NBC/iTunes Commercial

So last week NBC/Universal announced they are joining ABC and selling some of their television shows on the iTunes Music Store. Not only are they providing shows currently on air, but also some classic shows dating back to the 1950's.

Here's a fun spot produced by NBC promoting the shows in iTunes. Pay close attention to the ending where it says coming soon. Seems we haven't see the last of the TV shows from NBC/Universal.

Click here to play.

One Great Day

What do you do when you hire a brand new play-by-play guy for your Major League Baseball team? Take him for a tour of the city of course!

A few years back Cox Channel 4 in San Diego hired Matt Vasgersian to become their new play-by-play man in the booth. My friend Ed Roth, who's been doing the marketing for the Padres on Channel 4 for several years, had the idea to take him for a tour of the city with the color analyst and former Padre Mark Grant, to introduce him to the people. They make a great team in the booth and on the tour.

While I missed the tour, I did get to edit together this short little featurette. See Matt and Mark as they explore beautiful San Diego.

Click here to play.

Shameless Plug

So it's come to this...
See whether you knew this or not, I'm not making a living by maintaining my vlog and posting fun videos every once in a while. That's why you might see my links to the right for my demo reel and my resume. Right now I have way too much time on my hands so I thought maybe if I get my little demo montage out there into RSS land, someone might see it, have a need for my services, and who know's maybe get a little work out of this deal.
So here's the demo montage. Just a little something to try and wet your appetite. Much more where this came from.
The clips are taken from over 10 years of writing/producing and editing stuff for television. The music track is taken from an artist called Bostich and the track is called Polaris. Click here to buy the whole track from iTunes.

I'm also available for Mac consulting, troubleshooting, tutoring and much more.
I am after all...THE MACDADDY!

Click here to play.

The Mac Hater

Okay so it's time to give the other side equal time.

Yes I would say even as a longtime Mac enthusiast, there have been times where I just want to throw my Mac out the window. In a paradoy of the Apple "Switcher" ads, here's one man's opinion on why not to get a Mac.

Once again I sourced this video from Google Video. Since Google Video only plays Flash video, I used a site called Goolge Video Dowloader to download the flash file. I then used iSquint to convert the flash file into a quicktime. This should play in Quicktime 5 or later. Give it a look!

Click here to play.

Power Mac Cats

Found this cute video over on Google Video. You might need to like cats do enjoy this. Even if you don't, give it a shot. The ending is worth a chuckle.

Since Google Video only plays Flash video, I used a site called Goolge Video Dowloader to download the flash file. I then used iSquint to convert the flash file into a quicktime. Sorry for the quality of the video but as they say, "garbage in, garbage out". Trying to provide a version that will play in earlier versions of quicktime. Hope this works!

Click here to play

Tiny Machine

Created by George Masters on his own free time and for his own pleasure, this ad for the iPod Mini received lots of play about a year ago. Thought it was time to bring it back now that the Mini has been discontinued. George, an obviously very talented graphic designer and animator was looking for real work in the graphic design world. By the looks of it he's found his place at Shelter Post. Check out this Wired article about the spot.

Click here to watch.

1984 Revised?

What would a Vlog devoted to all things Mac be with this classic spot from 1984. Groundbreaking at the time is was aired, it is still to this day regarded as one of the greatest commercials ever produced. Directed by Ridley Scott who later went on to direct Alien among other films, the spot takes a rather cynical view of Big Blue. Here's a very in depth article on the spot. Watch closely and you'll notice this isn't the same spot that aired during the Super Bowl in 1984 however. A hint: look for a certain mp3 player. 10 points for finding it the first time through.

Click here to watch.

Fainting Goats

A re-release from an earlier post but now in iTunes compatible format.

I worked on a marketing presentation for A Current Affiar. While the show never lived up to expectations (it's currently off the air) this one piece makes me laugh every time I see it. Who knew about fainting goats!?

Click here to watch.

Millionaire Promo

Here's a 30 second promo just completed. This is a generic promo meaning it can run anytime and doesn't promote anything specific. The objective of the spot is to build excitement and to get people to watch the show. Millionaire and game shows in general are tough to cut spots for because there is no variety in the shots to choose from. You've got shots of the host, shots of the contestants and they're always framed the same way. Even though none of the contestants won a million dollars you might think they had after seeing the spot. As a matter of a fact, I don't think anyone has won a million on the show over the last 2 years. I cut this spot working for Beantown Productions here in NYC. Music is from a library and this spot is actually different than the one that will air. The client didn't like the most of the graphics so we pulled them out. I like this version better.

