What’s New 2013

WEBSITE & VIDEO GALLERY GET A FACELIFT

You may notice some changes in the way our website looks and feels this year. As we have raised our presence on YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter and other social media, we have re-designed our website to integrate seamlessly with our other sites including Newsfeeds and Blogs that update daily and giving your Feedback is now easier than ever. Our Video Gallery now directly links to our YouTube channel, automatically updating with each Upload and leveraging the Commenting and other features of YouTube. We will be launching new Video Production Tips articles more regularly within our Blog – and also begin presenting topics in Vlog format as befits a Video company.


NEW HD CAMERAS FOR EACH APPLICATION

Channel Three Productions has been committed to High Definition for many years. In 2006, we began using AGHVX-200 cameras for a host of high-profile projects for state and city government, corporate communications and TV spots. The HVX-200 hand-held High Definition cameras record to P2 cards in DVC PRO-50 in 480, 720 and 1080p, with all the variable frame rates including slow-mo and time lapse effects recorded directly with the camera and all the audio inputs and features of a larger ENG broadcast camera. In recent years, we have now added DSLR and Go Pro cameras to our arsenal.

GH2Go Pro Hero 2Go Pro 3D

The Lumix Panasonic GH2 DSLR was the perfect choice for our workflow. The camera matches up well with our HVX-200 but offers the more cinematic shallow depth of field achieved by an interchangeable set of a range of lens lengths. Yet, unlike most other DSLR’s, the camera can zoom dynamically without losing focus and it has a port for connecting an external mic where we can record pristine audio directly into the camera with no automatic gain control and no need for a separate audio recording device or box. It is now easier than ever to pull high resolution stills from any video shot with the GH2, not to mention our still shooting capabilities are generally now much more high resolution. The small size of DSLR cameras make them ideal for inconspicuous filming as well as shots in tight spaces. They also mount easily to car cars for smooth driving shots. We used car-mounted GH2 DSLR shots extensively on the Telly Award-winning, “Road Show” DVD we produced for Greyhound Lines in 2010. (More on that video later.) In order to film in even tighter quarters such as from the dashboard, atop a helmet or even underwater, we just added two Go-Pro Hero Extreme cameras, replete with back PAC monitor, underwater casings and even a 3D system. The Go-Pros and the GH2 all record in 1080p HD. With the HVX-200, GH2 and Hero Extremes, we have a full set of camera options in-house so we can use the camera best suited for any shot.


EXPANDED SERVICES: 360 VIRTUAL TOURS

Our interactive 360-degree panoramic virtual tours are among the highest resolution, most highly interactive and user-friendly virtual tours on the web. Channel Three DP, Michael Schrengohst has created virtual tours for Zeiss Lenses, Motor Home RV, Addison Conference Center, Crowne Plaza Hotels and many more. We encourage you to interact with our Virtual Tour Tab to see exactly what we mean! Interacting is believing!


Addison Conference Centre  Crowne Plaza Hotel

Habitat for Humanity  Robson Ranch

 

Other expanded services of note include our work in Market Research. Partnering with nationally recognized consumer research companies such as Snippies, C&R Research, Slaughter Branding and others, Channel Three Productions has produced videos incorporating everything form man-on-the street interviews, focus groups and sit-down in-depth ethnographies. Not only have we provided videography and post-production, but in many cases, we’ve also conducted the interviews and recruited the participants for projects from pizza to health care reform.

 

HITTING THE ROAD WITH GREYHOUND LINES FOR THE LONG HAUL!

In 2010, Greyhound Lines began an exhaustive review of video production vendors to partner with on launching new media communications announcing the substantial facelift the old bus line was making, both externally and internally. Greyhound began offering all its customers a 1st Class travel experience including more and more express routes, high-backed leather seating and extensive leg-room, along with WiFi and plug-ins aboard the buses as well as in the newly redesigned terminals. Channel Three Productions is very grateful to have been selected from amongst very formidable nationwide competition to produce “Road Show” which went on to win a Telly Award in the category of Corporate Image. The video naturally included extensive beauty shots, utilizing jibs soaring above the buses and car mounted driving shots through iconic landmarks such as Downtown Dallas skyline, White Rock Lake and Cowboy Stadium. To bring together Greyhound personnel across the country in the “We Are Greyhound” message, it was necessary to film bus terminals in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Portland and Atlanta. Since producing “Road Show”, Channel Three has produced several other videos for Greyhound including corporate leadership messages to the field, employee involvement videos and even passenger safety videos in English, Spanish and French to play on monitors in buses before take-off throughout North America.

