New F11 Rentals Las Vegas Studio Cyclorama - Open for Business
The studio cyc game in Vegas isn't the easiest to navigate, especially for out of town productions that don't know the offerings. Sure, there are some decent places but most are too small for many productions, don't deliver on amenities or are out of the way and not convenient for talent or crew. That's all changed with the opening of F11 Rentals Studio Cyc. This newly built stage offers a 3 sided cyclorama, 26'x35'x36' with 18' tall clearance. The stage offers free wifi, a secured yard with 12x14 rollup door and ample parking. The conditioned stage is open for business at this time and will continue to upgrade it's offering with new makeup/wardrobe space, green room, lofted production overlook and state of the art lighting grid, all of which are coming soon.
The space is large enough to accommodate vehicles, multiple talent productions, photo shoots, music videos and various types of large rehearsals for the entertainment industry. The F11 network speed runs on fiber and offers plenty of upload and download speed for live streams productions. The studio is situated next to the airport and is conveniently located not far from the strip. To make things even more convenient F11 Rentals is one of the largest production rental houses in Las Vegas which makes it easy to add gear to any shoot in the studio before or during the shoot itself. They also offer crew to fill out any production needs.
This studio, now open, will soon be the premiere cyclorama stage in Las Vegas and it's exciting to finally have a space of this quality in the city. Contact F11 to arrange a visit if you're interested or to go their site to book it in 2020 or beyond. This studio has the FiveSix stamp approval.
Shooting in a Green Room - No, Not that type of Green Room!
Corporate video production can have it's challenges. One of these challenges is locations as we don't often get to choose where we shoot. If we're lucky, we get a scout day or pictures of the location we're supposed to shoot in or we've been there before and already know what we're walking into. In these cases, we are prepared with the correct lighting and grip set up to make everything look great. But sometimes we go into a location blind as to what we'll be working with. At these times it's best to bring a versatile lighting set up because sometimes a green room is exactly that.
Recently in Las Vegas, we walked into a room where the windows had such a strange tint on them that all the light coming into the room was an eerie green in color. These were large floor to ceiling windows and there was no time or enough crew to gel them accordingly. Luckily we had brought four Litepanel Gemini 1 x 1 LED panels. With these lights we were able to dial in the amount of green to match the light coming in from the windows and then after that, it was simply white balancing the Canon C300 Mark II cameras accordingly. The room, despite looking eerily haunted, looked perfect on camera and the subjects, instead of looking sickly, appeared vibrant. It's a simple technique but would have been much more difficult to pull off without the right tools. It's one of the things FiveSix is known for, everything turned out great in a less than ideal situation. Effective video production is about being prepared, even if you're tossed into a glowing green room.
Andrea - Showing At The Best Dam Short Film Festival
Studio FiveSix was selected to show our first short film, Andrea, at the Best Dam Short Film Festival in Boulder City. Andrea shows on Feb. 15th in the 8:15pm block of films. We're very excited to be included and are happy that our premiere showing is going to be in neighboring Boulder City. There was a good deal of work and planning that went into creating Andrea, mainly because it was our first narrative piece and we were finding our way through the process. Since then we have shot a second short film called Maybe Tomorrow that is still in post production but will be out shortly. We'll be at the festival this weekend so if you are there, stop by and say hi.
Render This - New Mac Pro Arrives at FiveSix
Sometimes you just need a little extra power to spice things up in the office. Here at FiveSix Productions, we've been running a few different workstations for some time now, a couple mac trashcans from awhile back and a couple newer imac pro machines. But with the new Mac Pro out, we decided our Edit 1 Bay could use an extra boost. So far so good. We run the Adobe Creative Cloud suite working primarily with Premiere Pro and After Effects but also DaVinci Resolve for some color correction. This machine takes on video editing, real time 2D and 3D graphics creation and powers through the renders at a much better click than its predecessor, but I should hope so for the price tag. We didn't load it up with all the extras and purchased most of the additions from outside of Apple, though we did opt for the afterburner card to help with quick encoding. We're only a few weeks in but our editors can surely tell the difference.
There isn't much else to say. We've cut a commercial, half a dozen corporate videos and a short film so far and haven't had any issues. We'll update soon once we've really put it to the test and have some hard data of our own to report. Until then, happy cutting!
Cast Away - Casting A Short Film
At FiveSix we do video productions of all types including corporate storytelling, commercial, reality, social media, political, event, documentary and short narrative films. The last one in that list is fairly new to us and I'd like to chat about how the casting was done in a entirely different manner than our normal process.
For most of our productions in town we use local talent. There is a good pool of models, actors and actresses in Las Vegas to choose from. We normally utilize the local agencies and find a group that fit our demographics for each project. Then, together with our client, we choose the talent that fits the look and feel we're going for. We call the finalists in for an audition, all in one day, and then pick the final group. This happens within a day or two. It's a fairly simple process and one that we have become quite efficient in over the years.
Now, when we started casting for the short films, it was different in two main ways. The first was that the entire production was financed by FiveSix. We didn't have the budget to bring in talent agencies and pay the costs that go along with using their services. A different route was needed. With a little research we discovered that there are plenty of great resources on-line that give you access to thousands of talented actors and actresses. Sites such as Backstage and Casting Networks are great communities that help both producers and talent match together on a project. We ended up posting our projects on backstage.com and having a great pool of talent to choose from. We were able to advertise our day rate for each role and get only those people willing to work for that rate. It helped tremendously in budgeting for the films.
