Sweeps is back, and with it comes several opportunities for the promotion department to shine!
Here's one spot I had some fun with: The FitBit Challenge. All the Good Day anchors were going to wear Fitbits during a two week period and see who could get the most steps. Based on that concept, here's the promo I came up with:
I produced and edited this promo.
It's that time of the year again!
For the second year in a row, I was tasked with producing and editing our department's "Sales/Demo Reel". Basically I take all the best stuff from the year and show off what we did in 2015. Last year's reel won a Silver PromaxBDA award (and the year before won a Bronze), so we've got high hopes for this one! Check it out:
My father-in-law loves his Raiders, and his wife loves recording him watching the games. She sent me a few clips and asked me to do something funny with them. Spoiler alert: it contains NSFW language. Here's 20 minutes worth of effort:
Sweeps is well underway, which means I'm bustin' my chops to crank out quality promos for quality stories! Here's a few I've done so far.
Sleep Train Secret Tunnel
A secret tunnel beneath the basketball arena! Where could it lead? How creepy is it? I hear the ghosts of circus clowns and Globetrotters haunt it at night, but that's unconfirmed.
Energy Drink Dangers
Energy drinks did WHAT?! to this local father? But I drink them all the time! Guess I'll have to switch to good sleep and healthy eating, but that's no fun.
Gravestone Found
Need to shoot in a cemetery, but don't have a cemetery? See what Art can whip up for you!
What's that? I look familiar? Why yes, I do get that a lot, because I'm on television.
I've never wanted to be in front of the camera, but somehow it keeps happening. While some believe it's my raw, primal talent, others claim it's my natural charm and charisma. I'll recuse myself from that one and let the fans duke it out.
Really, I just do it when my bosses ask me to. Probably easier (and cheaper) than hiring an actor. You may remember my appearance in the award-winning 1331 Creative Demo Reel (I played "The Guy"), or from various other station commercials. It keeps happening, people make fun of me, and I do it again for some reason.
Here's the latest spot, and a few classics:
Not bad, right? Don't answer that.
Now you may be quick to point out that I have a minor in theater arts. This is true, though the extent of my acting training did not go beyond an Acting 1 class. Long story short, I got a certificate in film studies, which included several theater arts classes. By the end, I was only one class away from a minor, so I tacked it on.
But hey, I'm acting, and I'm on the clock, so that means I'm a paid actor, right? Woo! Way to go, theater arts minor!
Here's a fun flashback to college. For a studio production class, I had to write out the script for a talk show, which I preformed while other students learned to use the board and cameras. Enter Ace Duffley, a talk show host who is more concerned with his next question than his guest's answer. Sad thing is, there's plenty of people like this in the real world. And yes, that is legendary SB Nation host/commentator Dan Rubenstein playing the part of "the guest".
I've been told never to work with children or animals in television. For some reason I completely forgot this when May sweeps came around, because I volunteered the services of my dog for a shoot.
Don't get me wrong... Bo's a great kid. He's a 2 year old lab/beagle mix with a heart of gold. He's also full of energy and impossible to control.
I took a camera home and shot it myself. It took at least an hour to get the four or five shots I needed for a 15 second commercial! Lots of chasing, shouting and treats. Little bastard...
Here's the finished commercial, which will probably be Bo's last.
All journalists have a list of stories that they will carry with them forever. However, on the back of that list is another list. A list of stories they wish could be wiped from their memories. This story from 2009 was one of those.
I liked to think I was a pretty open-minded guy, so when I was sent to a nudest colony to shoot a world record attempt for skinny dipping, I wasn't terribly concerned. I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say your typical nudest isn't exactly someone you'd want to see in the buff. This day was spent surrounded by hundreds of them.
Because it can never be forgotten, I might as well watch it one more time. Feel free to join me below, but remember... you will never be able to unsee it. (Since it aired on the news, it's obviously "safe for work.")