Greyhound Cowboys Stadium  Greyhound passenger  Greyhound Buses



CHANNEL THREE PRIVILEGED TO SERVE AS PRODUCER OF JUROR VIDEO

Just as Greyhound chose Channel Three to produce its first new corporate image video in more than a decade, Channel Three was awarded the contract to replace the 15 year-old juror orientation video for Dallas County. “Jury Duty: It’s A Privilege to Serve,” produced with the Dallas Bar Association, is the new large screen video presentations shown to jury pools in the George Allen and Frank Crowley Central Jury Rooms to prepare them for their day of service and impart the Constitutional responsibility and privilege of serving as a jury of peers. Starring Clarice Tinsely of Fox-4 and Scott Sams of CBS-11, the two narrators provide two familiar and friendly faces to guide the prospective jurors through the process from jury selection to courtroom proceedings to final deliberation. While the court case was a re-enactment, actual court officers and a newly retired judge were cast in their real-life roles and real-life jurors testified to the importance and gratification they derived from fulfilling their constitutional duty. The new Central Jury Room video debuted in 2011 and has just been updated in 2013. Web videos have also been launched to impart important information pertaining to Exemptions, Disqualifications, parking and other things someone must know before appearing at jury service. As a result of our work on this project, Channel Three was honored to be chosen to produce a parental involvement video for Dallas County Juvenile Justice that featured Judges Lee-Shannon and Mazur and County Commissioner John Wiley Price, among others.

 

Clarice Juror video  Juror Video

Juror video  Juror pool

Juror video Scott  JW Price

 



CHANNEL THREE “ALWAYS PREPARED” FOR 100 YEARS OF GIRL SCOUTING

8-9-10 (August 9, 2010) launched a day of service by the Girl Scouts and corporate partners, Frito-Lay and Kroger, to benefit the North Texas Food Bank, Kip’s Kids and other community programs. The brainchild of long-time Frito-Lay manager, Jenny Birge, 8-9-10, which originally involved gathering 8 cans of food, 9 gently used books and a “Perfect 10” community service project, has become an annual event powered by the Girl Scouts. This date also marked the beginning of an association Channel Three Productions is honored to have with Girl Scouts USA and Girls Scouts of Northeast Texas. As a long-time vendor of both Kroger and Frito-Lay, specifically working with Jenny Birge, and as parents of kids in the scouting program, we gladly volunteered our services on producing a video publicizing the 8-9-10 initiative. Proof that giving is a reward unto itself, our services to the Girl Scouts enabled us to form an on-going association with this amazing organization, just two years before being able to join the celebration of a Centennial of Service. As part of the Celebration, Girls Scouts had its own interactive exhibit at the Hall of State during the 2012 State Fair of Texas, presented by AT&T and Corporate Magic. Channel Three Productions produced promotional videos for the exhibit as well as provided much of the video of scouting activities we had had the joy of filming for the past two years on a range of video projects, from “The Year of The Girl” to “Cookies 101.” The original 8-9-10 event also introduced us to news anchor and lifetime Girl Scout, Clarice Tinsley, who became an indispensible spokeswoman for Channel Three on projects from the Girl Scouts to Dallas County Jury Services.

GS100years  Girl Scouts Clarice

Girl Scouts Colleen  Girl Scouts

Hispanic Girl Scouts  Girl Scout Troop

 


CHANNEL THREE GOES TO THE SUPERBOWL (AND 2 ALL-STAR GAMES1)

