Star City FAME has been out on some fun shoots this month of July, so far. Coming off a couple great live shows last month, we've had the opportunity and pleasure to catch Roanoke Revolution's first-ever "Underground Melodies Music and Art Festival" on July 10th, right after a week up North in Woodstock, NY, where the temperatures were above 100 every day. We got to shoot some more footage of Denise Jordan Finley and Daniel Pagdon for an on-going musical documentary. We hurried back to catch the day and night-long festival in Boones Mill, VA.
That weekend, we caught the Star City Roller Girls' double-header, taping some really great action of their rookies in a game they called "Fresh Meat Bout."
On the 16th, Star City FAME headed over to WVTF to shoot the station's "Juried Art Show." There were musical guests, catering by Center Stage, and of course, ART!!!
And just the other day, we grabbed footage of Milan Tobacconists' cigar event featuring world-renowned master cigar maker and blender Don José 'Pepín' Garcia. Right after that, just a couple blocks away, was the Starbomb Bicycle Superheroes bike event, meeting at Sharebike, taking cyclers on one of the wildest rides two (or three) wheelers could ever hope to make!! These bikers were truly super-heroes (the event's theme for the bike race down Mill Mountain, and for its parade through Downtown).
Yes, we're working on the videos. A few are already uploaded. But we are currently upgrading our hardware, so this weekend's editing is delayed a little. Our new system will be a dedicated new editing machine. Now if only we could get a dedicated new editor who needs nothing but coffee to run on...
Don't forget, there are still plenty of groovy events going on out there in the old 'Noke. Tonight, catch the Roanoke Hard Rock Festival (going on til 11pm), and if you're already downtown, the Square Society is still crawling the pubs in their Summertime Cocktail Crawl today until 9pm.
It's about time we write a little bit about food. For some of us, chocolate is an essential part of nutrition, perhaps of the emotional kind!! You know you have moments when you could just get plain nasty without a chocolate fix. So, does any piece of chocolate do the trick? Nope.
I mean, you just can't put ANY ordinary chocolate into your system. Not you or your kids. No, no, no!! And even if you think, well, maybe that fancy-wrapped gourmet stuff in the supermarket is loads better than the ones in the shiny dark brown wrapper, you'd be mistaken. Why? Because those have been sitting around the store a few days (or weeks). And ya know, it takes a while for the store to receive them. So, counting in the distribution and shipping times, your fancy brand might be a couple weeks old already. Are you eating preservatives meant for shelf-life? Yup.
Okay, what can you do about it? Is there some kind of chocolate factory around? Well, no. Not exactly... Or some kind of secret homemade chocolate connection you need to know? Getting closer!! How about an artisan chocolatier store - a place that makes chocolates fresh daily, by hand?? BINGO!!
Baylee's Best Chocolates is the place - right here in Roanoke, in SW County. They are the best-kept secret in town. But those who know... ah, yes, they do feel special. You get the royal treatment in this cozy little shop, hidden in the back end of the West Village Shopping Center behind Baja Bistro (formerly The Daily Grind). Owner Bayla Sussman and her friendly staff create a variety of scrumptious chocolate treats, which in itself is fun to watch through the glass panes inside the store while you decide between Truffles, Buttercreams, and Pretzel Pops. Baylee's Best makes dozens of different chocolate creations, and they're always designing new flavors to use... even taking requests for your ideas to suit your taste or occasion!
And yes, you don't need to be a local to indulge. Baylees will ship individual orders direct to you, however that may depend on the season. Chocolate melts, ya know, so call the store to find out more details about mail orders.
As for us Roanokers... no sweet tooth or chocolate attack can be best satisfied than with rich, creamy, and freshly made chocolate. Right here, in town. Indulge yourself!! It's the edible equivalent to fine diamonds.
Dead, you say?? How dare... oh wait, I did just look around to see if the last website had any videos, didn't I?? (Yup, you probably did.)
Even the phonebook companies are gearing up for video. Let your eyeballs do the walking? Hell yes! So let your video ad do all the talking, baby!
There was a comprehensive report done recently by DoubleClick (See Report here) wherein they analyze the effectiveness of ad formats. Rich media involves complex flash, animation and/ or video ad formats. The study includes these as well as the older formats of images and simple flash.
We have been heading toward total visual for a long time, if you count the 60 plus years of television and about 100 years of motion pictures, not to mention early animation. (Remember those booklets with a hundred pages of drawings of a cat that seemed to move when you filed through the booklet? No, well then you ain't old enough and you probably think I'm kidding.)
