Tag Archives: sgacreative

Promotional Video: Late Nite Labs

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I recently wrote, narrated, and produced this video for LateNiteLabs.com.

I tend to get passionate about any project I work on… but this one was special.

I used to work at a science museum doing live demonstrations: making kids’ hair stand on end with static electricity, blowing things up with liquid nitrogen.  I’ve seen first-hand just how powerful the experience of hands-on science can be for kids.  It opens their eyes, helps them understand concepts in a brand-new way, and it really does help them to discover a genuine love of science.

Unfortunately, in high school and college science departments, hands-on labs are becoming less and less common.  The equipment is expensive and fragile.  And in today’s economy, when some schools can barely afford textbooks, buying enough supplies for a whole class to try even one experiment, much less a whole series, just doesn’t happen.

Late Nite Labs provides an alternative: virtual labs.  Students try classic chemistry and biology experiments, going through the same steps they’d use in a real lab, but in a Flash-based web app, instead.  That means they can take their time, they can make mistakes, they can go back and try again, they can even try experiments they’d never have a chance to attempt in real life.  To me, that sounds like a fantastic opportunity.

It took a few rounds of revisions to get the video just right, but I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out–and I’m THRILLED to have had a chance to help promote Late Nite Labs.

Promo: Shark’s Den Poker

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Shark’s Den Poker wanted a short promotional video that would introduce their family of poker sites to new players–and also to potential affiliates.  These are obviously two very different audiences, which made appealing to them in one video a little tricky.

It took a few revisions to get the script just right, but I think we pulled it off quite nicely in the end.

Tutorial: Studio Helper

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Studio Helper is an online system designed to help music studios, dance studios, or anyone with a small private school manage their students, teachers, calendar, and invoicing.  They asked me to write, narrate, and produce a whole series of tutorial videos.  In fact, 25 videos in all.

“Thanks for all your help with these videos. I think they turned out really well, and our customers are finding them very helpful in learning the software.” – Brandon Pearce, StudioHelper.com

This particular video covers part of the invoicing system–which meant, of course, that I had to create a whole slew of sample student records, sample classes for them to be billed for, a sample studio complete with its own logo, and so forth.  I think it turned out rather well–and Brandon was one of the best clients I’ve ever had.

To watch more of my Studio Helper videos, please visit their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/studiohelper.

Tutorial: Form Lizard

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I created a whole series of tutorial videos for FormLizard.com, a site that allows users to replace their old-fashioned paper forms and fill-in-the-blank contracts with easy, online interviews.  Users answer a few questions, and end up with a clean, seamless, customized document, which they can print out or submit electronically.

Since then, FormLizard has brought me back in several more times to create additional tutorials about their newest features.  This is one of those additional videos–specifically, about how to send a form to your client for a signature without wasting paper.

For more samples of my work for Form Lizard, visit their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/blueburrosoftware/featured.

 

Tutorial: Modern Closets Direct

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ModernClosetsDirect.com asked me to write, narrate, and produce a tutorial video to show new customers how to use their editor to design custom walk-in closets.  The editor provides a lot of options, but they wanted to keep  their video fairly short. 

I like the way this one turned out–especially the ending, where we take the sample design we’ve been putting together and show how it turns into a professional design, and ultimately a finished, real-world closet system.

Also, as with any client whose website has a very distinctive look, I adapted my style so the video would fit in.  Based on early reports, the client (and their customers) seem to like their new tutorial.

Photo Slideshow: Seminar for Historical Administration

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I narrated and produced this promotional slideshow for the Seminar for Historical Administration, a professional-development program for museum and history professionals.

In this case, the client wrote the script and chose the photos.  I fine-tuned the script a little, swapped some photos around to make a more effective presentation, recorded the voiceover, and produced the video from there.  So, not a particularly complex project, but definitely a video style I wanted to be sure to include here.

Slideshow: Cadence Skyscape Watch

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I’ve completed several video-editing projects for the Cadence Watch Company over the past few years.

But for their New York Skyscape watch, where each number on the watch face represents a famous building in Manhattan, they wanted for a photo slideshow featuring the actual buildings.  So my role this time was to research the buildings, write the script, find public-domain photos, create the slideshow, doing the narration, and put it all together.

I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out–and so was Cadence.

Video Course: McGrath Enterprise SEO

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Most of my videos are short: 90 seconds, 3 minutes, 5 at the most.  But in this case, I was asked to take an existing e-book and use it as the script for a very simple, affordable, Powerpoint-based video course.

This is one section of one chapter.  In all, I created a little over two hours of material… and the client promptly hired me again to add 4 more hours to the course.

Slideshow: Ambassador Promotions

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I’ll freely admit, this one was a challenge. Ambassador Promotions and Events, a company that does one-on-one marketing (like street teams, trade show staffing, and in-store promotions), conducts on-the-street surveys, and so forth, waas just about to spin off from their parent company. All they really had for me to work with, were a few dozen photos of their teams (mostly from a distance), and a list of the clients their staff had worked with in the past.

I honestly wasn’t sure how to turn those materials into an effective video… until I noticed two of the photos in particular, obviously taken seconds apart. First, a member of the street team hands something to a passing pedestrian. And then that pedestrian stops dead in his tracks, turns back, and BEAMS.

I’ve already talked on this site about my love of telling stories. Well, that right there? That’s a story. I knew I had to make the video about that moment.