Click here to play.

Editor's Best Friend - MovieLogger

Came across this new software thanks to Michael Horton and the LAFCPUG. I was actually in the process of looking for something like this for a client. Their workflow was very tedious; digitize source tapes into Final Cut Pro...make VHS with window time code of each tape and then the producer would log the VHS tapes by playing them down and taking notes in Word. There has to be a better way...and now there is! MovieLogger from Digital Heaven. Now you can log the quicktime movies after they've been digitized, create a text document of your notes and and XML file to import into FCP. The real bonus here is the XML file import. Once you've logged your movie, exported the XML and imported into FCP, your master clip will have markers for every log note. That is awesome! Now in the case of this one client, they have a SAN where all the edit bays share storage. But since the producer doesn't have access to this storage on their computer the solution was to recompress the media after it's digitized and put it on a server that they have access to. Everything translates and links back to the original media once done. MovieLogger is $99 and you can try it for 30 days free with some limitations. This is a great product!

Sony Bravia Commercial

Now here's a cool commercial! Again, no special effects here. Just great visuals and a great music track. Check out all the details for this spot right here. I believe the LCD Bravia Television is only available in Europe so you probably won't see this spot here in the States.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Click here to watch.

Tiger Ball Tricks

Found this spot in my archives. I remember when I first saw this I thought for sure it was done with special effects. Yeah, that ball was just inserted and made to look pretty seamless. Wrong!

The story goes Tiger was just fooling around in between takes of shooting another Nike spot when the director and crew noticed what he was doing and decided to roll the camera. The rest, as the say, is history.

For those of you who play golf I'm sure you've seen plenty of people attempt to emulate this skill. I myself have mastered the bounce for about 3 or 4 times. Forget behind the back and between the legs. If I recall, this spot was the result of 3 takes this being the third. Amazing!

Click here to watch.

Just claiming my feed for Odeo. Nothing more, nothing less.
My Odeo Channel (odeo/4d6e6bc90e2828d9)

Beantown Demo

This montage was created to run at the top of a string of shortened marketing tapes produced by Beantown Productions. I guess I love cutting to music. This music was actually inspired by the iPod Shuffle ad. The song is "Jerk it Out" by the Ceasars.

Click here to watch.

Creating Albums in iPhoto

Well here it is. My very first Mac video tip. It's a very basic tip for iPhoto users but one some people will find very useful. I'm using Snapz Pro X to record my screen and Final Cut Pro for editing and output. Please be sure to leave any comments or suggetions as I'd like to have each tip improve and to be of value to as many subscribers as possible. And speaking of subscribing, please do. Just click right here . You should be able to subscribe to my videos via iTunes or any other aggregator. Again thanks for watching!

Click here to watch H.264 version
or here to download MPEG 4 version.

New Look

Just doing some updates to the look of the blog. I want to cutomize it more and find other ways of adding video content. I'll have some new material up soon.

Delicious Monster

If you've you got lots of books, CDs, DVDs or games you'd like to catalog here's a great program to do just that. Check out Delicious Monster. You can download a free demo and try it out to see if it's worth $40 to you. Very intuitive and visual. Enter the name of an musical group or artist and Delicious Monster will access the internet database and pull down album art and all the tracks for the CD and put it on you CD shelf. Very cool. Found out about this on MacBreak Minute. Check them out here.

Mac Tip #4 -Email a webpage or link

If you're using Safari and you want to email a webpage or link to someone use the keyboard commands (Apple + I) to send the webpage or (Shift + Apple + I) to send the link. Or go into the File menu and select Mail Contents of this page or Mail link of this page.

Mac Tip #3 - Selecting more than one file at a time

Here's a very useful tip for working with files in the finder windows, desktop or even within programs such as iPhoto.

To select more than one file at a time use the Apple key on your keyboard.


Hold the Apple key down and click on any files you want to select. You can select a file on the top of the list and on the bottom or in the middle as long as you keep holding down the Apple key. To then move these files to another folder for instance, select your last file, release the Apple key and drag the files to their new destination.


