Avant Productions

Tag: production studio

Bringing Still Images to Life

It’s always fun when a client brings us a challenge: “We have 50 product images, 2 logos, 3 taglines and we need to sell our new product we are launching. Can you make us a video?” Of course we can! We love these kind of projects, and our latest one for the Jorg Gray Watch Collection is going to be a blast. Bring in some great stock music, load all the images up into our video editing system, and let the magic happen.

So how do you communicate a message of time? For our job, it’s always about telling a story. Show, don’t tell, is what we always remind ourselves. Whether it be a 30-second commercial for a local business, or a high definition production in our green screen video studio in Orange County – we are always helping our clients tell a story.

At AVANT, we approach every project with the same goal: to make our client’s message unforgettable. And we achieve this with out of the box ideas ideas, unstoppable creativity and two decades of technical expertise. After all, this is what we love to do – Create. Connect. Define!

So, whether it’s a new promotional video for your upcoming product, a new design and development for your company’s website, a green screen shoot in our video production facility, or a DVD duplication job we’ve got you covered.

Let us help create your project.

Let us help you connect with your audience.

Let us define your story!

January 11, 2012
Vanguard University Lighting Workshop

Lights. Camera. Students!

We recently had 20 Vanguard University students at our Orange County video studio to learn the basic of good lighting and beyond. These future filmmakers got a boot camp style seminar on how to create fast, simple and effective lighting techniques without a big budget or crew. AVANT’s Executive Director, Clark Severson, was off and running with creating real-world situations through demonstrations and hands-on practices with setups of our production facility’s lighting grid, equipment and green screen. The result? These students are now confident in creating polished and dynamic lighting that set the mood and capture an audience.

What started with questions like, “where should I put the light?” or “how do I get rid of that shadow?” Well, with Clark’s expertise and over 20 years of lighting video projects all throughout Orange County, these students left the AVANT studio with a head full of great ideas for their next project.

September 15, 2011
Webinars at AVANT

Webinars are fast becoming the most exciting and and sought-after training experience on the internet. Why read a boring online tutorial or travel to a hotel for a seminar when you can log in and connect from home? Webinar participants don’t just watch your message, they engage in a dialogue with your presenters, asking questions online and taking polls with results presented in real-time.

At AVANT we recognize the power of webinars to deliver your message in a personal but powerful way. We have recently invested both time and capital in outfitting our Orange County green-screen studio and facility with everything you need to run a successful webinar.

Using a combination of well supported open-source video technologies and a suite of custom-developed web applets we have created a turn-key solution that embeds your webinar directly on your website with your own unique branding. No more logging into a faceless 3rd party website to view your message.

And with our unique green-screen setup we can produce not just a live webinar with impeccable audio and lighting, but also a full-quality DVD with professionally keyed virtual backgrounds after the fact. Host your live webinar one day and be delivery fully authored DVDs for sale of the same material less than a week later. After all, at AVANT we are all about bringing your more business and helping take things to the next level.

September 7, 2011
Voice Overs Done Right

At AVANT we pride ourselves on the quality of our work and the care and attention we give to every project. No where is this more evident than in our meticulous handling of voice over sessions.

Recently we recorded voice-overs as part of an ongoing project for a children’s educational DVD series. The producers wanted a variety of voices to be represented, male and female, old and young. How young you ask? Joining our regular voice-over talent pool was 9-year-old Olivia, performing her first-ever professional voice-over session.

Recording such a young actor is about the same as recording an adult. Careful microphone placement produces a naturalist sound and our fully isolated “room-within-a-room” voice over booth does the rest. That and some patient direction from the control room nearby.

Our facility was originally built in the mid 1970’s as a production facility for live television programs and we at AVANT have benefited from the amazing room design and construction techniques that were used back then. Our sound room literally “floats” inside the surrounding building, isolated from the surrounding outer walls, greatly reduced sounds that would be transmitted from outside.

Add to this the latest in digital recording technology and computer-based digital audio workstations and you’ll see why we take voice-over recording to the next level. At AVANT we’ll make you sound fantastic, whether you’re 9 or 99.

August 22, 2011
Green Screen Magic: Matching Reality to 3D

An important component of creating a convincing green-screen composite is careful selection and adjustment of the virtual background placed behind the talent. At AVANT we have perfected the art of matching 3D rendered imagery with live-action footage.

For a recent series of training videos for Cloud-Townsend Resources our creative team started with a 3D rendered virtual set and expertly blended it to match footage shot in our green-screen studio featuring Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

Because 3D renders are pure RGB images our first step was to adjust the black, white, and mid-tone values of the background to mimic the values of our HD video footage. Next we reduced the amount of color information in the background slightly and adjusted the hues to match the lighting setup.

The final steps for enhanced realism were to add grain and a vignette around the edges of the virtual set background to help recreate how a real room would have been photographed had it existed.

In the end all this attention to detail resulted in a seamless green-screen production that allows the Cloud Townsend audience to concentrate on the message and not the technology used to create it.