Don't get me wrong - people still do read. The difference is that today, if it's in words, it needs to be interactive for the reader. A blog or forum would be useless if readers couldn't post comments. Cellphone texting is another example in which people read messages, but the idea is to participate in real time. This is much different than how we started off using pagers twenty or so years ago, and it advanced quite rapidly after that, from just static sending of alerts and cellphone photos to the texting we do today.
For websites, again we need to hold people's interest, and that improves by reducing their burden to read too much information - ah, that wordy explanation of your product or service typically needed for accomodating spiders, crawlers, and that whole google search engine phenomenon.
Not only is visitor interest important, that is getting them to stay on your site and navigate it. You want visitors to make a proactive decision: Buy your products or services!! Well, they have to FIND you first, right? And this is the best part about using videos.
For those looking to rank and be found, a well-titled video hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or other video-sharing sites, will markedly improve your search status without spending thousands of dollars on SEO. The video can be a traditional-looking 30 second ad, but your options are many. Don't limit yourself. You also do not have to limit your ad to just the video hosting site. Once posted, take the video file's link and drop it in any of the popular online social networking sites you belong to. Of course, you can include the video on your company's (or org's) site, too. If you have the marketing budget, and you carefully choose an effective online marketing consultant or company, they can provide some strategic SEO solutions. But for guerrilla marketing, which is what most small businesses are doing these days, videos are a more cost-effective and results-effective way to go. (Hell, even huge corporations are going this route.)
If your company or proprietorship is already popular and you have top ranking on search engines, you still should think about staying on top of your game. There are always competitors out there selling cheaper, faster, better, more. What you present in a video can make the difference. A kind and sincere welcome to your services, a product demonstration, an entertaining invitation to visit your location, or a sincere customer testimonial are some nice ideas. Personal, helpful and familiar are the way to go in our socially-driven online world.
I know you all know from my blog that I cover lots of events and music in the Roanoke area. I shoot videos of all types and genres. These include videos for commerce. They can be short or long, for online or for DVD presentations, and for-profit businesses or for non-profits. I am always interested in working with new and current subjects, clients and ideas to bring your best visual message up front and out into the world.
My latest video is a Real Estate listing. (I also shoot for a phone company's online business pages. Those are 30 second "ads" and a bit formulaic.) This residential home video includes a voice-over, which I also produce here at my studio. I run an audio recording and video production company. Professional audio tracking is essential in many different shoots - and not every video producer offers that. This is why I call Star City Fame a Media company. I built this company by expanding my existing pro-audio studio, adding professional video for on and off-location shoots.
(Source for the graph posted above is: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using online display advertising of any format N=547-765)
One of the things Star City Fame does is showcase various Arts and Entertainment around town. But we also like to tell you about Roanoke's rising businesses and services.
This past week, Hans Moore of Ahhapictures and Ron (that's me) at Star City Fame began a small series of shoots at a Cosmetic Surgery center in SW Roanoke. Kathleen Palmerton-Gorman is the Licensed Master Esthetician performing the Laser Skin Resurfacing in the videos we'll be editing and presenting online.
I have never seen this procedure done before, and was quite nervous about witnessing something that might make me dizzy and faint. (I'm such a wuss.) Well, that never happened. In fact, both the videographers (Hans and I) and the patients had absolutely no problem getting through their short procedure. (Thank heavens!!) If any of you have ever had a tattoo done, that's about how intense it seems, and the patients claim it feels similar to getting a bit of sunburn. Actually, since the patient is given an anesthetizing cream on their skin, it's unfair to compare it to tattoos. There is virtually no pain involved. The few days it takes to heal does resemble having been in the sun, including that peeling process one goes through afterwards. Definitely tolerable.
About Hans - what he likes to do (and you can catch his stuff on YouTube) is show exactly what goes on during laser surgery in a documentary-style way. This helps anyone who is interested in getting laser surgery done for themselves by viewing the procedure from start to finish, as well as the "after" footage (which will be added progressively) on how the patient is healing in the coming days.
Ms Palmerton-Gorman was gracious enough to allow our cameras inside the "operating room" to film all the details - much of it very up-close. Her practice is growing, and this series of shoots will aim to bring awareness to the benefits of having laser cosmetic surgery done for any interested individuals, while answering the many questions potential clients may have just by watching the videos. It will also give you a chance to meet Kathleen and learn about her expertise in the field.
Here are some before and after pictures, courtesy Southwest Virginia Center at http://www.swvacenter.com/
Kathleen's office is at the Southwest Virginia Center on Colonnade Drive in SW County, Roanoke. She will give you a free skin consultation if you contact her (540) 989-6361 or email her at kpalmerton@swvacenter.com.
We're excited for Kathleen and looking forward to presenting her practice on the Star City Fame website as one of our Premier Providers in Roanoke because we enjoy showcasing the awesome business talent in our great Valley!
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