The only thing more difficult than repressing memories from that day was making sure I didn't accidentally show something I wasn't supposed to... and making the shots blurry actually made it harder! I kept thinking I was seeing things that weren't there. I must have watched it twenty times, and made others watch it too, just to be sure it wouldn't be my last story with the station.
Some time ago, I was living as an idealistic journalism student. Oh yeah, I was pretty sure I had the world figured out... but just to be sure, I decided to get out and see it.
Could I... would I... hop a plane to the other side of the world and spend a month discovering what I was made of? An opportunity had presented itself, and I wasn't about to take it lightly. So after a few beers I came to the following conclusion: "Hey, why not!"
This is how I got involved with International Student Volunteers, an organization that takes students from around the US to other parts of the world in an effort to do good. I had little experience in conservation work at the time, but figured there was no better way to learn than diving in head first!
The summer before my senior year at the University of Oregon, I hitched a ride to New Zealand. Along with forty other college students, I spent a month learning just what I was made of!
Over the next four weeks, I built trails in the rain forest, removed invasive plants from local swamps, and conducted surveys along the coast. It was tough, dirty and challenging... and I loved every minute of it.
But you can't travel across the world without taking in a few side adventures. That's where the days off came in. As we traveled across both islands of the country, there were plenty of bonus outings to be had.
Want to go hike up a glacier?
Skydive at sunset?
How about try the highest bungy jump in the world (at the time)?
I learned a lot on this trip, and I like to think that it fueled my desire to venture into the world of news. Get paid to go on daily adventures? Count me in!
A few years back, the Mrs. and I took a trip to NYC and were able to catch both Colbert and Letterman during our week long stay. Who knew we were standing at the crossroads of the future of late night television?
Now, with Colbert taking over The Late Show, I produced two campaigns to promote the premiere on our station. The first set promoted our main anchor's one-on-one interview with Colbert, which was split into three separate stories.
The second set counted down the days until the premiere using 5 second station IDs. To localize these spots to our market, we took a cardboard cutout to various local landmarks.
Why yes, those are my hands! Guess I can add "professional hand model" to the resume.
The best part about working for KEZI-9 in Eugene, OR was that the company also had a production department ("Chambers Productions") that ran the jumbo-tron at University of Oregon football and basketball games. As a third generation Duck and lifelong fan of the team, getting to be right in the middle of the action was pretty darn cool, especially for a recent college grad who didn't have much TV production experience in the real world.
Most of my time was spent as a cable jockey, wrapping cables behind the field cameras that shot for the jumbo-tron. Occasionally the cameraman would have to use the bathroom and I'd get to jump into action behind the lens, which eventually helped me get a photographer position at KEZI. (Side note: That bathroom faring cameraman later became my boss in Sacramento. It's all about who you know!)
I also got a chance to put some of those low rent mascots in their respective places.
I worked a few basketball games too, but have no wacky photos to prove it.
It sounded like a simple idea for a spot... lower a sign in the background, then dump a bucket of confetti on an anchor. Easy!
Then comes the logistics: What's the sign attached to? Who will lower it, and from where? Can we power the lights on it? How do we dump confetti straight down in a wide shot? Can we keep the bucket out of the shot? What if we miss? Where are we going to get all that confetti?!
Working out all the details and rigging everything perfectly required about two hours and six people... but it worked! Eureka! Check it out:
I won't reveal just how we did it, but I will say next time we should just do it all in post.
When Mommy goes to work and Daddy drinks too much coffee in the morning, wacky hijinks ensue at Nelson Manor. This morning, for example, led to this short film starring my one-year-old daughter.
This, of course, follows in the tradition of my earlier films. Eight years ago, I shot The Adventures of Jasper and Goldbug, a low budget, low brow, low quality short film that exploited our family dog's inexplicable fear of a golden bug statue. This later spawned a Christmas themed sequel, A Very Jasper and Goldbug Christmas, which went on to great acclaim (two "THUMBS UP" clicks on YouTube!).
I'm sure there will be more to come.
