Educational Documentary Production Services

I began working in video production, and ultimately started Corduroy Media, because I saw the power of media, specifically film and video, to educate thousands of people simultaneously. Knowing that not everyone had access to the video production tools needed to unlock this power, I wanted to create a company that empowered all people to tell their story.

While this mission has grown to include small businesses, corporate clients and non-profits, Corduroy Media is still dedicated to empowering each one of our clients with the tools of digital video production. One of our clients that uses digital film to educate youth is Connect Ed, The California Center for College and Career.

Corduroy Media has partnered with Connect Ed to create over twenty short educational documentaries for their Connect Ed Studios education portal. Each one of these short films was designed to support the Connect Ed curriculum that simultaneously prepares students for college and career. While each piece varies from A Day in The Life, which focuses on careers such as a Swat Team Member or Emergency Room Nurse, to Career Portraits, which highlight individuals working in the fields of Medicine and Science, the goal is the same; to provide young people the inspiration and education needed to enter any field.

This educational documentary series is designed to introduce students to a variety of career fields by highlighting individuals working in those fields. It also gives the students a good idea of what skills and education are needed to enter their desired field. All this is done while each documentary supports the standards based Connect Ed curriculum.

While I get great satisfaction out of all the projects we produce at Corduroy Media, working with Connect Ed on their Educational Documentary Series is a real joy. Not only do I get to use the great power of video to teach the next generation I get to learn about each individual and career that we highlight.

Below is an example of one of the many documentaries that we produced; Day in The Life of a SWAT TEAM Member.

Using the New Canon EOS 7D for Run-N-Gun Commercial Production

Like many video producers and shooters all over the world, I have been fascinated by the depth of field and image quality of the new generation of DSLR still cameras with full resolution HD video. Running a small video production company in the Bay Area, I am always looking for new tools that allow me to offer my clients the highest production quality for their dime. So far, this camera definitely has allowed me to do that. Last week I just finished our first promotional/commercial shoot with the 7D for a new Bay Area bag maker; Mission Workshop to launch their new line staring The Vandal.

This piece was shot in a single day with a production crew of two, myself shooting, and a production assistant/camera assistant Johnny Carroll. We had no-script, no  shot list and virtually no pre-production planning (which I don’t recommend). The client, Mission Workshop, was on a restrictive budget and super short time-line in order to get the video done for the launch of their new website. Considering the lack of pre-production time and the 48 hour turn-around, I am happy with the overall look and feel of the video. ( In following posts I will talk about my camera set-up and post-production processing).

Check out the video below:

Here are some behind the scenes photos of the shoot day. Photo Credit: Evan Dudley

Carl Brown works with Producer Ocean Macadams on a Digg Dialogg’s Interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger

For ten months last year I worked with MTV’s Choose or Lose Campaign covering social and political stories that affect the youth of California. Along with winning an Emmy, one of the great pleasures of this assignment was working with Ocean Macadams. Ocean, the former VP of News and Docs, was my editor. He reviewed, provided feedback, and approved my stories before they went to web or TV for broadcast. His feedback and support helped me grow as a producer and content creator.

Last week I received a call from Ocean who was just wrapping a CNN/Digg interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger and asked if I would be available for a rush post-production job to create a teaser and wrap-up of the interview for Digg. After shuffling some work for another client, we spent 15 hours the following day at the Corduroy Media post-production studio creating the two pieces for Digg.

Ocean was great to work with and really created an atmosphere of collaboration. Here are the two spots that we created for Digg Dialogg.

Digg Dialogg Teaser with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Digg Dialogg Interview Wrap-Up with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Interview with Exorcist Father Gary Thomas for 16×9 Canadian News Show

The above video spot from 16X9 news features an interview and B-roll that Erin Beach and I (Carl Brown) shot with Exorcist Father Gary Thomas. While we offer full production services, from concept development, to shooting, and post-production, as media production becomes more decentralized we are also available to shoot on contract as we did for this production.

