Yesterday was about marketing. And fine tuning.

Untitled from Kirk Tuck & Will van Overbeek on Vimeo.

This is just a test of the Nikon V1 video at 720, 60fps. I looked at the top of my desk (as opposed to my "desktop") and figured it would make a cooperative subject.   I put together a DIY slider using a rail assembly from a company called, Igus.  There was a Manfrotto ballhead on top of the slider carriage. I lit the desktop, and the old Kodak camera, with two 1,000 LED panels.  I was looking for noise and artifacts.  The stuff looked pretty good in FCPX.

I keep getting more intrigued with video.  I had a sales meeting with a client yesterday and it's one of the few meetings I've done so far with the iPad2 as my presentation tool.  The ability to go from still portfolios to video with the touch of a finger was eye-opening for me.  With a print portfolio I was always careful not show to much.  Conventional wisdom said 20 to 40 nice prints.

I bought a program called Portfolio for iPad and arranged my work into six different categories.  Each category has its own icon and incorporates its own images.  Each category had anywhere from 25 to 40 images.  With the iPad in the client's hands he controls the pace of the show and the amount of images he wants to see.  It was fun to watch how addictive the screen is.  The client went through every image.  And all the videos (six).

I had also loaded a smaller portfolio, just for him, of images that I'd done various levels of post processing to.  I wanted to make sure he understood that we could overlay these effects to just about any image we create for him.  I labeled this gallery:  (His Name)'s Portfolio.   It took only minutes the night before to create the custom gallery of test images.  It would have required sending out for prints in my older style of showing.

His take away at the end:  "I have to be honest with you.  I much prefer seeing work on a screen than in a print book."

It was a successful marketing foray.  It got me back into his sphere of attention and hopefully, onto his "A" list of suppliers.  I left him with a copy of my new LED book as a leave behind.   I figure that, with over 300 of my photos in one place it's got to be a better leave behind piece than my competitors...

I will say this for progress: Carrying around an iPad beats the hell out of carrying around my 16x20 inch portfolio book (yes, I know, yours is 11x14 and it's just right and I should consider........).

Best of all, we used the calendar function on the iPad2 to book a lunch this Friday.  I still remember what a crusty, old marketing guy told me decades ago about a clients:  "Lunch em or lose em."


If anyone wants details on the "slider" let me know and I'll throw together a quick blog post.