Markee Magazine. National trade. March 1996.
The Mid-Atlantic
Well-Anchored in Film, Video, and New Media
By Jennifer Willis
On the U.S. East Coast, the Mid-Atlantic region is another up and coming hot spot for film, video, and multimedia production and related services. Comprised of Virginia, Washington, DC, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the area boasts the talent, the skills, and the service to lure the same caliber client which might otherwise migrate toward the more traditional production centers of Los Angeles and New York.
When Kathy Lambert and Amy Daniels needed a name for their new production company in Richmond, VA, they wanted something Southern and feminine -- definitely something at the start of the alphabet. And so Azalea Films was born.
Four years later, the company provides high-quality production tailored to a clients budget and needs. And with newly signed director Randy Shreve, business has been booming.
Lambert is “hugely committed to the state of Virginia,” which has much to offer in terms of talent, location, and price. Azalea is working to change the perception of the region, to demonstrate that Virginia can provide the same quality at a lower cost.
Azalea does a fair amount of retail work, including spots for advertising firm the Martin Agency and Circuit City -- also located in Richmond. 1996 will bring significant growth, and the company looks forward to expanding into such areas as Florida and Texas.
While Azalea clients are mostly regional, award-winning Shreve has attracted more national interest, such as US News and World Report.
Azalea crews are comprised of regional freelancers -- top-notch talent with a wide range of skills experience. Shreve has “great faith in the crew,” and says the extra effort invested in production results in national-level quality.
In Richmond, Virginia, Jon Nelson Production Toys provides crew and equipment for independent productions, acting very much as the field production arm for client projects.
Though most projects fall within a four-hour drive of Richmond, Nelson also has provided services in three different countries. With clients in the commercial, corporate, and television markets, Nelson saw a “very positive year” in 1995.
Boasting a solid track record, Jon Nelson Production Toys functions primarily as a packaging service, providing a valuable depth of both equipment and knowledge.
Currently, Nelson is focusing on high-end corporate marketing, commercial clients, and the emerging home video market, as well as programming for Discovery.
Since 1985, Nelson has seen significant growth in the region. While the 1980’s saw most production was coming in from out of town, the current trend is toward regional producers and the rise of new clients in the area. And as costs continue to increase, companies are looking more toward the evolving resources in the region.
As the number of producers continues to increase, the marketplace is expanding dramatically, and Nelson believes that this is due to the pool of excellent talent and equipment available. And with new businesses moving into the area, 1996 should be another good year.
Founded in 1991 as an independent production company, Media General in Fairfax, Virginia offers a broad range of services, including video production, a mobile studio, both linear and non-linear post-production, and animation and graphics.
Media General grew out of a cable company which had provided local news-based programming. When another service offered the same twenty-four-hour coverage, Media General expanded its horizons to cater to the needs of local and regional clients.
The company has twenty employees on staff and also contracts with freelance personnel. Program Director Sally Heldrick notes that there are “real good people in this market” -- a fact immediately apparent when considering the company’s awards list.
Media General services a variety of clients, including broadcast programming and commercials as well as corporate communications. A recent piece for a Saturn client garnered the company a VISION award in the automotive category. Media General has also produced recruitment pieces for colleges and has worked with Unlimited Partnerships on real estate marketing videos.
In Springfield, Virginia, Don Platon of Electric Film follows an intense schedule and has worked all over the U.S. Primarily a director of photography, Platon also solves production problems by calling in the necessary resources, from hiring freelance crews to investigating insurance binders.
Platon considers himself a “jack of all trades,” hires himself out as a production consultant, and is cross-trained in a variety of disciplines.
1995 found Platon frequently in the role of director, for which he is ideally suited due to his ten years as an actor. He works with both trained actors and “real people” and prefers to “direct by observation,” working with people’s backgrounds to capture the desired performance.
