Dave Morris » todd fraser

First Twitter, now video, what’s next for Steve Lackmeyer?

davemorris — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:17:51 +0000

Steve Lackmeyer did a nice job of lining up several guests on a recent Friday morning in Bricktown. We efficiently knocked out a month and a half’s worth of segments. Check Steve’s blog at OKCCentral.com and look for these video segments each Tuesday.

And follow Steve on Twitter: @stevelackmeyer.

I’m working on the production quality of the editing. Not terribly happy with the intro. I love the time lapse and pan Todd Fraser shot. But the rest got a little cheesy.

The closing part of the segment features some old photos Steve found in our photo archive. He narrates a quick OKC history lesson as we reveal the pics. Pretty cool idea.

Using the green screen

davemorris — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:22:27 +0000

Sometimes on NewsOK you’ll see various advertising that is beyond the usual tile or banner. You may have seen the Oklahoma City Philharmonic or a choir “walk out” on the screen of your browser.

We use a green screen in the 7th floor studio, similar to what you see on the local TV stations’ weather segments. You can see in the above picture (click for larger image) Brad Belyeu with a cut-out basketball (yes, basketball) on his head. The newest walk-out ad is more of a “peel-away” ad that you’ll see at the top right corner of your browser.

The Thunder basketball bought this form of advertising on NewsOK and we’ll have it online soon.

Brad is a season ticket holder to the Thunder. We spent about an hour in the studio earlier this week working on this shot. Todd Fraser used C-stands usually meant for lights or shades to work as a window that pushes down; then draped it in green to keep the green screen effect.

Behind the scenes of a Buy 4 Less commercial

davemorris — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:57:31 +0000

Todd Fraser and I loaded up the gear and met the always cheerful Sean and Cathy Cummings at Buy 4 Less at 3501 NW Expressway this morning.

Along with OPUBCO account execs Alan Hicks and Chris Carpenter, we were there to shoot four, two minute advertorials. Buy 4 Less sponsors the Gourmet Grille bi-weekly segments with Sean and Cathy. In two minutes, they prepare quick and easy dishes, often using nothing more than a George Foreman grill. And some Italian dressing.

The commercials are produced for NewsOK’s food page and for the Buy 4 Less web site.

Cathy is owner of Vito’s Ristorante, a great Italian restaurant at 7521 N May. If nothing else, enjoy a glass of wine and try the house bread. It’s amazing. She also claims to have invented the panini, along with her brother while growing up.

Like Cathy, Sean has many ventures in progress. Last month, he opened Sean Cummings’ Irish Restaurant and Pub just up the street at 9610 N May. I haven’t been there yet, nor did I ever visit Boca Boca, the restaurant it replaced. Sean says last weekend the place was packed, which is good news to me. I’m all for the locally owned establishments. Nothing against the chains, I spend my share of coin there too. But the local places have a certain charm and often feature tremendous items on their menus.

So, for this shoot, we used two cameras, basically side by side. The shot is set up in the food court area of Buy 4 Less. We used an elevated table to showcase the ingredients and the actual mixing or grilling, depending on the segment. Sean and Cathy have the ingredients prepared ahead of time and in convenient little dishes for the tapings. It’s your basic three light set: two light boxes from either side with a key light for back fill. One camera remains static on the two-shot as Sean and Cathy explain what ingredients they are using and why.

Todd used the other camera to get cutaway shots of the ingredients in use. For example, a close up of the vegetables being mixed into the egg sandwich.

We shot four commercials in 90 minutes this morning, including set up and tear down. The editing process now begins, with the videos online beginning next week. Since the video editing format has been templated from our earlier shoots, edit time for each of the new commercials will be reduced.