Super Speedway

The art of high impact story telling is a craft Stephen Low has mastered. His films are some of the most intense real time journeys you have ever seen. You can really feel like you are in the moment. If you are in the business of film making or video production and have not had the chance to experience his work, please take the time. It will be so worth it. This trailer for the film "Super Speedway" is amazing. Although the film came out a while back, it is nonetheless stunning visually. The audio grit just draws you in. All of my auto enthusiasts friends were stunned by the camera work. Of course this a large format film shot with very expensive equipment. The footage that you really want to key in on is that of racing legend Mario Andretti and his son Michael as they race with cameras mounted on their cars. The raw speed and intensity of screaming down the track at well over 200 mph is gripping. This is a one off production that auto enthusiasts will not tire of watching. These are two different trailers. Both are equally brilliant. Watch the first one in 720p, amazing!

Share the experience, sell the dream...Full Throttle Media! FTM Seth Horne

The Last Great Sport Fish

This is an excerpt from Paul Greenberg's article in the New York Times Magazine. The article is a must read if you care one iota about the preservation of one the world's great species. Just like elephants, lions, tigers and rhinos, the bluefin tuna deserves to be protected. Just because we cannot see it does not mean we should turn a blind eye. Would you stand by as the last elephant was slaughtered for it's tusks or a silver backed gorilla was shot dead? We are at a seminal moment in the history of our oceans great species. Do you care or do we not? Would you willingly eat an endangered species? It is simple.

“WE FIND OURSELVES in a precarious situation.” So wrote Ritchie Notar, a co-owner of the internationally acclaimed Nobu restaurant chain, to Greenpeace U.K. back in 2008 after Greenpeace intensified its tuna-defense efforts and put forward the idea that bluefin should no longer be served at Nobu’s establishments. “We are dealing with thousands of years of cultural customs,” Notar continued in correspondence Greenpeace forwarded to me. “The Japanese have relied on tuna and the bounties of the sea as part of their culture and history for centuries. We are absolutely appreciative of your goals and efforts within your cause, but it goes far beyond just saying that we can just take what has now all of a sudden been declared an ‘endangered’ species off the menu. It has to do with custom, heritage and behavior.”

Link to the article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27Tuna-t.html?pagewanted=all


Share the experience, sell the dream...Full Throttle Media! FTM Seth Horne

Brand Focus

Food for thought this morning. After you launch your brand, you are only as good as the product and performance you deliver, and the brand promise has to be lived up to. If the promise has been very substantial and the performance has been average, that’s going to put you in a bigger hole than if the promise was modest and the performance has been average. With that in mind, why do I see so many folks in positions of controlling the marketing and brand strategy, as well as it's implementation, with absolutely no idea what they are doing? The silence is deafening. Even worse, you cannot even convince them to do what is in their best interest because they do not know what their interest is to begin with. If you have ineffective or inefficient people in positions that impact your brand, get rid of them. The economic and business environment we find ourselves in today is the perfect excuse to ease your burden and bring in new talent. Keep the ideas flowing.

Share the experience, sell the dream...Full Throttle Media! FTM Seth Horne

Fish Out of Water

There are people willing to make sacrifices that many of us cannot even begin to imagine. They do this out of selflessness. How many of you have considered helping someone who has put their life on the line to protect the very freedoms we take for granted each and every day. Personally, I congratulate the men and women who serve in the military. The fine men and women at Explore.org have really made the effort to extend their hands to those who have served their country by helping soldiers connect with nature. Their film production  "Fish Out of Water" is a wonderful piece. We should all think of ways to extend our hands and make the gesture to say thanks. Whether through our words or our actions, we should all give back.



Share the experience, sell the dream...Full Throttle Media! FTM Seth Horne

Long Format Film Based Marketing with Full Throttle Media

It was early last year and I was pitching a film based marketing plan to a business. Full Throttle Media's idea was to shoot a longer format feature segment and then edit down to multiple 2-3 minute clips for promotional purposes. The long format would be used for streaming, download, trade shows or more interactive sales situations and the short disseminated through broadcast means online. Any way, they had their hired content expert on site and all she could say was “Short format is the only thing that works. It has to be less than 30 seconds.” Sigh! I was offering direct access to the audience they most needed by means of a multimedia production communicated across multiple platforms and she was focused on print advertising. Needless to say, they could not make a decision on my proposal and eventually ended up doing nothing.

Where are they today? Nobody knows and the content expert was fired. Gee, I wonder why. This company is still in business struggling to position their brand with their target consumer. What I mean by nobody knows is that they spent "hundreds of thousands" of dollars listening to the content expert and got butkus. They are no more known today than they were a year and a half ago.

A new report from eMarketer shows continued growth in US online video viewers over the last year and projections for further growth going forward. The kernel in this report reveals that while online video viewership was increasing rapidly, the streaming and downloading of full length productions was experiencing even more dramatic growth. Internet users are moving beyond snack size clips and embracing full length features online.

Well, I have another appointment with these guys.

Share the experience, sell the dream...Full Throttle Media! FTM Seth Horne