Ready for Anything: The Adventures of a Production Assistant
I took the mantle of office PA at Production Craft a few months ago, and at the time I was aware of PA duties, but I never knew until I had the job how dynamic the role could be. As a PA any day can become my own little adventure.
I’d assumed, in the world of video production and filmmaking, that it’s the creative decision makers that get to have all the fun. I had understood that the PA handles all the laborious tracking, researching, and going-to-get-someone-somethings that producers, directors, and DPs wouldn’t want to get bogged down in. But the needs of a production can be so broad that I find myself assisting in new ways all the time.
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Don’t Be Nervous! How to Conduct a Great Interview Part Two: During the Interview
Our Senior Producer Dawn Arnold shares her tips preparing for a great interview.
When I first started, conducting an interview was nerve-racking. Would I ask the right questions, would I get the best responses, would the interviewee be comfortable and natural on camera? I’ve learned that if I was nervous, so were they.
Now the interview is my favorite part of production. I love meeting new people and learning about their lives, their jobs, their mission, and the ideas they have to share. I love helping them craft their message on camera and engage audiences. In this first part I will go over everything you should be thinking about before the interview to set yourself up for success.
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Don’t Be Nervous! How to Conduct a Great Interview Part One: Before the Interview
Our Senior Producer Dawn Arnold shares her tips preparing for a great interview.
When I first started, conducting an interview was nerve-racking. Would I ask the right questions, would I get the best responses, would the interviewee be comfortable and natural on camera? I’ve learned that if I was nervous, so were they.
Now the interview is my favorite part of production. I love meeting new people and learning about their lives, their jobs, their mission, and the ideas they have to share. I love helping them craft their message on camera and engage audiences. In this first part I will go over everything you should be thinking about before the interview to set yourself up for success.
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Keep It Simple: Building a Video Conference Studio Part Two
We look at how our experience in video production and broadcast studio integration helped us bring this video conference studio to life! Our build gets daily use with presets to make the executives at this Fortune 500 company look and sound great while they handle calls and interviews from all around the world with ease.
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Keep It Simple: Building a Video Conference Studio Part One
We recently had the opportunity to provide a turn-key video conferencing studio for a major multinational company.
As we usually design studios that include multiple cameras, audio sources, lighting grids, file recording, control room monitoring, etc., a client requesting a single-camera studio geared toward participation in Microsoft Teams calls seemed like a slam dunk... however the project turned out to be one of our most challenging jobs to date.
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How to Edit Corporate Videos for Social Media
We often work with corporate video production clients who want to develop a longer video for a large meeting or internal distribution. This content can be a great source for creating social posts.
For social media, we aim to change things up so that the content caters to a broader audience and fits the format of the platform. Here’s a few editing tips we’ve learned as a top Chicago video production company that leads to successfully repurposing corporate video content.
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Walkin’ on Sunshine: 5 Tips for Filming Outside
We’ve taken our experience as a top Chicago video production company and put together our Top 5 Tips for working on filming outdoors.
Type of project, filming style and crew size all play a factor in how to best work around the challenges of outdoor shoots. However, these general tips should work well for most productions.
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PCI Adds New Communicator Award to the Trophy Case
Production Craft, Inc. has won an Award of Distinction in the 2023 Communicator Awards for a patient story produced for Medtronic. We are proud to have worked on this video which helps increase awareness about colorectal cancer.
This marks Production Craft’s 12th win at the Communicator Awards over 28 years. Our award-winning projects range from testimonials like the one above to safety and training videos for first aid.
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Behind the Scenes of our NEW Demo!
Each year, we produce a general demo plus reels that highlight specific skills, like motion graphics or drone videography. Production Craft offers a variety of services, from the provision of camera crews and equipment packages for corporate video and broadcast work, to full program production including producing, scripting, filming, and post production for marketing, public relations, and informational videos. Because this is a short montage, our general demo typically illustrates our work in videography, motion graphics, and editing.
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One Size Doesn’t Fit All: How to Edit Video for Social Media
One size doesn’t always fit all when it comes to social media and video. Each social media platform has specific requirements and recommendations for aspect ratios and resolution. Knowing these specs is a vital part of getting your content to play correctly across multiple social media channels.
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Five [5] Steps to Hiring a Video Production Crew Worldwide
Production Craft is a video production company based in Chicago, but we create videos for audiences around the world. Although we would love to travel personally to each shoot, it’s not practical or necessary for many jobs. So we often look for video production crews to assist us in locations far from our home base.
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3 Reasons the Sony FR7 is a Fantastic Studio Camera for Video Production
In our work designing and installing broadcast video studios, we evaluate all kinds of equipment, but the camera is the key to a great system. We recently evaluated Sony’s new FR7 PTZ video camera for a new studio for a corporate client who needs to communicate with employees worldwide. The camera combines the cinematic look of Sony’s highly sought after cinema cameras with the flexibility and automation of a traditional studio camera.
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