When NOT to delete a customer’s Facebook post

For several months, I had been looking forward to a trip to my favorite place in the world: Colorado. Accommodations booked and recreation planned, all I had left to do was drop off my dog at the boarder’s the evening before my 6:30 A.M. flight.

On the drive to my dog’s “hotel,” I chatted with a ride-along friend about why I enjoy this particular dog-sitter. They let the dogs run free all day, a far leap from the jittery cabin fever he experiences when emerging from other boarders. Plus, the doggie hotel is extremely connected with social media. I can make reservations on their Facebook page and often interact with the staff while I am away to check on my furry friend. They made such an impression on me, I had voted for them in our city newspaper’s “Best of…” small business contest.

My dog at the Prizm office

We arrived, and my dog ran to the door, excited to be at his weekend play place.

Unfortunately, we arrived to a “Closed” sign. Lights out. Dogs in pens. No creature with a key or opposable thumbs in sight.

What we learn from Picasso

Every day in every industry, we try to help folks understand the value we bring and why we charge what we do. Prizm isn’t the most expensive company in town, nor are we the least expensive. We do charge industry standard rates and bill for our expertise and experience to get the job done right the first time.

Because the production industry is objective and intangible, I thought I’d share a story about Pablo Picasso to help explain the difficult nature and experience necessary to provide an outstanding end result for Prizm clients. The story goes:

Picasso was sitting at a café in Paris one day, having a cappuccino and reading the paper. A woman approached him and forcefully said, “You’re Picasso. Oh my. Could you paint my profile?” Picasso slowly set his cappuccino down, folded his paper and picked up his sketch tablet. Without saying a word, Picasso motioned to the lady to have a seat. He positioned his subject for the right angle and light that would highlight the image he was about to capture.

The lady began to speak again, and Picasso hushed her, repositioning her, and began his work.

About five minutes passed as the master sketched the subject into beautiful colors and hues. Once he’d finished, he turned the painting around to show his subject. She exclaimed, “It’s amazing! I knew it would be incredible. How much?”

Without hesitation, Picasso said, “5,000 Franks.”

“$5,000 Franks? It took you only five minutes!” she exclaimed.

“No,” Picasso said, “it took me a lifetime.”

As with Picasso, you have to create your brand, your reputation, and the reason why people would be crazy NOT to do business with you!

With everyone searching for the lowest price, they sometimes forget quality, service, and value. Our goal at Prizm is to compete on those three elements of success. Happy shopping, and check us out online to see what we’ve created for other clients like Renzenberger, Indiana State University Foundation, Essential Knowledge, and many other great organizations.

Editor’s Note: Pre-production is a MUST!

Pre-production is an often overlooked part of the video production process. Many people think videos are thrown together and magically come alive. It’s true, the outcome can sometimes be magical, but is it really worth the money to bet on everything falling together perfectly? What happens when the opposite happens, and the video portrays your company’s message at just a percentage of its potential?

As an editor who works with budgetary constraints on a constant basis, my advice to you is pre-production, pre-production, pre-production! If your company is spending thousands of dollars on a video, I’m sure your boss wants it to have the highest quality, maintain a good retention rate, and be as effective as possible. How do you accomplish this? Pre-production!

What everyone should know about pricing professional video

What could possibly be so hard about pricing a professional video project?

From the outside looking in, it may seem simple enough to put a price tag on a professional video, but there are many considerations involved.  Having spent more than a decade working for Prizm, I have learned so much about the process of creating a professional video, and let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing simple about it!

I receive inquiries for cost quotes daily, and frequently find it necessary to help people understand how much really goes into creating professional, award winning videos.   I can’t tell you how many times I have heard:  “Just off of the top of your head, how much does it usually cost to…?” Although I don’t like to say it, there genuinely is not a “usual” cost when it comes to the creation of a professional video.

Capturing professional video for Extreme Makeover Home Edition

In order to receive a true and complete price quote on your video, you must be prepared to provide your production company with answers to some very pertinent questions like these:

1. How long do you want your video to be?
2. What style and quality do you envision for your final product?
3. What delivery medium (or mediums) do you intend to use?
4. What is your deadline?
5. Are you working within a specific budget?
6. Do you want professional actors and/or voice talent to be part of your video?
7. Do you need scripting services?

The answers to the above questions then create more leading questions, which largely influence pricing, such as: 

Final Cut Pro X – Wired or Fired? (part 1)

As a follow up to my previous blog about the release of Final Cut Pro X, I am exploring the pros and cons of this new app.

The release of FCPX was last week, and it already received very mixed reviews across the editing community. According to the Apple app store, it has already received 153 one star ratings and 116 five star ratings. This makes me very skeptical about the purchase for our company.

The Mid-Roll: Why second is best

In the family of online video advertising, being the middle child has never felt so good.

For those of you familiar with viewing popular videos, TV shows, and movies online (say, through YouTube or Hulu), I’m sure you’ve become quite accustomed to the ad viewing experience: you get one video advertisement right off the bat, a few trickled throughout the middle, and a final ad just before the end of the show. You can’t skip over the ads, but they usually last only 10-15 seconds anyhow.

Two recent studies by Limelight Networks and FreeWheel compared the length of online video ads versus how likely they were to be completed by the user. Unsurprisingly, they discovered that 15-second ads are 20 percent more likely to be viewed in entirety compared to 30-second commercials. However, when both 15-second and 30-second ads were attached to a longer root video, such as a 45-minute television show, the likelihood that either ad would be viewed was virtually the same, at roughly 90 percent.

How much do keywords matter?

My husband and I have always been sticklers for doing research before making any kind of major purchase.  From cars to appliances to electronics, it is important to know that you will be getting the most for your money before committing to spending it.  While it hasn’t been that long ago that we had to go to our local library to peruse the latest copies of Consumer Reports for information, now one has to go only as far as the closest computer with an internet connection to learn everything pertinent to making an informed buying decision.

A while back, I thought I had done my due diligence before making a major purchase – so much that even Dave Ramsey would have been proud!  I actually spent 4 months doing research in my spare time, before making the final choice, which was based on my research.  Here’s where it gets interesting:  I have had quite a lot of trouble with this product, even though everything I read raved about the item in question.  Did I get a “lemon”?  Or was all of my research bogus?  What did I do wrong?!

I continued to contemplate these questions, until it finally occurred to me that every time I did a new search for information, I always used “reviews” in my search.  So, I decided to try an experiment. 

Social Media: Don’t rest on your laurels

I was on LinkedIn dialoguing with colleagues around the world about who considers themselves an expert at social media.  Mind you, these are wise and seasoned marketers themselves.  The wisdom that came from thediscussion focused on a couple of repetitive themes.

Do you HootSuite?

Your business is probably on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a slew of other social media applications. So how do you keep all of these profiles in check?

Apple is releasing 64bit Final Cut!

Apple announced the release of Final Cut Pro X at NAB this week and I am super pumped for the update! While the program has been rebuilt to follow more of the iMovie platform, the biggest update for me is the 64-bit usage with background rendering.

As an editor, I am constantly improving our workflow to help cut time as well as costs, so this will greatly speed up our process! The 64-bit support will allow the program to use all 8-12 cores of the bigger MacPros and no longer be bottlenecked at 4gigs of ram. This will cut time off your