Big Picture, Inc. - The Video Production Pros

		May, 2010 Conductores de Camiones Profesionales Safety knows no single language, and this month the production team at BPI wrapped all shooting and editing on a new Professional Truck Driver's safety video, written, designed, acted, voiced, and edited in Spanish. Of the estimated 15.5 MILLION trucks on the road each day in the US, approximately 32% are driven by professional drivers whose primary language is Spanish. And even though most are bi-lingual, the safety impact is greater when presented in the drivers' native language.

		April, 2010 Do you OSDBU? Cause we do! April and Jay attended several Government shows in tha past few months... GovSec, FOSE, OSDBU, and many more acronyms that boggle the mind. But it's all part of BPI's continuing development of their Government Business Services. To that end, there's a couple of cool new reels on our NEW Government page, so check em out!


		March, 2010 Walkin' in Memphis A busy month, with a highlight when Jay traveled to Memphis Tennessee to attend and speak at a meeting of the National Safety Advisor's Council of Operation Lifesaver, Inc. In addition to OLI's Regional and State Coordinators, every major U.S. railroad was also in attendance. While there, Jay also directed a location shoot consisting of interviews with several key members for an upcoming OLI video. But since it was Memphis, a little fun had to be added into the mix... some great BBQ and a tour of Elvis's home, including the hall of gold records!


		February, 2010 Shooting Gallery You name it, we shot it in February. For such a short month, we had many long days of shooting. The month kicked off with shoots at the George Washington Medical Faculty Associates hospital. We spent one day with several of the area's leading doctors and surgeons gathering lines and b-roll to comprise a new web-based introductory video. Then we spent a day in scrubs capturing robotic surgery. It was amazing to see the surgeon working with what looked like a highly-developed video game console, with the end result being a higher level of surgical accuracy than is possible with human hands. From there, we shot several TV Spots for various clients before getting to work on capturing some dynamic footage of the U.S. Air Force's new trade show exhibit being unveiled, shipped, and assembled at the Baltimore Convention Center. It features several interactive touch-screen kiosks, video displays, and a 360º hologram display of famous planes and bombers, all integrated into a beautiful swirling suspended design that turned thousands of heads.


		January, 2010 BPI is Listed! The first month of the new year started off with a bang! From day one, we've been busy shooting and editing several new projects. We've been on multiple locations with a pretty wide variety of clients, from industrials to corporate to the medical industry. We've also ramped up our efforts in communicating with the government, as we welcome our new ace team of consultants in for what we envision will be a long-term relationship. Finally, to cap the month off, Big Picture made the 2010 Washington Business Journal Book of Lists, and we attended their swanky celebration in downtown DC!


		December, 2009 Let it snow! One of December's challenges was to produce a piece on Snowmobile Safety. The only problem was that nature wasn't cooperating. Finally, a few days before Christmas, the heavens opened up and off we went to Seven Springs Mountain Resort in southwestern Pennsylvania! With the help of our guides, we scouted all of the remote scenes on a combination of UTVs, ATVs, and Snowmobiles, which was a blast! The next day the temperatures dropped even more, and we spent many hours out in the frigid yet perfectly scenic woods, setting and shooting all of the scenes in pristine HD format. Don't even ask us how we managed to get a crane way out there, but we did (and it made for terrific shots)!


		November, 2009 More Metal! (for the Shelves) November kicked off with a big surprise. The Association of Marketing & Communication Professionals awarded TWO Gold Awards to Big Picture, Inc. The first was in the category of "Training Video / Film" and the second was in "Non-Profit Video / Film". The MarCom Awards is an international competition for marketing and communication professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of marketing and communication programs and print, visual and audio materials. Entries come from corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops and freelancers. The competition has grown to perhaps the largest of its kind in the world. A look at the winners shows a range in size from individual communicators to media conglomerates and Fortune 50 companies. Now for "November by the Numbers" • Scripts Written: 13 • On-Location Shoots: 8 • Meetings & Conferences Attended: 19 • Edit Sessions: 22 • Continuing Education Workshops: 3 • Cups of Coffee Consumed: 183 Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!


