Pro bona publico, “for the public good,” means work undertaken voluntarily as a public service. Most every industry can and should provide some sort of pro bono work in their community. Unlike traditional volunteer work, pro bono work offers specific professional skills to those individuals and groups that cannot afford them.
I recently had occasion to work with a television personality who has made her living for many years due to a welcoming Bay Area audience. While she hosts many non-profit events, she will not work pro bono. She thinks it will “cheapen her brand” and thwart her chances for income-producing work. I think she is mistaken. While many organizations do get over zealous in the extent of work requested without fee, everyone should think long and hard about giving a little, to get a lot.
That “lot” can be formidable: networking and referral opportunities are more valuable than ever in a depressed economy, and people admire and remember people that give back to their community – and they can become extremely generous with that elusive and highly effective, “word of mouth” advertising.
But the real rewards are much more immeasurable and intrinsic: enormous satisfaction in a job well done, at a time where that job could not otherwise be done.
Many pro bona service providers feel they are being sucked dry by charitable organizations constantly asking for more help as funds dwindle while needs increase. This can really becomes an irritation when the Director is making a decent and consistent salary, while the service provider is freelancing to make ends meet.
For harmonious benefits in the world of pro bono give and take, here are some tips to consider when deciding whether to work on a project:
Walk a mile in each other’s moccasins – really understand where each party is “coming from” and what each party is dealing with on their average business day. Understand that everyone in today economy is under a great deal of pressure to survive, let alone thrive, and don’t take anyone for granted.
Evaluate goals and expectations – this should include candid dialog about what the project will entail, how long it will take, and what might go wrong along the way, regardless of everyone’s best intentions.
Consider a partial payment, partial in-kind donation compensation arrangement. Many providers appreciate this a lot, especially if they are forking out their own money for supplies, equipment or other hard costs, or if they are losing money due to time away from paying projects while doing pro bono work.
Treat every pro bono provider with appreciation and respect for the invaluable donation of their time. While it is all well and good to acknowledge a provider as a “sponsor,” it is far more important to understand their work efforts, be it the reconciliation of bank statements, writing the tenth draft of a press release, or carting in and out three kegs of beer to the annual crab feed. Say “thank you,” often and sincerely.
There is a time to say “no.” Know when the time has come that you can no longer offer more of your service, your product and yourself. Some people use a percentage of billable hours or a calculated dollar amount, some just know when they have hit their quota for the month or year. Much like a donation of money to charitable causes, there comes a time when there is nothing left in the budget. Don’t take on a project when you have hit the limit. Allow yourself both time and distance until you are ready to, or can afford to, work pro bono again. Without a doubt, when the time is right, someone will quickly have need for your services!
Copyright 2010
Christine Scioli
All Rights Reserved
Make no mistake about it, television commercials are entertainment. You can shout your services from the highest mountain, but if it’s just you, shouting with that talking head of yours, no one is going to pay much attention. Please don’t do much of this talking heads stuff, regardless of what you see that Tax Masters guy doing, unless you can afford his media buy which must range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars! The retention span of the average viewer is very short. People like their information passed on in small AND entertaining bites. Unless you are really “hot,” and by this I mean Rhett Butler in “Gone With the Wind,” hot, Sean Connery in anything hot, Russell Crowe right before he is dying in “Gladiator,” hot, nobody wants to look at you and your head for very long. Sorry, male readers, I am sure you can fill in your own “hot” visage.
We produce television commercial out of our production studio based in Novato, Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our clients mostly hail from the Bay Area, but we also have commercial clients in Colorado, Oregon and elsewhere. Lately, given the new technology available, we can often produce commercials “virtually.” For example, Rocky Mountain Tracking Company in Fort Collins, CO, wanted to produce a commercial to explain the features of their GPS Tracking device. In this particular case, they wanted to show how this device could help parents of teenage drivers “track” their whereabouts (view here. While some might think this is way too “Big Brother,” some feel it’s a necessary evil to save their kids’ lives. Whatever your opinion, it was our job, without opinion, to create a scenario where we could show how the system works AND the feelings of parents. We decided to hone in on one couple who actually had an incident occur with their 16-year-old son and the local police, who stopped him for speeding while the tracking device was engaged. A long and circuitous legal route came about with the GPS tracking clearly part of the focus of the lawsuit.