Carl Brown and Erin Beach Shoot an Interview with Exorcist Father Gary Thomas for Canadian TV News 16:9

It is not everyday that I get a call to shoot an interview with an exorcist, in fact this was a first. Working with producer Erin Beach from Kickflip Media, we drove down to Saratoga last Friday morning and found a very modern, sun washed, Catholic church. Far from giving us the creeps it was a pleasant place with California grapevines surrounding the property. As we parked we received a warm welcome from several elderly parishioners who had nothing but great things to say about their priest Father Gary Thomas, who happens to be a trained and practicing exorcist and the subject of Matt Baglio’s new book “The Rite”.

“Father Gary Thomas was working as a parish priest in California when he was asked by his bishop to travel to Rome for training in the rite of exorcism. Though initially surprised, and slightly reluctant, he accepted this call, and enrolled in a new exorcism course at a Vatican-affiliated university, which taught him, among other things, how to distinguish between a genuine possession and mental illness. Eventually he would go on to participate in more than eighty exorcisms as an apprentice to a veteran Italian exorcist. His experiences profoundly changed the way he viewed the spiritual world, and as he moved from rational skeptic to practicing exorcist he came to understand the battle between good and evil in a whole new light. Journalist Matt Baglio had full access to Father Gary over the course of his training, and much of what he learned defies explanation.” Random House Press

Father Gary was very easy to work with, not creepy, and gave a very good interview. I guess after the likes of Fox News and other broadcasters following him around since the release of the book he has got some good practice. 16:9 plans to use the interview that we shot as the base for a ten minute segment on modern day exorcism. The show will air on Canadian television on Sunday May 24th. It will be available a few days later on-line at Globaltv.com. However, if you live outside of Canada then you will need to watch via their video podcast. I will also post the segment here on the Corduroy Media News Blog.

On Location:

Carl Brown and Corduroy Media to Shoot Promotional Video for Oakland non-profit

I am very excited about our up-coming production with Wardrobe for Opportunity. This Oakland based non-profit provides professional clothing for men and women that are starting a new career and may not have the resources to purchase a new wardrobe. Since 1995, Wardrobe for Opportunity has prepared more than 15,000 clients for success in the professional workplace. This week I was contacted by Sally Trautwein, Executive Director of Wardrobe for Opportunity. She explained that they are looking for a short documentary film highlighting their male and female client of the year award recipients to be screened at their yearly fundraising luncheon “Spring to Success.”

Using a documentary style we will use the personal narrative of the two clients as a window into the Wardrobe for Opportunity program. We hope to create a moving account of the “dress for success” concept and invest the audience into plight of the program.

Carl Brown Reviewing Films for Documentary Jury Award at the Santa Cruz Film Festival

One of the greatest benefits that I received screening “2nd Verse” last year at film festivals was all of the fantastic people that I met. One of the most vibrant, energetic and supportive film festival directors that I got to know was Jane Sullivan. Jane was a pleasure to hang with at the festival last year, and personally called me to relate how much she enjoyed my film upon submission. The Santa Cruz Film Festival, which is swinging back around this year, is a high quality professional festival with the small town vibe of Santa Cruz. The venues were great and staff awesome.

I was fortunate enough to win the Audience Award for Best Documentary last year and have been asked to sit on the Documentary Jury for this year’s festival. Here is a quick list with links to the films that I am judging.

Katrina’s Children
Lioness
Saint Misbehavin: The Wavy Gravy Movie
Salute
An Unlikely Weapon

Although I haven’t gotten through all of the films yet, so far everything looks fantastic and should be very successful year at the festival for feature length docs.

If you have the opportunity to travel to Santa Cruz for the festival this year, May 7th-15th, I highly recommend it. Fresh atmosphere, awesome people, and fantastic venues.

Carl Brown Shoots New Documentary at Oakland School of the Arts

2009 has turned out to be a year of interesting projects with Berkeley based non-profit, Connect Ed California. One of our latest documentary projects, working with producer Dave Yanofsky, centers around an Oakland School of the Arts high school student that is majoring in lighting design. Shooting in this brand new high school, that is housed in the same building as the newly renovated Fox Theater, is a real treat. This week we had our first shoot at the school and arrived just as Francis Ford Coppola was leaving the building after giving a talk on creativity to over 100 OSA HS students.

