Most people know about ancestry.com and the ability to discover your own family history through their billions of historical records. Well, they came to Studio B Films to help announce the launch of a powerful DNA service they call AncestryDNA. It’s a pretty amazing process where you send in a sample of DNA (saliva) and they compare and match it to thousands of others, giving you a scientifically accurate map of your own ethnicity and connecting you to people with similar ethnicities from all over the world. We chose to produce a video with both live action and graphics to fully tell the story. After doing two rounds of casting, we decided that the most authentic voice would really come from experts from AncestryDNA. Sure enough Ken and John nailed the content and projected a real knowledge and passion for the process and what it means. To enhance their telling of the story, we brought in a modern take on the family tree and tied them directly to the beautiful web interface built by the AncestryDNA team. So watch, swab your cheek and let the ethnicities flow!

For this customer story, we used an ‘audio’ only interview approach, so instead of capturing her voice on video, we only rolled audio during the interview process. This approach creates a sense of intimacy where we get to know the character only through her voice as we see her going about their day. The combination of a fantastic local DC based crew, warmer than usual weather for January, and a sweet family made for a very nice shoot. Editor Kevin Oliver brought his A game, and it’s always a pleasure to work with our friend Jeff Severtson from Adobe. Soon we’ll be shooting another one with Jeff for Adobe Premiere Elements which we are all looking forward to!

Credits:

Producer/Director: Jane Selle Morgan
Director of Photography: Jim Ball
Editor: Kevin Oliver

ADOBE CS6 STINGER from Studio B Films on Vimeo.

Adobe’s launch of CS6 and The Creative Cloud represents a huge paradigm shift for their whole creative suite line. To celebrate this re-thinking of the creative process, they reached out to some incredible artists to develop imagery for each product and each Suite family. When they came to us to develop a stinger video to introduce The Creative Cloud and CS6, they brought along all of the stunning artist imagery and a wide open playground for us to visually tell the launch story and inspire the audience. Early on it became clear that this piece shouldn’t be like previous launch videos. We stripped out any demo or specific feature aspect of the show to make it conceptual and to really honor the artistry that went into the imagery and the products themselves. Special thanks to Devin Earthman and Michael Rigley for their stunning motion design and animation wizardry on the piece. And Johnny Random’s killer audio track brings it from subtle and understated to an explosive finale.

CREDITS
producer: Jane Selle Morgan
creative director: Aaron Barry
motion designers: Devin Earthman, Michael Rigley
music: Johnny Random

From the website: The Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards celebrates the extraordinary work of young media artists from around the world by recognizing top talent in media production. So the goal of the video is to inspire these kids to want to get out there and make something cool and get their work seen (and maybe snag a nice prize, too).

In casting, we met some amazing kids through Destiny Arts (a theater group that David is currently filming for a documentary) and through a girls group that our very own Rachel Spiers leads on the weekends. Through auditions, we found our 3 characters (a musician, a designer, and a photographer / filmmaker). The next challenge was to create a unique graphics style for each of their environments that tells a story about their creative work. While we wanted each character to really be affecting and transforming their environments (rather than just looking around at neat graphics in their world), we also wanted to show some evolution of their work over time. After several rounds of boards and motion tests, we landed on a style for each. Finally, we wanted to wrap the ending back to the branding of the event by transitioning back into a sketch world that we hinted at in the beginning.

We’re really proud of this piece and feel totally grateful to have clients like Adobe to bring us in on such a fun and challenging project. If you know any youth that would like to submit, you can send them here to register: http://youthvoices.adobe.com/awards/submissions/

We recently teamed up with Michael to turn the video portion of his vision into a reality. With Michael’s business-know-how and our video-know-know, the result (in our humble opinion) was a pretty great mix of high quality video, killer motion graphics and top-notch lesson content!  Check it out:

In addition to 11 beautiful, fact-filled video lessons, we also created two mini-docs about Michael and his teaching philosophy for the website. What better way to introduce the man to the world? Here’s a sneak peak:

In the end, the Michael Bush and the 8 Factor team walked away with over two hours of polished video footage, and we walked away with our MBA (Michael Bush Advice) on how to run a small business! In fact, inspired by Michael’s lessons, Studio B recently put our own Vision, Mission and Values down in writing and we’re all striving as a company to focus on the things that matter most. It’s all part of our new year’s resolution to be a better, faster, leaner, meaner small video production company.