As producers, our task in this case, was to blend motion, to convey the premise stated by the mother, that “speed kills;” emotion, the raw feeling of this couple and reality, the practical utility of the tracking device. As video professionals, we knew the next step was to add compelling visuals, music and sound effects. Then, voila, a television commercial was created that the client could be proud of. And Zan Media could be proud of too.
In thirty years, we have produced over 1,000 television commercials for clients across a huge spectrum of services. The task is never the same nor is the production manual. Each is extremely focused, extremely personalized, with attention to detail the most important aspect of our work.
And the guiding light is always the same: entertain the audience for that tiny tidbit of time.
Companies large and small, are looking more and more to video for corporate communication. Though not as intimate as a meeting in the CEO’s or HR Director’s office, it can be created to be a very personal experience for employees and is, of course, very cost and time effective. As a leader in the San Francisco Bay Area in producing corporate videos, Zan Media looks very carefully at each client’s specific message and understands that concept very well, before we ever begin story outlines or boards. It is the job of the production company team to talk to staff until they comprehend the pith of that industry very well. It is then our job to create the visual tone – be that immediacy, low key, high impact – or something in between.
Recently, we produced a video for Circle Bank. The bank currently has five offices in the Bay Area, one in San Francisco, two in Marin County and two in Sonoma County. The bank is in expansion mode and is hiring rapidly. We created a scenario that allowed each member of the senior executive team, plus the CEO and CEO of the holding company, to present a personal greeting as well as an explanation of what that particular department does individually, and as part of the bank as a whole. Some of the participants were “naturals” on camera, while some needed to rehearse many times. All needed to feel relaxed and confident that their message would be perceived as authentic and sincere to the viewers. This is something video production companies run into all the time and is just one more part of the job description! If I had a dime for every time an amateur videographer relayed this difficulty to me when doing a “DYI” project, I’d have enough money to buy still another state-of-the-art high definition camera that we use at Zan Media. Using the best equipment is paramount, yet, understanding the psychology behind each and every project is what makes the final product a success story.
It is also important to advise corporate clients as to wardrobe and makeup. Again, this separates the pros from the amateurs, and while there’s a lot of room for forgiveness in a funky music video to upload on YouTube, corporate communication vehicles must present a professional image or the message is tainted. What you might wear to present at an annual meeting, in front of many, might not be what you should wear in front of an audience of viewers watching you on a video screen. And, anti-shine makeup is a must for both males and females. Shiny noses and/or receding hairlines, unfortunately stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, and take away much from the most well prepared presentation.
In short, in corporate videos, the devil is in the details!
Here’s a fun, catchy tune written by Dennis Haggerty and performed by his band, Stage Fright. Captures the essence of Novato, our little gem of a town!
Wines can be a lot like dogs: thin out the breed a bit, and look for some interesting character traits. While some winemakers, like pedigree breeders, might not like these red- haired stepchildren much, they’ve got a lot of personality.
In the documentary film, A State of Vine, http://astateofvine.com, more than a few wineries featured exalt a particular varietal as their “best of show.” Silver Oak cabernet, Pride’s cult classics, even Harvest Moon touts their zinfandel, while admitting its status as a bastard of sorts, not even considered a varietal by the French. Even the grandaddy of good cheap wine, Charles Shaw, a/k/a “two buck Chuck” offers an assortment of varietals.
While most varietals do contain a light blend of other grapes – 75% of the grapes must be the designated grape in the US, 85% in the more regulated European Union – the blends don’t have as many rules, except for Meritage which prides itself on class and caliber, much like a yorkie poo.
In the movie, Mike Martini of Taft Street Winery, offers a practical approach to wine selection, emphasizing the friends at the table, and the art of the conversation. Offing the wine snobs, who are also a subject of discussion in a single beat, he says, ” Grapes are a weed, they’ll grow anywhere.”
Incredible as it might seem, my husband and I get tired of the same wine, no matter the price point. It’s like looking at a french poodle day after day when one really feels like tossing a stick with a lab mix. When that happens, we add some unusual blends into the mix, without concern of quantity nor grape. We always find some new “must haves” and rather than hide the bottle and embrace the decanter, we introduce them proudly when we entertain.