Platon’s focus for 1996 is to increase his work in table top photography, children’s programming, cable television, and regional television sports. His clients are broadcast as well as corporate and industrial, and he has done international, long-form documentary work.
Platon made a solid commitment to increasing math and science literacy in 1990. His work in this realm is aimed toward young adults, to boost the U.S. ranking world-wide in math and science. This caters to Platon’s interest in children’s programming, and he finds his involvement to be very personally rewarding.
When in need of a specialty lighting service and rental company, East Coast Lites more than fits the bill.
Located in Richmond, Virginia, the company provides lighting equipment, grip equipment, camera dollies, generators, and trucks as well as putting together crews. Owner and president Russ Parsons stresses that there are “really good folks within the freelance pool in the state.”
While the industry is gaining momentum in Virginia, Parsons has seen more video work being done in the Tidewater area while Richmond boasts more film-oriented talent.
East Coast services commercial projects, corporate and industrial productions, and movie projects -- for which East Coast does second unit work, repairs damaged equipment, and fills in gaps to meet a production’s technical needs.
Recent clients have included Reynolds Aluminum, Pepsi, and Colonial Williamsburg, which initiated a satellite link for “Electronic Classroom,” an in-house promotions which allowed school children to ask Williamsburg experts about life in colonial times.
While Parsons admits that each project is “not real big fancy stuff,” he has done some fascinating work, including a Disney Pocahontas special shot in Jamestown, on which Parsons himself served as a gaffer.
Parsons gives credit for the surge in the industry to the fantastic marketing done by the Virginia Film Commission, and he is confident that this growth will continue.
Gardy McGrath is a full-service video production company offering “one-stop shopping” in a 20,000 sq. ft. facility in Reston, Virginia.
With diverse services including post-production and a growing animation department, Gardy McGrath takes a production every step of the way from scripting to post.
Celebrating its tenth anniversary in 1995, the company grows at a steady rate of about twenty-five percent per year and provides services for medical, sports, and technical training videos, documentary and television pieces, and corporate projects. Other applications include video imagery for multimedia and CD-ROM projects.
With approximately fifty percent of projects for national clients, Dave Gardy explains that they are always on the road and deliver via “fax, Fed-Ex, and fiber-optic.” Plugging Reston, Gardy says that “a lot of companies want Washington representation.”
The company does governmental work as well as proposal and profile videos for clients. Recent projects include a video sports catalog -- “Video Pro Shop Buyers Guide” -- and a piece for the Learning Channel called “Seatek” -- detailing naval technology, a Virginia specialty.
1996 should see a very active national market, Gardy predicts, and Gardy McGrath will expand its animation capabilities. Already providing 3-D animation and CDI for education and training projects, the company will explore possibilities in sports and engineering.
Washington DC’s AVS Post is perfectly located for the 1996 political season -- right on the hill. This post-production facility employees twenty-five people and boasts three on-line suites, two AVIDs, a new audio suite, and a full graphic system.
AVS attracts such clients as Larry King and “America’s Most Wanted,” which it has broadcast live from AVID. 1995 was very busy, with no downtime and no Christmas slowdown.
Marketing and graphics coordinator Mary Lee Pondo predicts that 1996 will be just as busy. In a major election year, she says that “everyone in DC is scrambling.” While political projects comprise a large portion of the company’s work, AVS also services broadcast, corporate, and association clients.
AVS is currently developing its own web site, and Pondo says that the company is also looking toward greater involvement in digital video.
Apart from technology and expertise, AVS’ main goal is service. Pondo describes AVS as a boutique offering a high level of graphics capabilities -- including 3-D and cell animation -- in addition to traditional post-production services.
It’s not just service; it’s atmosphere. Pondo sums it up simply: “When you walk in, you know you’re walking into AVS Post.”
Also in the DC region is KLM Video, a full service post-production facility in Bethesda, Maryland. Offering graphics services and audio, on-line and off-line suites, KLM’s also has an on-staff composer.
