How Canon captured more than photos and film

Suzette at the Canon Event, Paramount Studios, Los Angeles, CA

Friday, November 4th at The Paramount studios in Los Angeles, Canon launched it’s newest product the C300. As a Canon 7d owner and longtime industry film and photo freelancer, I was excited to receive an invite from Canon to be at the product debut for a hands on demonstration.  Canon captured more than photos and film they captured their audience. Canon got alot of the publicity event elements right but professionals say they missed the mark with their product. Regardless, Canon knows how to put on a good show and get people talking.

This post isn’t about covering the specifications on this product, only a brief analysis of the publicity element, so if you are interested in reading more about the camera specs check out this blog:

http://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=429

Canon delivered hundreds of passes to the product launch event to Media production facilities and notable film/video individuals around the country. By sending out invitations, to those movers and shakers in the film and video industry, Canon focused on the group they felt was their target audience. Focus is a key factor in determining your user group, and how the product will affect workflow. In this case filmmakers looking for a cinematic style optioned camera with easy maneuverability.

Location of the launch event was a key factor in setting the right mood for the aim of this product, namely filmmakers. Holding the event at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, the film capital of the world made a bold statement to the community that Canon is opening its market to a new type of filmmaker whose budget is around the 20k area. Obviously, location is great way to shift your audiences thought process about your product. The average person knows Canon as a photography company as well as their dominance in HDSLR arena but this announcement gets people to see the company in multiple aspects.

Another vital aspect of this event launch was the hands on product demonstration and cross promotion effort. Canon had more than a generous amount of different models available in different configurations to suit a variety of filmmaking situations. We all know how important it is to be able to hold the product in hand and get first hand knowledge of what we like about the product and what it can really do. Now here is where the product can really affect the consumers and make or break the appeal for the intended audience. After the product reaches the consumer’s hand, its really out of your control the direction opinions will take. All you can do is set the stage to give the target market access to get the word out, and they will decide whether it meets their needs. Canon definitely excelled in this department and collaborated with numerous related film and photographic companies to provide the best possible user experience. One company on hand that collaborated with Canon was Red Rock. Each representative was very knowledgeable not only with their company’s product but the host company’s product as well.

Social media played a huge impact in information being rapidly deployed the minute it was unveiled. As always there is always more than one opinion about whether a product is good or whether a product is bad. Nothing can be all things to all people. But like the saying says, sometimes any coverage is better than no coverage. Twitter, Facebook and their website all offered information about the product and its future.

The climax however of Canon’s publicity event was the Full cinematic screening of several films made on the new camera before it made its debut to the general public. You can view some of the released films here at the following links

http://canoncinemaeos.com/?Nov3

http://vimeo.com/user8943175/review/31623615/c55b54fdb3?Nov4

http://www.canoncinemaeos.com/media-gallery.php?Nov5

 

Canon, indeed made their mark  again by capturing more than just photos and film. They captured the audience they felt was their target market. Isn’t that what we all want to do? Start capturing your audience. And if you need help, don’t hesitate to call. I’m here to help you make your dream visible.

Behind the Scenes- 24hour Fitness Video Promotion

Last Friday and this past Monday I worked on the 24 hour Fitness promotion video.  Yes it’s true, our whole crew worked on Memorial day. I didn’t even realize that it was Memorial day, when I booked it, since I had been working so much the days sort or ran together.  In the TV/Film/Video industry sometimes working weekends, early mornings and 10-14 hour days isn’t unusual. So forgetting it’s a holiday wasn’t out of the range of normal for me and so I worked and all was well.

Our spokesmodel Monique V. has been the person of choice for the past few years for 24hour Fitness. She is not only the spokesmodel, but also a fitness and figure champion as well as a fitness trainer with an extensive clientele in the San Francisco Bay Area.  It’s always great working with people who are professionals in their industry. It makes the day go smoothly because they take care of the preparation work on their end and come ready to work and get the job done.

Monique had 17 scripts over two days to prepare for and most of the time she captured what was needed in one take. Yes…she’s that good.

Their has only been one shoot where I wasn’t able to work with her on a 24 hour fitness shoot because I was booked somewhere else so it was great to catch up and try out some new looks on her for this shoot.

Primarily this video is to promote the 24hour fitness clubs and their amenities so the focus had to be on both Monique as well as the spoken content. Making sure that she has a look that is both captivating and healthy but not too overly made up is what we aimed for an achieved.

I’ve included a few pictures in this post of what we used on Monique to get her look.

And once again since it was shot over 2 days we had to maintain continuity. (I wrote about this in another post titled “How makeup continuity helps your beauty workflow”.

Another tip regarding continuity that I may not have included in that post that I want to share with you is about lipstick. Because the shirt for 24hour Fitness was red we needed a lipstick in the same tone.  I mixed a few different reds together with a hint of brown to get the color we needed and then obviously saved it in a lip container for use on the next shoot. Keeping the color is an instant time saver, since I didn’t have to remix what I used nor try to remember to get the right ratio of color mixtures.

So when you know you are shooting over a few days mix enough for several applications as well as touch ups for all the days. The other option is to use 1 color from the tube and use that tube for all the shooting days. But remember unless you were a part of the preproduction meeting you may not have the time to get a lipstick dedicated to this shoot. Which was my reason for mixing a color.

Here is a link to one of our video’s from last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ePhMX-ofc&feature=relmfu

 

Thanks for following the recap of my workday with 24hour fitness.