of BeachTek DXA-SLRs, Cam Caddies and demoing a lot of new lenses, equipment and even shooting a scene with actress Laureen Trujillo.

Sign up now! The class is nearly full! http://conta.cc/hJZgSQ

Even my largest clients are on the run from high-cost advertising.

Probably I don’t need to find a graph showcasing how consumers don’t respond well to interruptive marketing such as cold-calling. I know I’m not very fond of being interrupted. Sometimes I yearn for days spent on a farm with nothing but family, friends and maybe a goat – until my phone rings or I get a text – breaking my reverie.

Of course, there’s more to an effective marketing plan than just Inbound Marketing. It’s going to be a while before a company can just cut out all their traditional channels of advertising and just rely on an Inbound approach. Especially if a new company is just getting started or if a new product is being launched. Let’s face it, it’s hard to beat the awareness direct response TV ads can create over a short period of time. Currently I reccomend companies continue whatever traditional marketing they are doing now, and back it up with an online campaign.

Starting out with an Inbound Marketing campaign? One of the first to-dos on your list needs to be understanding long-tail keyword research and getting a long list of keywords to design a blog campaign around. Today’s enterprise social media plan must include blogging, so make that a priority!

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 11 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

Since all the companies surveyed were already involved in social media, I supposed this data might be a little slanted in favor of that topic. However, it’s still probably pretty accurate to say that most companies are investing more time and energy into a social networking platform of some kind.

Direct mail is taking a huge hit at 50% less importance. I wouldn’t rule it out completely for any effective marketing plan, as it can drive some awareness. I notice that SEO is a close second to blogs, which is only natural as long tail keyword research is a primary factor in the success of a blog and/or website.

For the few companies that don’t have a website yet, I’d wager that your best bet is to start with a blog, if that’s all you can afford. There are plenty of decent (and free) blogging services to use to get your started. I recommend www.posterous.com for ease of use and excellent visibility when it comes to search engines.

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

Although this is probably not a surprise to many people, The audience for news moved online up 17% over last year. In effect, the Internet was the only major news platform that did not decline in 2010.

The above graph illustrates the need for an effective marketing plan to include a corporate social media element. I have to admit, I hear less and less of the older generation complaining about the Internet and I hear more and more questions about how to utilize this amazing tool.

Although it may seem like there is an endless array of choices, those just starting out in the Internet Amazon should start with a blog and a Facebook business page. Then create tons of unique content centered around good keyword search terms.

While perusing the web this morning, I came across a Canon DSLR video featured on the blog of Philip Bloom. For those not in the know, Philip Bloom is a thought leader in the Canon DSLR video community, as well as an accomplished DP, Director and Producer.

We love the Canon 5D/7D look. We love that it can save up to 85% on production costs on commercial productions as well as our custom video productions. What caught my eye about the video I saw on Philip Bloom’s blog, however, was how a single man captured the street level action at the recent "Royal Wedding of The Century." Of course, I am talking about the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

This was shot using a manfrotto 290 series tripod, Canon 50mm, 16-35mm and a Tamaron 70-300mm lenses, and a Canon 7D:

The Canon 7D so beautifully captured the essence of the people participating in the event, it’s easy to forget that a single man with a very simple setup was able to achieve 35mm-like quality shots.

There’s the real beauty for the new cinematographer: the ability to capture life’s messages as they happen, practically in the palm of your hand. No crew needed, Mother Nature provides most of the lighting.

Of course, when we shoot our short films in our Canon camera classes, we often use a full set up. And lighting. But because of the huge sensor in the Canon 5D and 7D, we have the option of a very light crew and virtually a backpack’s worth of equipment.

Do you have a short film using the Canon DSLR? We’d love to see it. Send it to info@theassociation.tv and we’ll pick a few to feature in upcoming blogs.