Capturing Corporate History
Bill Rhodes at WGBY
Bill Rhodes has been helping companies, their people, products and services, look and sound good for 50 years first in film and now in video. In his extensive career, he has worked for Bay State films, now Penfield Productions, one of the region's premier production houses, and partnered in Studio 16, a boutique production salon.
For ten years, Rhodes trotted the globe with the Young Presidents' Organization, a 50-year old non-profit dedicated to helping its members become better leaders and make a positive difference in the world. He also shot videos for the U.S. Navy and area police departments. In the early 1960s, he was the unit manager for the 1964 motion picture, "Nothing But a Man", starring Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln and Yaphet Kotto. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The outside guy
Bill came to WGBY as their production manager in 1989 and is now the Director of Production Services. He guides the in-house production of programs such as "Making It Here," which, he said chronicles "the energy, the struggles, the accomplishments and the personalities that make .work so important to us" and the "State We're In," which examines issues of interest to New England residents. Bill is also the only one [at WGBY] who deals with outside work.
"If anyone calls the station asking for outside support, we do it," he sid.
In this day and age, "outside support" refers to the video program taped in high definition and DVD transfers that a company may use to educate prospective customers, promote its business or provide a service to a niche market, as did the three-part series on baby yoga that Bill's crew shot for Itsy Bitsy Yoga. That series won the company the Seal of Approval Award from The National Parenting Center.
The process
While area companies do have options for similar productions services, including local network affiliates, those who select the services of Rhodes and his crew are less apt to need 30- or 60-second spots to promote their wares. They come to him looking for guidance and expertise in capturing the salient points of a product or service.
"There are times when a prospective client will come to [me] and say they have a limited budget of $600-$700," Rhodes said. "I'll tell them I can't do it for that. My price is going to be $1,200, for example. Some people will take that and some people will say they can't afford that, and I'll tell them to go to a [television] station. A local station will do it for a limited budget because they are also looking to sell air time. I'm not selling air time I'm just doing a job."
For $1,200 the client gets the produced commercial and a DVD of the production.
"If anybody has a product or is developing a product for which sales could be further advanced by the [target market] being informed about the product's features and benefits, then we can help them," Rhodes said.
He also recommends that people don't appear at his door with a script in hand, but rather present him with a proposal a document no more than three pages in length that tells the reader what it is they are trying to create; what their mind's eye sees.
"[If they] tell me that; I'll tell them the next step," he said. "It may be to sit with a writer or look for a funding source for the project, but I can't picture what is in your mind."
The clients
Rhodes cited a few examples of companies that have come to him for assistance: an area aeronautical manufacturer, an international vodka producer and a Massachusetts-based insurance company.
Kaman Corporation manufactures aeronautics parts for a number of major companies including Airbus, Boeing Aircraft and Sikorsky. "[Kaman] developed a very special bearing mostly used for flight control that requires no lubrication and lasts [virtually] forever," Rhodes said.
One application is in the rotor head for helicopters which historically had to be inspected and replaced at specific intervals. "The particular bearing that Kaman developed has tripled and quadrupled the number of flight hours by virtue of its stability," Rhodes said.
Kaman wanted to tell that to people in industries other than aeronautics, other industries that had long term bearing issues.
The resulting 12-minute video, Rhodes said, showed the expanse of the factory and the technology within the factory, not to show the average person how to create such a product but to show Kaman's expertise and suggest to those watching that perhaps they should contact Kaman.
Other times, promoting the product presents its own challenges.
"I can remember being called by Smirnoff, the vodka people, and they wanted to do a presentation about their vodka," Rhodes said. "They wanted to tell people about its quality. But [vodka] is colorless, odorless and you can't tell people that it makes them feel good, because that is illegal. So we did some research and I asked them what made the product better than others, and they responded that it was the way they filtered it. They used a charcoal filter, and with that we had a thread around which to build a production."
The final production included interviews with their technicians responsible for filtering process. Smirnoff used the finished video to market to package stores owners.
"MassMutual [Financial Group] is quite a different world," Rhodes said. "I get calls from them all the time, and it is usually to document a meeting or a speaker or a presentation or a live training session." Such events may include content experts hosting PowerPoint presentations, or a panel discussion responding to questions from the floor.
The talent
Whatever the company, the product or the service, Rhodes is open to ideas and ways his production team can help. If someone has no idea and just an idea, he will meet and talk with them.
"I do a lot of that and sometimes it goes nowhere and sometimes it hits the target. We just did a series of three one-hour shows on baby yoga, ." he said.
The programs describe the bonding process between the mother and the baby as a result of using yoga. Rhodes noted that the client expressed initial concern about the cost of the project, but came to see the value in using WGBY's services.
It's a long way from 16 mm film, to videotape to hi-definition taping and DVD,s but, said Rhodes, "I started in the film business and ended up in video. I come to work every day because I love it."
Bob McCarthy, is the Editor of Business to Business Magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at: RCM@reminderpublications.com