For the next month or so we will be following a student as she works with her class mates to prepare the lighting and set design for three student produced plays scheduled at the high school. Our short documentary will conclude on the night of production.

This documentary is part of a series of educational documentaries that we are helping Connect Ed produce in order to show case different career pathways for California high school students.

Corduroy Media Produces new Show for Guitar Tricks

I am very stoked to announce the new show that I am producing for GuitarTricks.com. Guitar Tricks is an on-line resource for Guitar Players, offering video based guitar lessons to players all over the world from the super advanced to the very basic beginner. Last week we shot the first set of shows at the Guitar Tricks Oakland studio. Each week a new show will be broadcast on-line on a variety of outlets such as, YouTube and Mypace.

Shooting in the Guitar Tricks small studio with a large bank of windows provided a lighting challenge. I wanted highlight Neal, the host, while providing some atmosphere and nuance to his immediate environment. I also had to make sure that his implements would show up well with out being blown out. Many of these, such as his guitar, affects pedal and amplifier have shiny surfaces. At the same time the studio background was very dark and needed quite a bit of light to make it show up. To take a look at how I solved these problems check out my production photos from flicker on the right hand navigation of the blog.

Review: Power of Lighting Workshop By Bill Holshevnikoff

As a professional filmmaker and freelance video producer I am always looking for opportunities to sharpen my skills. I am constantly challenging myself to increase the production value of my work. Even on low-budget jobs, I strive to get the most clear and dynamic images possible? When it comes to film or digital film-making this often comes down to light… Really, we are all just playing with light, reflecting it, capturing it, using it to tell a story.

So when I heard about Bill Holshevnikoff’s Power of Lighting Workshop I didn’t hesitate to sign up. Bill is a Bay Area based DP who has been lighting and shooting award-winning broadcast, corporate and documentary programming for over 20 years. Along with shooting and directing Bill occasionally offers single-day and multi-day lighting workshops for industry professionals. However, teaching lighting is not just a side gig for Bill, he is a true lighting geek, author of Arri’s Lighting Handbook and co-producer of 3-Dimensional Contrast – Principles of Lighting for the Digital Age he is a true student of lighting.

At $100, the single-day workshop was well worth it. Held at Bay Area Sound Studios, there were around 30 professional and dedicated amateur video and film shooters and producers. Bill opened up by showing some of his work, explaining how he operates in the field, and explaining his history of studying light design. We soon got into the meat of the workshop as Bill begin to lay the foundation for our discussion about how to achieve 3D contrast in a 2D medium. This began with establishing a common language, teaching us terms such as Diffused Value, Specular Highlight, Shadow Edge Transfer, and Specular Edge Transfer, and how all of these elements can be used in conjunction to create 3D contrast.

With a full lighting set-up, camera, and HD monitors, Bill took us through a variety of lighting examples and techniques. He explained that he tries to treat each lighting situation as new, fighting the urge to fall into repetitive habits of lighting a certain scene with the same tools each time. When Bill is confronted with a lighting challenge he first assesses what unique characteristics does the set provide before he starts bringing in any lighting implements. We ended the day with a variety of exercises in lighting interviews, taking into account the unique facial structure of each subject.

I didn’t leave the workshop feeling like I will now be a better DP. I left with the feeling that I can now see lighting challenges more clearly and address each challenge with a new set of vocabular, giving me the ability to light more efficiently in the field under a variety of circumstances. Bill teaches with passsion and enthusiasm. He is a captivating instructor and very approachable. He patiently guided less familar students through the workshop while keeping the pace up for more advanced students. Since the workshop, I have sent Bill screen shots of recent interviews that I have lit and he has graciously provided feedback on how I might be able to improve.

I highly recommend Bill’s Power of LIghting Workshop #1 and look forward to taking workshop #2.