Behind the Scenes

How do they do it?

Last weekend, I caught the movie Hancock on FX, and it was a special showing behind the scenes of how they made the movie.  This is an awesome 2 min clip of how the train scene was made in Hancock.  I am extremely intrigued by specials like these, because I’m constantly wondering how they do some of the effects.  They actually animate the whole thing to visualize the scenes before they even shoot any video.  Considering they have a huge team of animators, I still can’t imagine the time it takes to do that.  Check out this 13 second animation of Three Point Oh’s logo, and it took me around 3 days to finish.  Even though Hollywood takes it to the extreme level with production value, such as lights that could light up a small town or a 50 yard dolly camera that costs twice as much as my car, I have seen several of these aspects on the job.

This past January, when the Republican Party came through town, I was a part of several Fox video shoots with Gingrich, Perry, and Romney.  Only a handful of people realize how much really goes into as short as a ten minute satellite feed.  We’ve arrived as early as 4 o’clock in the morning for a ten minute live feed at 8 o’clock.  What could we possibly do for four hours?  Well obviously we have to unload all the gear, which depending on the walk can be a good 45 min operation.  Unless specifically told what the set is (which is a rare thing), we have to build it from scratch in whatever room we are assigned.  This is where the fun part really begins.  After setting up the background, getting power to the lights, positioning the camera, running audio cables, and touching base with the satellite truck another hour and a half has past.  In a perfect world, all we have to do is wait for our talent to arrive.  This of course is never the case.  Your shot can never be perfect (so I’ve found).  Tweaking….and tweaking….and tweaking, then someone comes in and really wants a banner hung in the background, or the window behind him, or the camera on the other side.  Now it’s coming down to the wire.  After the talent gets there, it’s the easy part.  You can stop making changes, frame the shot, and let Fox News do the rest.  

We make sure to TiVo the show, so we can see our work in the end result!

As promised, you can see some photos from recent video shoots to Jack back in the 90’s at our facebook page or the Three Point Oh Website.

Next week I'll show you a home hospice website I've been working on!

What's the Oh! Zone

A little about the company...

Three Point Oh opened its doors in 1989 as a full service on location video production company.  Our main focus was shooting video, and that’s what we were good at.  Since then, the company has grown drastically while adding web design, multi-media authoring, 3D modeling, and much more.  For a full list of services, you can see the breakdown at our Three Point Oh! Website.  It’s truly hard to say everything that we do, and this is how the Oh! Zone was born.  Oh! you do video…yup in HD!  Oh! you do websites…absolutely and from scratch! Oh! you do court depositions…yes and NCRA certified!  Oh! you do (insert service)…yes!  It’s always worth a call (864-467-1056), and we rarely say no we don’t do that. 

“We provide when it counts the most”
 

The exciting part about being a part of a video production company is that you really don’t know what the next project brings.  We have shot video for The Maury Povich Show, America’s Most Wanted, ESPN, CNN, CBS, Fox News, and so many more.  If interested, you can read our full broadcast client list.   Just a few months ago we were the live feed for the President of the United States Speech in North Carolina.  We have to be able to adapt to any situation because 9 times out of 10 you don’t get a second chance.

A little about me…

 

As promised I will formally introduce myself.  My name is Christopher Marks, and I have been affiliated with Three Point Oh my whole life.  That’s right…owner and senior videographer, Jack Marks, is my dad!  Since I graduated from college, I have taken over the web and graphics department at the company.  I do a combination of web, logo, and print design.  I’m also an animator creating 3D Models, 3D Logos, and photo-realistic renders (this is where my degree in architecture is useful).   Enough about me for now, I really want to talk about our success!

A little about our success...!

 

 We have gone up 6 places in Google search results and are now on the first page!!  I want to believe that I only had a small responsibility for the success, but that you (my audience) made the difference.  While I’m celebrating on the inside, this is only one search engine, and I still have my work cut out for me.  This brings me to an important question…What search engine do you use (for example Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc)?  Feel free to comment on our twitter page, facebook page, google+ page, or comment right here below the blog.

Next time I’ll share some pictures of the crew, and I will keep you informed about some upcoming projects.

Plunging into SEO

Why has the internet become so overwhelming?

My first blog post is jumping in head first, skipping all introductions, and talking about what I've gotten myself into.  Several months ago, I took over our companies website and decided to re-design everything ( a massive undertaking I realize now).  While the design went through many renditions, I finally arrived at a design that functions nicely and is aesthetically pleasing.  You can see for yourself at the Three Point Oh! Website.  What that merely means is that I'm 10% done with the task ahead.  A simple visit to Google has shown that our company isn't nearly as high in the ranks as we'd like to be, to achieve the desired traffic to our site.  It all comes down to SEO (search engine optimization).  I can't tell you how many articles, videos, and forums I have read concerning SEO and each one adds another to-do for the constantly changing internet.  Some good ones I've found are Google Shows How to Master SEO in 10 mins or SEOmoz Ranking Factors.

Now that search engines have gotten smarter, technology has improved, and the internet has grown infinitely bigger, it is no longer a cut and dry procedure.  A simple meta data description and keyword placement used to have huge effects.  Now, they say not to waste your time.  Here is the essential step I've taken away from my research:

Search engines use bots to crawl and index your site through the html (webmaster tools has become my new best friend).  It searches for all the internal and external links.  The more links you have externally from quality sites will tell search engines there is worthwhile content on your site.  This will directly affect your ranking in those engines.  Now the fun part!

My Experiment...

My company, Three Point Oh! Inc., now has a public twitter, facebook, and google+ page.  With this post we will officially have a blog.  I hope most of you have made it this far in the reading (other than our family supporters) which we love!...but take the extra time to follow this blog, re-tweet, re-post, add +1, or any of the other millions of ways to share things on the internet.  If you visit our website hit the like button.  My first goal is to build an audience, and that starts with you!

Next time I'll tell you a little about myself and what we do at the Oh! Zone.