		October, 2009 BPI on thin ice? How do you make a production with a 7 person cast, full crew and jib set up a bit more fun? Put it all on ice. That's what we did for a recent Moore Cadillac shoot this month at Skatequest Ice Rink in Reston. It was a challenging and exciting new experience. Shooting on jib with hockey players flying by us at full speed was thrilling (to say the least) and we got some great action shots. The players brought the ice to life with extraordinary enthusiasm and performance. We always welcome and love taking on new environments such as this. In October we also completed a series public awareness spots for Burke & Herbert Bank. The spots featured testimonials from real clients of Burke & Herbert Bank. Named "The Safest Bank In America" by ABC News, Burke & Herbert has been living up to their motto of "Banking Done Right Since 1852." November promises to be another eventful month, we'll be back soon with more stories to share.


		September, 2009 BIG Pictures in Pennsylvania Longtime client Pitt Ohio Express put our design team to the test to create a billboard for the Operation Lifesaver campaign. Outdoor Advertising Association of PA (OAAP) generously donated billboard space in over twenty locations. Twenty billboards were posted all over Pennsylvania. Producer Chris Toll commented, “It was a fun project. I don't think I've designed anything that big before. Working with high resolution images can be a bit tricky sometimes, but I like the challenge. I think the final image was quite dramatic. It took us a few tries to get the basic image plates we needed for the final billboard. We try to be particularly careful whenever we work around the train tracks, so our attention is always balanced between getting the pictures, and being safe.” Please note, no blonde guy listening to an ipod was hurt in the making of this ad.
		Did we mention that our President Jay Udavcak was invited to join the Silver Telly Award Council? Jay has been involved with winning Telly Awards productions since 1989. Over the past couple of years, and unbeknownst to us, our clients started entering our work in various categories and we started winning. After winning a record 9 Tellys in 2009 (including 3 Silver and 6 Bronze), Jay was nominated to join the Silver Council, where he is a judge of Telly Awards contests in other regions. Jay was quotes to say,"It's an honor for me to serve, and I do so as the representation of all of the combined work of the Big Picture team."


		August, 2009 Kitchen Hell at Stratford University Stratford University put our team to the test when they asked us to produce a recruitment spot for their School of Culinary Arts. We came up with selling the idea by creating a parody scenario to the popular TV show “Hell’s Kitchen”. After casting the perfect Gordon Ramsay look-alike, we reviewed many clips of the popular TV show. To be successful, our goal was to painstakingly recreate a typical scenario down to the lighting and cinematography style of the real show. Big Picture shot everything in progressive frame rate HD format for a cinematic- like delivery. And every light, gel, transition, voice-over, and even music was carefully handcrafted to support the realism to the original. And in only it’s first 3 weeks of airing, Stratford reports record applications to their accredited Culinary Program.


		July, 2009 Adulation Domination The 2009 Telly awards were announced, and we didn’t just win, we won a truckload. A team of them. Big Picture, Inc. won 9 Tellys, including 3 Silver (the highest honor) and 6 Bronze! What we’re very proud of is that we won in so many distinct categories: Editing, Cinematography, Sound Design, Art Direction, Use Of Graphics, as well as business classifications for Real Estate, Information, Not For Profit, and Corporate Image.


		June, 2009 Homecoming June kicked off with the Big Picture crew traveling to Jay’s hometown of Pittsburgh, PA for a few days of shooting for a series of videos underway for longtime client Pitt Ohio Express. Everything from testimonials from drivers, managers, VPs, and the COO to b-roll inside their beautiful headquarters to slightly more challenging shots in hot and noisy active terminals. Shot completely in HD, the footage turned out even better than planned. A couple of side benefits to this trip was Jay got Chris to try some of the local brews (the winner… Penn Pilsner on tap at Station Square) as well as a quick stop off to see Mom on the way back. Didn’t make it to the infamous Primanti Brothers for lunch, but since a return engagement is in the works, it’ll be a stop to work in on BPI’s next visit to the ‘Burgh.
		June also brought April. What’s that, you say? Well, no, we’re not traveling back in time. Rather we’re thinking ahead, as April Farms joins the BPI team in Business Development and Account Management, with a special focus on our GSA Schedule clients. April comes to us with experience in project management covers domestic and international campaigns for clients including executive aircraft manufacturers, financial software developers, economic development commissions, and government business associations. Additionally April has a very cool bulldog named Henry, possesses one of the nicest personalities known to our species, and can go from a “Perky” to a “Sultry” Voiceover read without breaking her constant smile. We’re so happy to count April as part of the BPI family, and look forward to driving her crazy over the years.