In 2012, Channel Three Productions got in on the Super Bowl festivities and enjoyed enormous success, despite the inconveniencies of the area’s worst ice storm. This included a roll-out video for SI.com’s Super Bowl issue, which featured a 100 member cast dressed in Tom Landry-style trench coats and hats passing around the top-secret new magazine in an elaborate scene based on “The Thomas Crowne Affair.” Shot at North Park Mall, the video ends with a surprise appearance by Landry granddaughter, Taylor Landry, welcoming everyone to Dallas. Other Super Bowl events included Maxim Magazines gala at Fair Park starring Wycliff Jean, we shot on behalf of Virgin Gaming. Right around this time, longtime client, Apple Orthodontix rolled out new tv spots we shot with Dallas Cowboys, Jay Ratlif and Orlando Scandrick. Our association with Virgin Gaming began a year prior when Dallas hosted its first NBA All Star Game. Virgin Gaming sponsored an EA NBA video game competition to benefit charity between rapper, Snoop Dogg and record producer, Jermain Dupri and Channel Three shot and edited a funny and exciting promo of the star-studded event performed at the NBA Player’s Association Gala attended by professional athletes and recording artists, including a surprise concert by Mary J. Blige. The NBA All-Star Game in Dallas afforded us the chance to work on other projects associated with the event, including a roll out of the new Kobe 5 sneaker from Nike, which they introduced to top area high school players such as Perry Jones at Nike-sponsored clinics in Dallas during the week. Since that time, Channel Three has had the opportunity to produce a video on Nike Golf’s facility, “The Oven” for Nike Golf and just this year, filmed events at All-Star Weekend 2013 in Houston for Philippines Sports TV and Adidas.

NBA Brook  NBA All Stars Event

Mary J Blige  NBA Bus

Nike Clinic  Snoop Dogg

NBA-NFL   Cowboys Stadium

 


WEB PUBLICATIONS & TV SHOWS

Channel Three Productions, President, Brad Ruekberg, has become the Southwest Region Field Producer/DP (Director of Photography) for a number of notable web publications. Along with SI.com, Brad has filmed rehearsal footage and interviews with the likes of The Jonas Brothers for Rollingstone.com as well as one of the most watched segments of Newsweek.com – “The Best Public High Schools in the US,” among other stories.

Rolling Stone - Jonas Brothers  Rolling Stone - Jonas Brothers

Newsweek segment  Newsweek Segment

 

Brad continues serving in the same function for a number of nationally-syndicated cable segments, such as “21st Century Business Reports” (CNBC) and “World’s Greatest” on ION. Brad has filmed/produced over 50 episodes of “World’s Greatest” including segments on everything from the world’s greatest market/bakery (Eatzi’s) to Renaissance Festival, to stadium design company (Walter P. Moore).

World's Greatest HosteatZi's

Texas Stadiums  Cowboys Stadium

How2 Media, the executive producers of “World’s Greatest” and possibly the world’s greatest independent producers of cable tv shows – also have produced entire shows centered around the “Best of” a particular city. In 2012, Brad field-produced and shot 8 segments for “Best of OKC.” OKC, along with Houston, Austin/SA, Little Rock and Shreveport are well within Brad’s usual 3-4 hour driving region, but he has recently taken assignments in New Orleans (Gulf Island Shrimp & Seafood) and even Monterrey, Mexico (Magna Powertrains.)

Club One  Club One girls

Texas Renaissance Festival  TV-WG-Magna



OUR FAMILY OF CLIENTS

What do oil & gas exploration, potato/corn chip production, ductile iron processing, carpet cleaning and Cancer research have in common? Absolutely nothing! But they represent the diversity of corporate clients Channel Three Productions serves on a regular basis. We regard our clients as our family. US Oncology and its parent company, McKesson, became a client of Channel Three after working with Brad on a segment of “Inside Business with Fred Thompson” on FOX Business News. After completing this TV segment, the company made video a major focus and Channel Three produced a brand new marketing video for the company as well a host of education videos shot at conferences in Austin and Las Vegas, partner pharmaceutical companies in Dallas and Philadelphia, and medical professionals at their HQ in The Woodlands and at oncology facilities throughout the country. US Oncology supports Cancer research by pairing patients in clinical trial with participating medical and pharmaceutical companies and Channel Three Productions is gratified to work with a company that is making such a difference.

 

US Oncology  US Oncology Research

 

EXCO Energy, is a Dallas-based energy company led by a visionary board of directors that includes T. Boone Pickens. Brad produced a Telly Award winning corporate image video for the company in 2011 as well as an employee recruiting video that took him to Natural Gas shales and oil rigs along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, as well as an all Natural Gas vehicle fueling station. Unveiled by Mr. Pickens.