20 is a big birthday... especially for a morning show! So with Good Day's 20th anniversary coming up, we created a variety of commercials to get people excited. My first contribution was a "music video" featuring some of their finer moments from the past two decades. It's a fun 60-second romp through time, like a brief musical version of Back to the Future. Yup, just like that.
There's no better way to celebrate than with a big ol' heapin' box of confetti. Nope, none. So when we started working on a super top secret commercial involving a celebration, we knew we had to go all-out! This will be the biggest confetti drop in recent memory, hands down!!
So... How does one go about obtaining confetti? Amazon has it... 5 star-rated, slow falling, flame resistant, and color-fast (whatever that means)... but at $13.95/lb, we were looking at one costly confetti dump. So Boss ordered us to do it the old fashioned way: tearing a bunch of s*** up!
We spent an hour or so devising various ways of confetti construction, from cutting with scissors to burning out the motor of a paper shredder.
So far, so good, but we are going to need A LOT more if this spot is going to work. So it's back to work for me! To be continued...
Last year, as a team building exercise, our creative services department took part in the Sacramento 10X10 Challenge. Basically we got ten days to create an eight minute (shortened from ten because of the number of entries) short film. The result was "Love Rules!", a hilarious romp through the world of romance for one very unpleasant man. Check it out! (WARNING: Contains NSFW language!)
The film went on to win SIX awards at the 2014 Sacramento Film Festival, including the Audience and Jury awards. Not bad at all!
Because production took place shortly after my daughter was born, I had to limit my role to that of a writer. I wish I could have done more, but I'm proud of what we churned out in a very short time!
At the end of every year, our department puts together a "best of" reel showcasing all the fine work we did. Last year I took the reigns on the project, and we tried something a little different. In addition to a bunch of pretty shots cut to music, we framed it a a recruiting video for the department. Yes, that's me as the "lead actor" (if you can call that acting). I also produced and edited the project.
This project won a silver PromaxBDA Local Award for Sales/Demo Reel.
Last year we won bronze in this category, so I can only assume gold is coming our way in 2016!
Taking the "Getting Answers" brand to the next level! Every week, reporter Tony Lopez loads into Mobile13 and hits a different city, asking residents what they want answers to.
Taking the "Getting Answers" brand to the next level! Every week, reporter Tony Lopez loads into Mobile13 and hits a different city, asking residents what they want answers to. This is the first spot I produced for the "Getting Answers Road Tour" segment on CBS13.
For no good reason, I grabbed a GoPro and turned our Creative Services department into an episode of Game of Thrones (minus the graphic violence and nudity).
Who will conquer and who will parish in this brutal world of television promotions?
Towards the end of college, many students are left believing they've got all the experience they need to land a high paying job in a top market. Nobody ever really tells you how tough the competition can be for just an entry level position. Surprise!
After graduating from the University of Oregon, I was lucky enough to get my foot in the door at KEZI-9, Eugene's ABC station. I was hired as the tape operator for the evening newscasts, a position that doesn't even exist anymore. That's probably a good thing, because it was the most stressful job I've ever had. Shortly before the show, I was handed maybe 40 tapes, and I had to quickly organize them to play during the live newscast. Then it was a juggling act between four tape decks: Play, stop, eject, play, cue, eject, play, stop, cue, eject, play, stop. One mistake, and all the video for the rest of the block would be thrown off, which managers and anchors didn't take lightly! After the first few days, I was sure I'd get fired from my first job out of college.
But eventually I figured it out, and got pretty good at it. Three months later, a full-time editor position came open, and I was able to move up to that (and do the tape operator job as well...). Another three months, and a coveted news photographer spot opened up. Finally I'd made it to the big time!
Of course, I had a lot to learn, and much of it was learned the hard way. Over the next year, I learned from some very talented coworkers and eventually refined my skills enough to move on up to Sacramento, market #20.
Here's some of my favorite stories I shot and edited from the days at "Keezy-9 News."