August 2, 2011
From Green Screen to Video Editing

Every week it seems like a new production is coming to AVANT’s Orange County video production facilities to utilize our green screen studio. From indie bands, to non-profits, to babies… yes, you read that right, babies! Recently, we shot the young cast of a new DVD series to help babies learn how to read. With ten kids under the ages of 2 scattered throughout our offices we had our hands full. Placed on the green screen floor, shot with our high-definition cameras, then transfer the footage to our Final Cut Pro edit system and immediately start piecing the scenes together.

Video editing is one thing, video editing green screen footage of excited kids is definitely another! We had our hands full once again, but it’s been a fun and rewarding process placing these adorable children in far-away places.

Take a look at Before and After…

June 13, 2011
Orange County Video…as in “The OC”
Yes, AVANT is located in Orange County, CA… or shall we say “The OC.” Yes, AVANT is located in the heart of Costa Mesa with a spacious green screen studio, multiple video editing bays, and high-definition cameras. Yet, what does it take to create Orange County video for clients that need a compelling project that is going to shine? Well, let’s break things down…
- At AVANT we Create.
- At AVANT we Connect.
- At AVANT we Define.
What does that mean for our clients who need a corporate video, non-profit fund raising video or website that can be easly found on Google or YouTube or widely shared on Facebook? Well, let’s break things down even further…

First, we love to Create. We take pride in our creativity. It’s always a thrill to take things to the next level and push ourselves to make sure when someone watches a video we produce they know that it was done by professionals who “know their stuff.”

Next, we Connect. If your video production or new web presence does not connect to your audience then, really, what’s the point? It’s all about building a bridge that connects your product or company to your client and market. It’s about creating a relationship through the screen, on the web, or on your smart phone in order to generate the results you are looking for. This definitely doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes strategy. It takes us connecting with your vision to help in connecting your audience.

Last, we shine with our ability to Define. Understanding your project, your vision, your needs in order to translate them into results that deliver your message and Connect with your audience. See, how things just came back full circle? Pretty clever, huh?
May 16, 2011
Transforming Live Events

We love it when we can get out of our video studio in Orange County and load up our high-definition cameras and equipment for on-location video production. Yet, live events can be tricky. We have to stay focused on the task of transforming an empty room into something memorable. Whenever a client comes to us to bring a live event to life, we know that it needs to be a total experience. From setting the right mood with stage and lighting, to correct audio equipment and speaker positioning and making sure the visuals projected on the screens from our cameras can be seen by every attendee.

Well, practice makes perfect and this week’s event for CWS Capital Partners is a production they have been counting on us to deliver excellence for, for the past 10 years. While this live event of their annual investor’s meeting may only last for a few short hours, we make sure to capture every moment in high-definition to add another dynamic to the evening. Not only does this allow for us to project the image of each speaker onto two 20-foot screens for the entire room to easily see, the “recorded event” can be shared and relived for years to come no matter how technology advances.

At AVANT, we are always thinking ahead for our clients – how can your project be “future proofed”? How can your video expand and connect even further than you ever dreamed? Give us a call. We’d love to be a part of the team that brings your ideas to life!

April 6, 2011
Images Come to Life

At AVANT, we love going beyond our green screen studio to shoot video productions on-location. Our recent high-definition video production for Ambassador Advertising, a five-minute promotional video set to music, was just such an opportunity.

The concept for this latest video centers on a young couple expecting their first child. While looking through a family photo album, they reminisce about the past and anticipate the future. We were able to take this project to the next level by developing the concept of photographs coming to life, giving the audience a glimpse into this young couple’s life.

The shoot itself went amazingly well. The real challenge was in the post production phase of video editing. Our effects team employed advanced motion tracking techniques combined with good-old-fashion hand rotoscoping to add post production images to the live video shots. All the hard work was worth it to see the still photos perfectly integrated with live video.

Yet, the most interesting part of the shoot was that our lead actress was actually pregnant and only a few short weeks away from her due date. With such a narrow time window we worked hard to finish shooting all of her vital scenes. With some quick and efficient prep work in setting up equipment and redressing the set, we were able to maximize our shooting time, and less than a month later we returned again to shoot her and her husband with their brand new baby boy.

The results were inspirational and the memories will last a lifetime!

March 7, 2011
The Art of a Green Screen Shoot

We recently had True Entertainment in our green screen studio in Orange County to shoot a new video production. Typically their teams are working on their new shows like “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” but today they came to Avant for a new video to add to their long list of reality and documentary programming.

Yet, with each green screen video shoot, we have to anticipate every step of the complications that could come up. We always have to discuss the green spill. Is it too dark, too bright, uneven, the right shade of green, or should we bring in the blue screen canvas? At Avant we take pride in our experience to give our clients the best lighting for each scene…especially in those trouble areas like the hair.

We have tested our lighting equipment, and dialed in our high-definition cameras, to make sure that every project that comes our of our video studio facility in Orange County is the best it can be. This ensures that each and every one of our clients walks away with a clean image to head to their post production phase. Yet, most of clients don’t finish their green screen project with just the shooting. They continue their project by stepping from the studio and into our editing facilities so that the start and finish of their project can all be completed under one roof. We apply our same talents from the studio into the video editing bay to make sure that every video comes out with the best key possible to pull the green for an incredible image for broadcast or the web.

Because after all, green screens are the wave of the future. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

January 31, 2011