 

EXCO - T. Boone Pickens  EXCO

Frito-Lay and its parent company, PepsiCo, has been a steady client for over 20 years, with constant needs for videos covering everything from R&D to sales and marketing. In 2012, Channel Three Productions traveled to the Orlando to film a new training video on product handling “Reducing Breakage from Seed to Shelf” and then to the Atlanta area to produce a series of new manufacturing training videos, beginning with the Rold Gold Pretzel brand.

Frito-Lay Potato chip production  Frito-Lay Rold Gold Pretzels

EBAA Iron is another client we have been fortunate to service for over 20 years. In the past year, we have produced two new videos for the company, one comprised of new HD videography and the other completely animated in 3D, to showcase the company’s emphasis on quality manufacturing. EBAA Iron manufactures flexible expansion joints and connectors for the water pipeline industry, all within its facilities in Eastland, TX. Channel Three is proud to support companies such as Eastland that create products and jobs domestically in the US.

 

EBAA IRON - manufacturing

EBBA IRON-manufacturing

EBAA IRON-animationEBAA IRON-animation

Since 1998, Rug Doctor has been “Steaming Mad at Dirt” and we couldn’t be happier about it! We began working with the carpet cleaning machine company in 2010 on a product knowledge and rental training video for store associates working at Dollar General and Home Depot, among others. Since that time, we have created videos for consumer users on how to use the machine and the various cleaning products. In 2012 and 2013, Rug Doctor began designing and installing customized rental kiosks for retailers such as Wal-Mart and Kroger. These kiosks are completely video-driven and guide the consumer through the entire rental process. Shot against infinite white screen we set up at Rug Doctor’s corporate offices, as well as in home settings, we had to frame up the shots a variety of ways since the format of the kiosk screens vary greatly from chain to chain, from 4×3 to 16×9 (wide screen) to “wide-screen on its side” 9 x 16. The on-screen narrator driven videos had to be shot in English, Spanish and French-Canadian in order to be used throughout North America.

 

Rug Doctor  Rug Doctor-Cleaner

Rug Doctor - Kroger Kiosk  Rug Doctor -Logo    Rug Doctor - Vertical


UNITING STATES

Channel Three Productions has a long history of working with State Government on projects vital to those citizens. While we primarily have worked with the State of Texas, we have also crossed state lines to work with Louisiana’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, among others. In 2012, we ventured a bit further a field when we were awarded a video contract with the Idaho Real Estate Commission. Undoubtedly turning a few heads in that beautiful northwestern state, we created a video that clarified Idaho real estate laws, utilizing actors in dialogue-driven scenarios that explore the sometimes subtle nuances of state real estate laws.

 

Idaho Real Estate Commission 

 Idaho Real Estate AgentIdaho Couple


A bit closer to home, in 2012, we produced a new series of tv spots for Oklahoma tourism, updating the campaign we produced in 2008. Working with the advertising gurus at Creative Options Advertising was never so much fun, as we captured fly-fishing, canoeing, nature walks and wildlife through the beautiful countryside of McCurtain County.

 

McCurtain County, OK  McCurtain County, OK


And although our 12-year contract with TxDOT finally concluded, we began a new 4-year contract with Sam Houston State University. We fell in love with the SHSU campus during the production of our 2007 Telly Award-winning Visitor Center presentation. In 2011, we were awarded the contract for the prestigious “Distinguished Alumni” and “Service Awards” series. These two annual presentations are bestowed upon a diverse and highly accomplished group of alumni from Houston to Philadelphia where we have filmed their success stories., from secret missions in Laos, to the head referee at the Super Bowl, to a principal who transformed an at-risk high school. We traveled to the FBI and NCIS HQ’s in LA to interview special agent, Michael Devine, as well as an unnamed member of Seal Team 6. We went to the General Foods HQ and the Target HQ Minneapolis to interview distinguished alumni executives and their colleagues with those companies. We traveled to Nashville to film multiple CMA Winner and Country Music Songwriter Hall of Famer, Allen Shamblin. After two years of filming these amazing individuals, we can hardly wait to meet the next crop of distinguished alumni.

 

Michael Devine  SHSU-Vincent

 SHSU-KiswaniSHSU-McManners

 SHSU-ShamblinSHSU-Simmons