The second main difference in casting for the short films was that we searched over the entire country and not just locally. This brought us a couple of challenges. We ended up doing many auditions through recorded video and not in person. One of the best parts about casting live is that you can ask questions and try giving different direction with lines. You can get a general feeling of how the actor moves with you as you craft a role. This isn't so easy with a recorded audition. We found that we were able to quickly get a feeling about a particular role when auditioning in person but with recorded auditions it took many more views and lengthy discussions within our team. I would always advocate for in-person auditions but when you're on a tight budget and quick timeline, that's not always possible.
Moving forward, due to our ability to find what we were looking for through the on-line talent sites, I think we'll utilize both local agencies and on-line communities for any future auditions. On a last note, casting is fun but also difficult for all parties involved as it brings about more rejections than acceptance. I admire anyone who is willing to put themselves out there like that and audition for a role. Good luck!
Feeling Mighty
We have been enjoying our new MYT Works slider.
We work on a large variety of video productions so we've had to outfit ourselves with a number of options when it comes to camera movements. We have sliders from Edelkrone, Cinevate, Kessler and Dana Dolly. While these have been great, our commercial productions have required a slider that can support large builds. Enter the MYT Works slider. The MYT can handle our Alexa Mini commercial setup, built out with cine primes and all the wireless accessories you can imagine. The magnetic dampeners ensure smooth movement from end to end of the slider.
Phoenix Arizona Video Production
Video Production in the Valley of the Sun - Phoenix, Arizona.
If you're familiar with us, you know we travel, a lot! While we love our two bases of operation in Las Vegas and Long Beach, we are a bit wanderlust. One of our most recent voyages took us to the Valley of the Sun. Like Vegas, Phoenix, Arizona is a melting pot in so many ways, there are visitors and part and full time residents of all ages, races, and points of origin. Similar in climate, and not much older than Las Vegas, Phoenix is quite different in culture. Phoenix and the ever-growing "Sun Belt Corridor" which includes the Phoenix Metro area and Tucson are rich in history and culture. From Hollywood Westerns to the hundreds of golf courses, classic desert landscape to the glitz of Scottsdale, you know Phoenix when you see it.
We teamed up with one of our favorite clients on a project at University Park downtown, to unveil some recent additions. The city utilized a generous donation to add classic games like Four Square, Corn Hole, Tether Ball, and Bocce Ball. Along with a city pool, awesome baseball field, and plenty of open space, this park will continue to serve the community for years to come.
We were so happy to be a part of the ribbon cutting ceremony, and can't wait to get back to Phoenix for the next project.
Political Campaign Commercials: BTS
Behind the Scenes on local election commercials.
Every time an election season nears, our calendars fill up with plenty of campaign commercials. Sometimes it's someone campaigning for a local, "entry level" position, other times, someone is trying to move into the big-time in D.C. T.V. commercials are one of the most effective ways to get their message to voters. We turn a blind eye to our own political ideals, and do our best to create a commercial that will stand out.
Some commercials are simple, with just the candidate delivering a message to the camera. Other commercials may be much more elaborate with multiple locations, talent, and a huge crew. A great commercial requires all aspects to work together to tell the message. The right location, lighting, music, and pacing, are just as important as the script. Where it might seem like too much, we love bringing sliders, jibs, extra lighting, and cinema lenses. This can really help to create an amazing t.v. commercial, and wow the client.
If your Southern California or Las Vegas campaign needs a great commercial, look no further! We're a one-stop-shop for all your video production needs.
Down here in Southern California...
FiveSix Productions' crews hit the beaches from Long Beach to San Diego!
Do you know what's better than having sand literally everywhere on and in your body? Not much, because you must have been on the beach to get that way, and, if you're on the beach, you're winning. Down here in Southern California, we catch some shade for our clothing, but hey, Hawaiian shirts dude! What, are we supposed to wear tuxedos!? It's a bit different at our Long Beach office, than back at command-central in Las Vegas. Southern California video production doesn't mean dressing for the club or casino. (We love you Vegas!)
We absolutely love it down here, and it reflects in our work. From the sand in Seal Beach, to Griffith Observatory (I swear there's no better view of the city!). And we recently went down to San Diego's Gaslamp District. It's totally worth the drive to go check out all the cool bars- I mean, birds. When you are passionate about what you do, where you do it, and who you do it for- the results can't get any better.
If your next Southern California video production needs to be the best you've ever had, look no further than Long Beach video production company FiveSix Productions! (We do own a couple non-Hawaiian shirts, in case of emergencies!
An NBA MVP in Las Vegas...
James Harden, the bearded-master of the between the legs crossover - fadeaway.
Las Vegas in July means three things: massive 4th of July fireworks shows, inhumane daily temperatures, and the NBA Summer League. While the Summer League has wrapped up, we're still excited about having filmed with the reigning MVP of the league. James Harden, in all his bearded glory (second best beard, behind Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies), came through town, and as such, had a bouquet of events to attend. One event, which we were a part of, was a photo and video shoot. One interesting challenge we faced, was keeping the lavalier microphones on the basketball players, even while they were running and jumping around. Mixing levels was also a fun challenge, as there was a big difference between their speaking voices, and their in-game yelling and hollering.
We can't go into the details of the shoot, as those NDAs are no joke, but it was a great experience. Harden showed off his amazing on-court skills, and his fun, easy-going personality. We certainly hope that we have future opportunities to work with him and all the other NBA stars next year. If your Long Beach or Las Vegas video production calls for the best, look no further than FiveSix Productions.