Apparently so. Because this Halloween weekend, beautiful, seemingly benign Marin County will be scaring the wits out of a bunch of British horror film fans.
“The Beckoning,” a frightening suspense thriller shot entirely in Marin’s spookiest locations (like the Novato Public Library), has been selected to be shown at the first ever “Grimm Up North Festival of Horror” in Manchester, England.
It will be in some bloody good company, screened along with 30 films from across the genre, including “Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl,” “The Graves” and “Schooner of Blood.”
A festival promo spells out the English terror trend, saying, “Blood, guts and the utterly perverse. A horror revival is hitting the U.K. with a vengeance, so prepare to be taken to hell and back.”
Inspired by British privateer Sir Francis Drake’s landing on the beaches of what is now the Point Reyes National Seashore, “The Beckoning” is the debut feature from Zan Media, a family-run film and video production company in Novato.
“The Manchester people somehow found out about the movie, and because of the Sir Francis Drake connection, they called us and asked us if they could put it in their festival,” said associate producer Niki Scioli. “It’s pretty exciting.”
The movie stars the lovely Marin actress Lindsay Drummer as the obligatory innocent young co-ed who, in this particular scenario, is terrorized by a vengeful Sir Francis Drake, played by the Marin Shakespeare Company’s
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Robert Currier.
But it’s lovely Marin that’s the real star of this show. A review on the Web site FlamesRising.com makes a big deal of the fact that “The Beckoning” was “filmed on location in gorgeous Marin County, California,” pointing out that “the film ends with more of that beautiful Marin County scenery.”
The screenplay was written by the husband and wife team of Don and Christine Scioli, who founded Zan Media 28 years ago after moving to Marin from the East Coast.
They originally set their story in Salem, Mass., site of the Salem Witch Trials. But they quickly concluded that Marin was a much better setting for a movie that involves “a generous dose of demonic spirits and repressed memories of a terrifying past life,” and not just because of our large number of psychotherapists.
“The locations here are so great,” Don Scioli said. “That’s why we decided to do it. These locations are better than New England.”
The filmmakers were particularly taken with the old world stone turrets and towers of the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo.
And any horror film director would kill to shoot scenes in the creaking stairways and dark corners of the Falkirk Mansion, the 19th century Queen Anne Victorian that sits like an old spinster on the former Dollar family estate in San Rafael.
“We had gone there for chamber of commerce things,” Scioli said. “But when you get upstairs, way upstairs, it’s kind of creepy.”
They also liked the Dolcini Ranch and its old farmhouse for its spooky, Hitchcockian qualities.
“That place was particularly creepy,” Niki Scioli noted. “It set the mood for everything.”
Because of permission issues, they used Novato’s Stafford Lake as a stand-in for Drake’s Beach.
“It poured rain the night we shot there,” Don Scioli recalled. But what at first seemed like a disaster turned out to be a blessing. All the fog and rain made a sweet little lake look like a raging seashore. It became an ideal location for burning a terrified co-ed at the stake.
“All you could see was water and hills,” Scioli said. “It was the perfect double for Drakes Beach.”
“The Beckoning” was shot in just 18 days on a budget of less than $1 million. It was by no means the first horror movie set in Marin. Don Scioli’s fellow student at USC’s film school, John Carpenter, shot “The Fog” and “Halloween” here. So Zan Media is following in a hallowed tradition.
Since “The Beckoning,” the company has gone on to do many other film and video projects, including “A State of Vine,” a documentary about the California wine industry.
But their pride in “The Beckoning” has been renewed with the Manchester screening.
“We decided to make the movie because the locations here are so great,” Don Scioli said. “Plus, there’s something cool about doing a low-budget horror film.”
SEE IT
“The Beckoning” is available on DVD at the Novato Public Library and for $19.99 at www.thebeckoningmovie.com.
Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com; follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LibLarge
Northern California based film and video production company, Zan Media, commissioned by Marin and Mendocino County Sheriffs’ Robert Doyle and Tom Allan respectively, for projects aimed at striking a nerve in the community and hopefully saving lives in the process. The productions were extremely different in both content and style, but the goal, AWARENESS was the same.
