| ASK BIZBASH 09.08.08 9:00 AM |
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Who Can Produce a Cool Tribute Video?
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 | Stills from a variety of tribute videos.
Photo: Courtesy of Lifefilm (top), Courtesy of Madprops (middle), Courtesy of Raw Films (bottom) |
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Honoring a retiring exec or an award winner with a video about their life’s work is a great idea, but only if the piece doesn’t move guests to check their BlackBerries or sneak off to the restroom. Here are three companies that specialize in these types of films and, if asked, will travel to make it happen.
With more than 20 years of combined film and television industry experience, Lifefilm Productions co-founders Peilin Chou and John Brancaccio use the same production professionals they worked with at companies such as Walt Disney Studios, MTV Networks, ESPN, and Bravo to craft their celebratory docs. The firm prides itself on delivering broadcast-quality, story-driven films that are truly entertaining. Past clients include C-level execs from Hasbro and real estate developer S.R. Weiner. Rates start at $5,000, with longer and more intensive projects ranging from $10,000 to $20,000.
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RELATED TOPICS
Walt Disney Company, MTV, ESPN, Bravo, Academy Awards, Saturday Night Live, VH1, A&E, E! Entertainment, NBC, Clinton Global Initiative, Miramax, Hasbro |
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| EVENT REPORT 11.07.07 4:33 PM |
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Guitar Hero Takes Over Best Buy Rooftop With Burning Man-Style Launch
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 | Guitar Hero's rooftop spectacle.
Photo: Paul Davies/NCompass |
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For fervent fans of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, only one experience could beat playing the latest version of Activision's monster-hit music video game: living it. And for several hours before Best Buy put the game on sale at midnight on October 28, the mega video-game retailer virtually made their dreams come true with a huge launch party on the roof of its West Los Angeles store.
“The concept was for people to feel like they actually walked into the game,” said event producer Donna Graves, co-founder of NCompass International Inc., who worked closely with Yvonne Groves, Best Buy's event marketing senior manager. “Everything we did was to be as authentic as possible.”
NCompass brought in frequent collaborator Keith Greco of Greco Decor to create a nighttime landscape filled with scenes and life-size characters from the game, as well as their real-world inspirations. As 1,500 music, film, and video-game folk, media members, and cool kids ascended stairs to the roof, they found a large stage outlined in neon and emblazoned with a Burning Man-like neon figure, resembling the main stage of the game's Desert Rock Tour scene. There, Joel Madden of Good Charlotte played two 45-minute sets that flanked a nearly hourlong performance by Poison. (Poison is a band in the game, and lead singer Bret Michaels is a character.)
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RELATED TOPICS
Guitar Hero III, Xbox, PlayStation, Best Buy, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney Company, Sony, Paramount |
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| LOCATION SCOUT 09.05.07 11:45 AM |
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Where to Take a Seen-It-All Group
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 | The Los Angeles Theatre
Photo: Courtesy of the Los Angeles Theatre |
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1. Imagine the most spectacular theater you’ve ever seen, then multiply its impact by two, and you’ve begun to conjure the historic Los Angeles Theatre. The French Baroque theater was the most opulent—and most expensive, per seat—constructed in L.A. when it opened in 1931; it seats just fewer than 2,000. Other features include a six-floor crystal and marble lobby, a three-tiered fountain, a glass-ceilinged ballroom with walnut paneling, and a restaurant attached to a private room. The venue closed its doors to regular movie screenings in the 1990s; these days it is commonly used for filming and can be rented for events, although only a few corporate groups host there each year. One reason is the theater and its decor are fragile, and rowdy events aren’t a good match. Another? “The facility is not inexpensive by any stretch of the imagination,” says manager Frank Schultz, of the Delson Investment Company.
2. Villa De La Vina is but a year old—but you wouldn’t know it, and that’s the point. Marshall Haraden, president of big-time contracting company the Marshall Group, built his estate on 10 acres to evoke the look of a centuries-old Spanish home. The property is in the Santa Monica Mountains and offers picturesque canyon views. The home itself is 9,000 square feet and holds about 300, and an additional structure featuring a cyc wall is perfect for photo shoots. Haraden expects a third building—a guest house with an 800-square-foot wine cellar—to be completed by early spring, bringing the total square footage to 15,000. There’s off-street parking for about 55 cars and space for another 70 or so at a nearby property. The venue has hosted only a handful of corporate events so far (including an eight-day-long series of driving events for Land Rover) and does no advertising—it’s strictly word of mouth. “We don’t say ‘yeah’ to everybody,” Haraden says. “We don’t want to wear the property out.”
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RELATED TOPICS
Delson Investment Company, Marshall Group, Land Rover, Walt Disney Company, The Los Angeles Theatre, Villa De La Vina, The Wilshire Theater Beverly Hills, Club 33 |
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