To select a range of consecutive files use the shift key. Hold down the shift key and selct the first file you want to select, then find the file further down the list you want to end with and while still holding the shift key click on that file. All the files inbetween the first and last files you clicked will now be selected. Now to move these files release the shift key and click on one of the selected files and drag them to their new destination.


Now you can use a combination of the Apple key and the shift key to select any number of files to move. Try it out and practice these techniques and it will make your file management tasks much simpler.

Bathtime in Clerkenwell

You got to watch this!

A very fun music video I found thanks to Rocketboom via the iTunes music store. It features the music of The Real Tuesday Weld and animation by Aleksey Budovsky. Apparently this litte video has won several awards at various film festivals. Watch and if you want to know more be sure to click on the links above.

Click here to play.

Mac Tip #2.01 - How to subscribe to my blog

My first correction...
It always helps to know what you're doing when you create a tip. I left a step out below the first go around so here I've added the necessary step.

So you've seen my blog and you say to yourself, "I love this blog and I'd love to know whenever there is something new published here for me to see." Well there is a way thanks to the magic of RSS. (click here to learn more about RSS through Wikipedia) So how do you subscribe? First you need a RSS capable web browser. On the Mac your best bets are Safari 2.0 if you're running OS 10.4 Tiger or if you're running Tiger or any earlier OS X download Firefox.
So running Safari 2.0 on Tiger you'll see in the address bar with my blog address all the way to the right in the address field a blue box with RSS.


Click on this blue box and a new page will open showing you the blogs listings in a more basic list style. Now go ahead and bookmark this page by either pressing the Apple key plus D on your keyboard or by going into the Bookmarks menu and selecting new bookmark. In either case, decide where you want to save it, name it and click save. You'll now be subscribed to my blog and anytime there is new content available it will be indicated in the bookmark by a number in parenthesis.
With Firefox RSS is indicated by an orange ray icon in the lower right corner of the browser window. Click on this icon and then click on the site name and you'll be asked to save this bookmark. If you save it in the bookmarks toolbar it will be saved right on the toolbar below the address bar and easy to find. Once it's save you can click on this link and see the most recent content titles from my blog.



Hope this helps you enjoy the beauty of RSS and subscriptions. Don't forget to subscribe to Macdaddy!

ByeByeNOW.com Commercial

Ah yes! Remember the bubble...the dot com bubble? Seems so long ago yet it was just 5 years ago. Well I found myself riding the bubble when I took a job in Florida. To make a long story short, the company I went to work for was bought by ByeByeNOW.com, a travel and vacation website. In addition to the website, we produce a weekly hour long show called Vacaton TV. The show highlighted vacations and travel products and drove people to the 800 number and website to purchase. Well we all know what happened to the bubble.

We produced a total of 7 shows and then the money was gone. Truly one of the best work experiences I've ever had though. I truly felt like I had equity in what we were doing and didn't mind the 14 hour days to put these shows together.

The video below is actually a commercial for ByeByeNOW.com. Priceline.com had William Shatner but we had Regis! who was hot with the sucess of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Each ByeByeNOW.com store received a custom spot. For those who know me you might recognize the voice over on this spot. You see these spots were produced towards the end of ByeByeNOW's existence and they didn't want to spend money on the voice talent. Well it turns out they had to pay me scale anyway. Thank you ByeByeNOW.com. I left ByeByeNOW at the end of 2001. They went bankrupt in early 2002. Like many dot coms then they were probably a bit ahead or their time.

Click here to play.

Mac Tip #1 - Navigating through open Applications

If you're running Mac OS X Panther(10.3) or Tiger(10.4) here's a tip for you. Ever have many applications open at the same time? Need an easy way of switching between them? Hold down the Apple key and tab key on your keyboard and you should get a bar across you're screen displaying all your open applications. While holding the Apple key down use the tab key to navigate through each apps icon. When you get to the icon for the open app you want release both keys and you'll go to that applicaiton. This is something I use all the time.

5 Men in a Limo

Having worked in television promotion and advertising for almost 20 years now, I appreciate the gift and talent of the voices behind the spots. Here are some of the best and most recognizable in a great video. What happens when you put 5 together in a limo? Take a look.

Click here to play.

Think Different

Apple is not only known for great products but great advertising too. You may know about the famous spot that aired in 1984 during the Super Bowl and introduced the Macintosh, but here's a more recent spot probably from the late 90's. It shows you what emotional music, great images and simple voice over can do to make a spot memorable and impactful.

Click here to play.