		May, 2009 Expanding the Pipeline At Big Picture, we’re always looking for ways to further streamline our processes and deliver higher and higher quality productions for our clients. A few months back, we quietly invested in an all-new broadcast level camera package, with all of the supporting bells and whistles to go with it. Well now we completed internal work on the back end of that investment, namely all of our editing suites. Between deadlines, proposals, travel, meetings, shoots, and the rest of our regular workload, we completed seamless upgrades to our upstairs and downstairs edit suites, with nary a glitch in the process. Indeed it was quite invisible. “Not only can we bring our clients the exceptional quality of HD images, but it also allows us to offer a new level of creative flexibility” says Production Manager Chris Toll. “Post production wise, with HD we can now make image adjustments at a very fine level, much like they use in the digital cinema world. It really lets the ideas take center stage.”


		April, 2009 Stand Up and Be Counted (Again) The month of April brought a repeat engagement with the U.S. Census Bureau, as they ramp up the 2nd phase of their efforts for recruiting Census Takers for the upcoming 2010 season. The challenge was to cast a wide variety of authentic faces representing different ethnic backgrounds. 7 new vignettes were shot and edited, and are streaming as part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s nationwide online recruitment campaign.


		March, 2009 The Coach of Caps March was a busy month full of all sorts of previews, proofs and pizza, but a big highlight was when Tiffany produced a new set of Television Spots for Ameritel, the copier people and sponsor of the Washington Capitals. Well since the Caps were moving towards the playoffs, what better person to feature than the head coach himself, Mr. Bruce Boudreau? The spot was called “Inspiration” and Coach Boudreau delivered with gusto for Ameritel. At Big Picture, we get the chance to work with some big hitters from time to time, and we have to say that Coach Boudreau was not only a pro to work with, he is a very friendly and funny guy. We snapped a crew shot at the end of the day. From L-R is our make-up artist Ann Stark-Brough, Jay, Coach Boudreau, Chris and Tiffany. (pic - Jay)


		February, 2009 HD For HE (Higher Education) February kicked off with a trio of spots produced for Stratford University. Tasked with creating rich branding imagery, Big Picture shot everything in HD with progressive frame rates for a cinematic- like delivery that features actual Stratford professors and students, and focuses on both their Health Sciences and Culinary programs. The spots were turned around very quickly, all three being shot, cut, and distributed to broadcast networks in 1 week's time!


		January, 2009 Big (Picture) In Texas! Jay traveled to just outside of Fort Worth / Dallas, Texas to one of the busiest train & trucking interaction areas in the nation. Minutes from the famous Stockyards and the location of the largest grain depositories in the U.S., Saginaw, Texas proved to be the backdrop for several days of shooting with Union Pacific Railroad. Within a few mile radius, the area features nearly every kind of hazardous train intersection, from multiple track to busy humped crossings.


		January, 2009 The Face Behind The Voice As principal production for the Professional Drivers video for Operation Lifesaver, Inc. gets underway, the script that Big Picture produced called for a strong, unifying on camera host, who would act as a spokesperson for the truck drivers. And when we think strong, not many voices are stronger than Matt Baker. If you watch Discovery, Animal Planet, the Military Channel, or one of several other premium networks, you'll recognize the sound of Matt right away as the voice behind all of the station IDs and promos. But as exposed as Matt's voice is, not many people have ever seen what the face behind those sonorous pipes looks like. So a little wardrobe and makeup, and Big Picture got Matt out in front of the camera as they shot all of the anchor scenes for the video on a soundstage complete with 18-wheelers!


		December, 2008 Tis The Season! The annual Big Picture Christmas Party went off on a beautiful weekend night, and lasted until the wee hours of the next morning. This year's had plenty of BPI clients, vendors, associates, friends, family, and personnel, and was the perfect way for all of us to cap another fun year!