KLM clients are mostly regional, with a good mix of cable, corporate, and industrial projects. KLM does a fair amount of government work, such as a recent piece entitled “The Making of Money,” featuring the new one-hundred dollar bill.
Recent cable and broadcast clients include Discovery, The Network Group, and “America’s Most Wanted.” A long-standing KLM client is Black Entertainment Television.
Current projects include a program for the Internal Revenue Service profiling the IRS and unions working together. Director of Post-Production Leon Cobb describes it as a fairly extensive project utilizing all of KLM’s services.
Cobb says the company will expand further into non-linear editing. He emphasizes scrutiny in choosing new equipment. As costs come down, he explains, “everyone thinks he’s an editor.” But there’s much more involved than equipment, which Cobb exemplifies: “food’s been out for a long time and not everyone’s a gourmet cook.”
KLM strives to make a project as easy and hassle-free as possible for each client. Cobb stresses both trust and value and says that all KLM clients receive the special attention they deserve.
Specializing in field sound recording, Vark Audio provides sales, rentals, and servicing of professional audio equipment in the Washington, DC - Baltimore area. Typical clients include studios, post-houses, and independent film sound recordists.
With vested experience in film and video sound, Vark Audio’s Bruce Tharp believes the company “offer[s] a level of technical expertise not common in this field.” Vark’s main competitors are warehouses which may offer good prices but little knowledge of products.
Vark began as a service company, making custom equipment for unique production needs. Though it now focuses on equipment sales and rental, Vark’s machine and electronics shops still accommodate special needs.
Tharp sees two distinct groups in sound recording: film and video. While film sound recordists are very quality conscious and hold a longer tradition in the industry, he considers video sound “a different animal to some degree.” Video was not always capable of the same high-quality sound of film, though this is changing.
1995 was very busy for the region and for Vark, which supplied such clients as the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Arts, and the Library of Congress, as well as independent producers in network, broadcast, documentary, and industrial fields.
Baltimore’s Flite Three began as an audio facility thirty-seven years ago. Now a full-service audio-visual company, Flite Three takes a “cradle to grave approach” with clients, according to Anne Lovelace.
With a fully component digital edit suite, digital phone patch capabilities, and two of the largest soundstages on the East Coast, Flite Three serves both regional and national clients and has hosted such diverse motion pictures as “Avalon,” “Major League II,” and “Guarding Tess.”
In addition to technical expertise, Lovelace says it is the family-like atmosphere which attracts clients. Adding that personal touch so that no one feels “lost in the shuffle” is important -- as well as providing much the same services at lower costs than comparable facilities in New York and Los Angeles.
Baltimore provides an ideal base of operations. With more film work expanding into Maryland in the last decade, and located close to Washington, DC, New York, and Philadelphia, Flite Three is “right in the middle of things.”
Flite Three even served as headquarters for the Pope’s 1995 visit to the area, becoming a 24-hour broadcast facility for the Eternal Word Television Network -- with satellite dishes in the parking lot and an AV room doubling as a chapel during the ten-day visit.
Flite Three has also recently worked with Legend Entertainment on a CD-ROM interactive title, “Mission Critical.”
As Lovelace judges that “multimedia is the wave of the future,” she has identified digital interactive media as an avenue of continued growth for the company.
Rockville, Maryland’s VideoLabs provides full video duplication services -- everything from international conversion to special packaging.
Located so close to Washington, DC, the company attracts a great variety of clients from corporate, government, and trade association markets. Harry Zalewski says that as “DC is a notoriously strong international market,” VideoLabs’ conversion work comprises a significant portion of its production.
Housed in a 10,000 sq. ft. facility, VideoLabs is capable of handling large-volume duplication. VideoLabs has approximately 600 VHS machines, 50 3/4” and 4 1” machines. Also available are 30 PAL units. VideoLabs does its own servicing in-house -- the company had its start in equipment repair.
