If you go out and try to get a TV commercial made, you will find that we are in the throes, right now, of a transition from standard definition (SD) to high definition (HD). In primetime, most of the national spots are now in HD. But in daytime, most local commercials are still in SD that looks terrible on newer TV sets. Ideally, what you would like is to have your commercial produced and run in HD. People watching it on an old SD set would see it in SD, just like they see everything else. But the newer sets would show your spot in all its glory!
That’s not the way it works for most local advertisers right now. For one thing, local production companies and even TV stations are often gouging their customers who want HD production. Then there is the impossibility of getting a local station that doesn’t yet have the proper equipment to run an HD spot. Unfortunately, all we can do about that is wait for them to get with the program, so to speak, and continue to produce SD versions of our spots for as long as we have to. But I have recently addressed the lack of affordable HD production services by going into a partnership with another agency to provide just that.
We call it our Affordable HD Project. It’s a joint effort between my agency, Gary Davis Media, and another agency here in Austin, Frink Inc., owned by a friend of mine, Bill Frink. My long-time cameraman and editor, Norm Wright, works for Bill. They do all my production. Which means that when I make a spot for my clients, I write, produce and direct it but the actual hands-on shooting and editing is something I hire Norm to do. He is very good at it and he and I have developed an excellent working relationship over the decade or so we have been shooting and editing commercials together.
What about costs? First of all, if you are a Gary Davis Media client, you will get the same deal from me that you always have. Any commercials I make for my clients, for placement on TV stations by my agency, I will make for my actual cost, not a penny more. I make my living from the 15% agency discount I get from TV stations for placement, not from production for my clients. So, you can expect your production costs, through my agency, to be about the same as they always have been, except that I will be producing your spots in HD as well as SD.
If you are not a client of Gary Davis Media, or any other agency for that matter, you can still come to us for production. We intend to make our Affordable HD Project worthy of its name. Check with your local production houses to find out what they would charge to shoot a spot for you, then talk to Norm about letting us do it. We intend to save you some very serious money!
We can shoot in the studio here in Austin, using green-screen technology, so that, in post-production, we can put you or your spokesperson in front of just about any background you can imagine. We can shoot on location, in your offices or elsewhere, just about anywhere. We use both studio and on-location teleprompters and we have many decades of combined experience making the shooting process not only easy but fun.
So, if you have a production project that you would like to run by us, please send us an email. Describe in some detail what you have in mind. Give us a phone number where somebody can get back to you. Let’s see what we can do.