My husband and I own Zan Media, http://www.zanmedia.com, and I am so proud to recount our interaction with these fine men and their departments, which serve this area with such notable distinction.
In Mendocino County, Sheriff Allman heard a clear mandate in his ‘06 election victory as Sheriff: solve the methamphetamine problem ravaging the county. But, in his words, “ I could think of 20 ideas that I knew wouldn’t work, but I needed one that MIGHT work, and I knew it couldn’t be as simple as throwing it into the hands of law enforcement.” He was struck by an idea that if parents, community youth counselors or religious leaders AND law enforcement worked together, they might be able to curb this crisis. The idea had several components: offer saliva drug testing to parents through the schools, coupled with an explanatory video. “Methamphetamine, Deathamphetamine” is the title, http://www.zanmedia.com/content.htm?mov=meth.mov , and result of the video portion of Sheriff Allman’s campaign which will kick off in earnest in 2008.
The video had a life and story of it’s own. On the first day of shooting at the Mendocino County jail, we noticed a group of female inmates of various ages working in the garden. They asked the Sheriff what we were doing, and testing his own statistics, that of the people incarcerated there in the last 30 days, 80% were “meth” related, he questioned how many of these four were in jail due, in some extent, to meth. They all were. Then to a one, they asked if they could participate in the video, to tell their own story of what this drug did to ruin their lives. To say this was compelling video footage is an understatement. It provided a core of realism to launch this campaign and seek a solution. We also interviewed a man who coined the term “deathamphetamine,” as he chronicled his slow decent into hell and back. While our journey into the interior of the jail, serenaded by a most unhappy inmate drying out, provided a stark visual backdrop, it is the story of the youth who takes a live, on camera drug test that offers the most dramatic moment. The citizens of Mendocino County are lucky to have a Sheriff that isn’t afraid to tackle difficult issues in a novel manner. Hopefully, this program will bring success in the year ahead.
In Marin County, a continuation of youth safety issues were the topic of “Trust Your Gut,” http://www.zanmedia.com/content.htm?mov=gut.mov , a video that appears on the Sheriff Department’s web site and is available through the Office of Education and other outreach groups. Sheriff Doyle, at the helm for many years, continues to “think outside the box” with a overwhelming sense of community, much like his Mendocino County counterpart. He enlisted the services of his department as well as police officers and detectives in the various cities in Marin County, to participate in this production, together. Scenarios include three distinct age related topics, from grade school-ers to preteens to college aged students, with information what each can do to stay safe. After each reenactment, a law enforcement officer presents some tips and the reenactment is “rewound” and played again, correctly. The combination of youth appealing video segments shot MTV style, along with the real officers appearing in the actual locations, creates an entertaining yet didactic vehicle.
I thank both of these dedicated men and their extraordinary staff for this opportunity.
Manchester England PREMIERE FESTIVAL OF HORRORS Invites Marin County, CA Produced Film For Halloween Screening
NOVATO, Ca ( September 8, 2009) - Manchester Premiere Festival of Horror/GRIMM UP NORTH, has invited Novato based, Zan Media, to screen their feature film, “The Beckoning,” at the first annual festival, Halloween weekend. “The Beckoning,” shot entirely on location in Marin County, is a contemporary suspense thriller, based on actual events, that includes a generous dose of demonic spirits and repressed memories of a terrifying past life, as an innocent young co-ed encounters the legendary privateer, Sir Francis Drake, and his swarthy men, who are obsessed with an insatiable desire for revenge.
The film stars a plethora of Marin based actors ( including Marin Shakespeare Company Artistic Director, Robert Currier as Sir Francis Drake), and was shot over the course of three weeks at Drake’s Beach, Point Reyes Station, Mira Monte Marina, the San Francisco Theological Society, the Dolcini ranch, Falkirk Mansion and the Novato public library.
Director Don Scioli, who was part of a team the won the Academy Award®while at USC Cinema School, for “A Field of Honor,” commented: “ As a huge fan of Manchester United, the world’s most famous soccer team, I am honored to have this movie screened at ground zero for English ’football.’ I hope the folks there will gain a new appreciation of Northern CA, Marin County in particular, and England’s most famous world explorer, Sir Francis Drake.”
