Corporate Productions Ramp Up pt.1
Jim
It's the economy stupid! The famous phrase James Carville coined as a strategy of Bill Clinton's successful 1992 campaign still rings true today. As the economy has picked up, so have the meetings - and the productions - that fuel the live-event production community. The tightening of the corporate belt seems a distant hiccup as tech giants Google, Cisco, Citrix, Oracle, Adobe and Apple have ramped up productions the last couple of years.
My last post was almost a year ago, so as I have a couple of hours before I finish up a job in Anaheim tonight (concert with Maroon 5), it's about time to recap the last 350 days...
Summer 2012 projects included the Google I/O developer's conference - where sky divers jumped from a blimp onto Moscone Center in the most amazing demo I've ever been a part of. Including the five "Glass" cameras on the sky divers, we had around 20 cameras covering the demo.
Summer continued: SAP event in Palo Alto for Atlantic TV; Cisco in San Diego for Creative Technologies and Seagate in the South Bay with Kenwood.
Cisco's Globals Sales Conference was held at their San Jose campus. Actually it was also held in Singapore, England, India and the Middle East. Produced by TenCue and directed from the Cisco Studios, we went live with each of these locations in a synchronized opening.
I directed a Fitness video shoot for Optimal Life (at right). In addition to the my usual crew, I had the pleasure of hiring my nephew Jon as the b-roll camera op.
In Long Beach for HGP productions (where I was introduced to the Beachwood Brewing & BBQ restaurant). Amazing burgers - and beer!
Fall saw productions for George P. Johnson & Intel; Adobe shows for Carlstrom Productions & The Kenwood Group; and the largest conference in SF: Oracle Open World, produced by InVision Communications; video production provided by World Stage (formerly Video Applications).
A week later it was off to Barcelona for the second time in two years and the Citrix Summit & Synergy shows. A successful production, a great City and a great crew. Seen here at Tapeo, our favorite downtown tapas bar.
October through December productions included the Safeway Foundation's fundraiser on Treasure Island for World Stage; Autodesk University in Las Vegas for TenCue and Adobe in San Jose for Carlstrom Productions.
Many moons ago - right out of college - I worked for the legendary San Francisco radio station KSAN. KSAN produced hundreds of live shows over its 12 year life and I had the opportunity to work on the Live Jive recording crew for four years.Through social networks, I've stayed connected to the former staff and three years ago started a collaboration with Kenny Wardell to produce Live Jive a collection of live shows from 1968-1974. Santana, The Dead & Jefferson Airplane are among the 10 tracks. Original station ID's and new tracks from former DJ's are interspersed between the tracks. Released last fall, Live Jive proceeds benefit the Haight Asbury Medical Clinic.
Live Jive
Well, shows starting in a couple of hours; that was only 120 days - Think I'll get to the start of 2013 in the next edition.
Cheers,
Jim