		November, 2008 I've Been Working On The Railroad... BPI packed up and braved the snowy mountain roads to shoot some b-roll footage on the CSX Railways line in Lordstown, OH. Working with CSX, the footage will be implemented into an upcoming safety project concerning when trains interact with public traffic. One of the shots desired was a vantage point shot from the engineer's field of vision as the train travels down the track. Nowadays, liability usually forbits non-railroad personnel from being onboard freight trains, but after observing the BPI team in action for a couple of days, CSX surprised Jay by inviting him to bring a camera and enjoy a rare "ride-along" as the locomotive traveled down snowy rails through a winter storm.


		October, 2008 Busy, Busy Month Jay travelled to meet with clients from the American Trucking Association in Omaha, Nebraska as BPI begins to kick off a large project dealing with driver's safety. Chris pumps out many different edits for various TV commercials. And Tiffany's highlights include a special series of TV spots for the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, DC (www.wwc.org) featuring their newsmaking campaign "Project Red". A non-profit healthcare and community services organization, the Whitman-Walker Clinic is committed to ending the suffering of all those infected and affected with HIV/AIDS.


		Late Summer, 2008 Soak Up Some Sun! Summer tool season is in full swing now as we travel to a beautiful model riverfront home under construction in Eastern Maryland. BPI used this beautiful location as a backdrop for putting the DEWALT DW717 10" double-bevel slide miter saw to the test. Our talent was nationally-renowned master carpenter Gary Striegler from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and it was a lot of fun to shoot this project with such a pro on-camera. A gorgeous summer day in a beautiful setting, talented personnel, and the best production equipment in the industry made for an effective finished product!


		Late Summer, 2008 CUT And Print! Deep in the heart of one of their secure research and testing labs, Big Picture is once again putting their production services to work for a client who helps many millions of other people work better! The new line of Compound Miter Saws from DEWALT is about to be launched, and we were chosen once again to bring the features to life. BPI wrote all of the scripts and cast the on-camera talent for this launch of the industrial strength saws. Then we shot and edited multiple pieces that were output for several different venues, including web video, tradeshow displays, and national tool expos. Check out one of the finished products featured on DEWALT's site.


		August, 2008 Lending A Voice DC Vote commissioned Big Picture, Inc. to produce a public service announcement to gain and coordinate support for upcoming legislation concerning the lack of voter representation in our nation's capital. BPI Production Manager Chris Toll took this job on full force, coming up with the message as well as the complete concept for the campaign. Shot on the streets of Georgetown and Washington, DC, the spot uses a stylized film look and camera technique to deliver a compelling and poignant message in support of DC Vote's mission. For more information, visit www.dcvote.org.


		July, 2008 And The Winner is... Big Picture, who scored back-to-back Telly Awards for multiple projects this past year. (We didn't even know we were nominated! This was done on our behalf by the kindness of our clients!) Big Picture received a 2008 Bronze Telly Award for excellence in editing on a web-friendly education module. And not to be outdone, we also received a 2008 Silver Telly (the highest honor) for overall production of a safety video which is now part of the core curriculum of Drivers Education classes at high schools across the nation. * The Telly Awards honor the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and work created for the Web. Since 1978, the mission of the Telly Awards has been to strengthen the visual arts community by inspiring, promoting, and supporting creativity. The 28th Annual Telly Awards received over 14,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents..


		June, 2008 Who Are You? It may only be late 2008, but Big Picture is already hard at work creating a new video recruitment campaign for the nationwide 2010 United States Census. Working with the Marcom Group, BPI cast and shot 7 different U. S. Census takers from various walks of life, as they testified as to why they got so much enjoyment and satisfaction out of their jobs.


		June, 2008 Big Picture Meets Big Brother After a lengthy application process (and a lot of shared coffee between our consultant, our account, and ourselves) Big Picture Inc. has been granted a Multiple Contract Award by the GSA! Holding 3 individual contracts means that BPI now has the authority to deal directly with all agencies and branches of the Federal Government. The background process is quite involved, and included over 25 random and in-depth client interviews, vendor histories, an extensive financial background check on the entire corporation, and a final application over 1,700 pages in documented length in order to secure the triple contract.