While 1995 brought an increase in duplication requests, VideoLabs was affected by recent federal shut downs and the “Blizzard of ‘96.” Corporate accounts are up, however, and Zalewski expects continued growth through 1996, with potential projects including duplication packages for 35,000 - 50,000 copies.
Zalewski believes that offering a better service and maintaining high quality control attracts national clients and helps keep its long-terms customers. The company regularly tests its tape stock and purchases only U.S.-made shells and BASF tape.
Philadelphia’s PMTV is the largest independent mobile facilities provider in the country, covering approximately 550 events each year.
Most projects involve high-profile professional and college sports, with ten to twenty percent of the company’s business through exclusive contracts with regional sports broadcasters. And PMTV also covers broadcast Yanni concerts, including an event in Mexico which was the largest grossing concert event in Central America.
PMTV provided mobile facilities for the Bravo Honor Awards in Los Angeles, was on-hand for Merv Griffin’s New Year’s show, handled a fourteen-camera Boston Pops concert, and covered the Philadelphia Mummers Parade -- a 12-hour-long broadcast.
Brian Powers says that while the summer months are lighter, the traditional sports seasons running August through March are “unbelievable.” During a very busy recent weekend, the company logged seventeen booking days for twelve events.
As a general contractor, PMTV brings all of the elements of a show together. Its main commodities are information and knowledge, maintaining an extensive database of freelance crews, generator companies, and other facilities all across the country. This database lists every TV truck in the U.S. and allows the company to quickly generate project bids and assemble packages for virtually any project.
The primary objective is to provide information on every solution, and this value-added service of doing the research footwork is available to any client and really makes a world of difference.
Powers’ own philosophy? “Service, service, service, service, and knowledge” -- a strategy which is definitely paying off, as PMTV attracts new clients every week.
Philadelphia’s Prime To Go is an AVID rental house allied with Prime Productions, a production company in business for over twenty years.
Prime To Go ships AVID systems all over the country. All units are pre-wired and packed in flight cases. With five AVID units in inventory, Prime To Go provides short-term solutions to clients -- mostly small production companies and corporate video and documentary -- with rental periods ranging from several weeks to several months.
The company’s client base is local and national, and Prime To Go also provides 24-hour access to in-house edit suites. Other capabilities include duplication facilities, a scanner, and a time-code DAT machine.
Prime Productions’ speciality is promoting local news stations all over the country, as well as high-end commercial pieces on film and corporate communications work.
With business growing rapidly, Don Creamer calls Prime “a little agency and production company all in one,” and emphasizes that one of the company’s strengths lies in its creative capabilities in writing and producing projects.
1996 has been busy thus far, with two spots for KABC in Los Angeles and other television clients in San Francisco and Houston, in addition to corporate clients Vanguard Financial and Alco Standard.
Philadelphia’s WHYY first appeared as a radio station on October 20, 1956. It hit the television airwaves in 1957. Thirteen years ago, its media services branch began to offer production services to corporate, industrial, and broadcast clients.
WHYY features three studios and a 550-seat theatre as well as a camera truck and an insert studio, used frequently for news remotes.
Clients are mostly regional and national, and sales representative Beth Dinice says the attraction to WHYY is definitely service. The company’s aim is to “treat the little fish like the big fish,” and has a high-quality technical staff on hand to meet every need.
Dinice explains that there really is no typical WHYY client, as the company offers very diverse services to meet a wide variety of needs. Fulfilling such functions as television production, teleconferencing, and news programs, WHYY has a client roster ranging from smaller local corporations all the way up to CBS and Aetna. WHYY has also done work for network news and sports shows and television magazine programs.
Future projects include the 1996 Olympic in Atlanta, for which WHYY will provide mobile coverage of sporting events.
With such bustling hubs as Washington and Philadelphia, the Mid-Atlantic is well-anchored in film, video, and new media. And as the region continues along its current track of growth and expansion, the rest of the nation will no doubt continue to take notice.