We love working with companies that aren’t afraid to push boundaries. So it was quite a treat to have Benefit cosmetics come to us with a special task: “Show our product in a way that will make our audience blush!”

We got right to the drawing board shooting for something silly, sassy, and a little bit racy. Starting with their fun and beautiful marketing imagery, a lovely angel sitting in heavenly light, we imagined what this Angel’s back-story might be. How did she get there? What was she like before she became an angel? How did her face get so darn glowy? We rounded out the cast with one sleazy devil, an God who’s more than (s)he seems. Added a dash of comedy. And finished with some divine cosmetic product placement.

The result, we think, is heavenly:

A little shout out (harp strum?) for Amanda Huelse who wrote and produced, Joe Morgan who wrote the dialogue, Jane Selle Morgan who is our resident comedy director and David Collier captured the magic as the Director of Photography. Our new motion graphics artist Devin Earthman and his team of troublemakers created Heaven under the direction of Art Director Aaron Barry after Eli Olsen cut the picture.
The Studio B Team sure feels the Benefit of having such a heavenly, funny client!

Happy 2012 everyone! With the new year rolling around, we’re all brimming with New Year’s resolutions around here. Here’s a peek at the plans:

David (Owner/CEO/DP): “My New Year’s resolutions are to sponsor and run a half marathon with the studio b team, create a company retreat, to get my kids to put the dishes in the dishwasher, and to take more creative risks.”

Jane (Producer/Director): “My New Year’s resolution is to do yoga and meditate every day. Stress management all the way, baby!”

Aaron (Creative Director / Post Sup.): “My New Year’s resolution is to make a piece of furniture by hand, and forage for seafood with the crab net that I got from my wife for Christmas.”

Rebecca (Editor): “This year, I’m going to sit down and write creatively in my journal every night. I used to write a lot, but I haven’t in a while. It will be fun to see what comes out!”

Kevin (Editor): “Uh, I’ll get back to you.”

Tim (Post Production): “I’m going to be a better husband. I don’t know how I’m going to quantify that one. I guess I’ll have to ask my wife. I think I have to listen better.”

Devin (Motion Graphics / Post Production): “Half Marathon!”

Rachel (Production Coordinator): “This year, I’ll tackle the backyard garden. Hopefully, I don’t kill everything in my path!”

Alrik (Rentals Manager): “To be able to do reps of 20 pull ups! Currently, I do three reps of 4. I gotta get that number up!”

In the sprit of getting carried away with things, we set some goals as a studio too!

We resolve to:

1. Do a mini-makeover of our website
2. Establish an annual company retreat
3. Get organized with basecamp
4. Run a half marathon together!
5. Not loose or break any rental gear in the year 2012!

There it is all in writing. Now we’ve got to stick to it!
What are your new year’s resolutions? What’s the likelihood you’ll follow through?

Studio B followed the yellow brick road this last month to see a wiz if ever there was – the wizards at Adobe of course. They’re releasing a series of 7 new creative software applications for touch tablets and mobile devices that all work under the same “cloud” system. Each one has its own unique purpose, but they are all seamlessly integrated to work with each other. Our team camped out at Adobe Headquarters, meeting with various product managers to produce a series of product launch pieces. Filming at Adobe’s offices in downtown SF is always a fun gig – beautiful architecture, sustainably farmed cafeteria food and gadgets everywhere. Armed with a nimble crew we sought out various locations within the Adobe building to produce 8 distinct looks that felt more like a home office and less like corporate headquarters. We think we pulled it off rather well all told – 8 different interviews, 7 demos, and 5 reenactments in 3 shooting days. Phew Toto! We’re not in Kansas anymore!