		May, 2008 Big Picture Has Moved! Big Picture, Inc. has moved their offices to bigger and better digs. Be sure to update your address book! Big Picture, Inc. is now located at: 6213 Old Keene Mill Ct. Springfield, VA 22152 We also have a new number. P: (703) 866-6100 F: (703) 866-6104


		March, 2008 Can You Hear Us Now? After working on the corporate and government levels of their video and multimedia communications for several years now, Verizon commissioned Big Picture, Inc. to produce several animated spots for their national consumer branding. Seen on millions of TV sets across the United States, Big Picture designed a series of ads for both their Broadband and FiOS products in both HD format as well as traditional SD. The design is clean and the movements are very fluid and crisp, reflecting the look that Verizon has become known for as part of their branding while adding a level of depth that showcases the evolution of their image.


		November, 2007 Senator Colgan Elects Big Picture Senator Charles J. Colgan recently won re-election to become not only one of the most prolific Senators in Virginia history, but has now been named chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Senator Colgan is also ranked first in Senate Seniority. Eight years ago, Jay Udavcak created and produced the successful campaign ad starring Senator Colgan entitled "Fighting for You". It was based upon the Senator's quite grueling physical fitness regimen and adapted with imagery of the Senator similar in nature to the first "Rocky" film. For this most recent bid for re-election, the Senator and his campaign chose Big Picture, Inc. and Jay again to update the story with the Senator in his most recent activities. "From working on the speed bag to running with several dozen children through the streets of Richmond and up the steep steps of the Virginia State Capital Building, we got out there and kept pace with the Senator, which isn't always easy to do." says Jay Udavcak, President of BPI. "Our DP, Sam Genovese had to do some decent running with the Senator, and I wasn't sure if he'd survive the workout!" Big Picture, Inc. not only produced the spots, but also placed all of the media buys. The result? A win by a margin of double-digit percentages! And this wonderful letter from Senator Colgan himself....


		August, 2007 Big Picture Rocks With Rush Animator Bobby Standridge chose Big Picture to shoot the only live-action shots in a new video for the legendary Canadian rock band RUSH. Big Picture has tapped Bobby's talents on several of their own productions in the past, so it was a wonderful opportunity when Bobby returned the favor and had Big Picture shoot the scenes for him. "Bobby and I are also friends, and play in our own band together," reveals BPI's Jay Udavcak. "We're both such huge fans of RUSH, and have been for all of our musical lives. When the opportunity came to actually do something for the band, it was an honor. It made us both feel like little kids again, doing something for your musical heros." The song is entitled "Malignant Narcissism" and is off the new RUSH album "Snakes and Arrows". Be sure to check out the video at BobbysBrane.com or at Rush drummer Neil Peart's website. It will also be released March 3, 2009 as part of Rush Retrospective 3, a definitive cd/dvd compilation of Rush's recording career with Atlantic Records.


		August, 2007 DEWALT Recharges With Big Picture DEWALT Industrial Tools just wrapped yet another video with Big Picture, this time for their new line of batteries for their cordless tools division. This production involved multiple location shoots in different states, full 3D animation of 9 distinct new DEWALT cordless tools and batteries, and multiple layers of delivery, including DVD, Interactive CD-ROM, web streaming, and micro-site implementation. Big Picture created all phases of production, starting with writing the entire piece and story-boarding it for marketing as well as legal approvals. Asked what was the most difficult part of production, different BPI people will tell you different things. "I know Chris will say the animations were a bit of a monster, but they turned out beautiful, and have inspired some ideas in upcoming DEWALT projects. But to me, I still remember the first day of shooting on the National Harbor Project site a few days before this past Christmas, climbing up open air scaffolding to get shots from the unfinished top level under construction with DEWALT tools. Being able to see straight down from that height, and shooting detailed scenes in below freezing weather with the wind hurtling through the open 16th floor makes my list of ones to remember." The video is the world premiere of DEWALT's new NANO (TM) Technology batteries, in 18, 28, and 36V.

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