Corporate, Music Video & Commercial Video Production | Crystalline Studios

Why Do Business in Norristown?

matt — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:15:09 +0000

Created for and in collaboration with the Municipality of Norristown, PA, this video combines interviews of Norristown business owners with footage acquired at local events throughout Norristown’s Bicentennial. The video is being used by Norristown to attract businesses who may … Continue reading →

The Accidental Pervert Teaser Promo

matt — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:08:00 +0000

Andrew Goffman brings his autobiographical story of finding his Dad’s stash of XXX-rated videotapes when he was 11 years old to sold out crowds every Friday and Saturday night at the 13th Street Repertory Company in NYC. Crystalline Studios has … Continue reading →

Mendelssohn Club: Mission & Musical Overview

matt — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:08:26 +0000

In 2012, we – in collaboration with Weston Sound & Video – embarked on a wonderful project with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia to capture interviews with key personnel ahead of their concert, RITUALS: East/West, document the live event, and then edit it all together into an overview. The video was to be short, but still encompass this concert, as well as the Mendelssohn Club’s history and their mission, to be presented to granting organizations.

Crystalline Studios to create promotional videos for Norristown

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 03:16:40 +0000

Crystalline Studios is working with a brand new client, the Borough of Norristown, PA. As a Norristown-based company, this is extremely exciting for us. See the story from the Times-Herald below:

(read original source from the Times-Herald) by Carl Rotenberg (Photo by Christine Reckner/Times Herald Staff)

NORRISTOWN — A Norristown marketing company specializing in video productions was hired Tuesday night by Norristown council to document 14 Norristown Bicentennial events and produce two promotional videos.Crystalline Studios six-page, March 20 response to a “request for proposals” detailed how the company will cover the Bicentennial events and edit them into the two video products. The production work will include two days of interviews with Norristown people, editing and the delivery of two videos totaling 10 minutes of running time.

The $16,750 contract will be financed from Norristown’s enterprise zone marketing funds, said Gabriela Ibarra-Prete, the Norristown business development coordinator.
The first video will be used on Norristown.org’s website, in social media and in presentations to outside investors. The second video will include all of the scheduled Bicentennial events for seven months in 2012.

Matt Conant, the creative director of Crystalline Studios, had already been gathering video recordings at the Bicentennial kick-off at Elmwood Park, the spring carnival at the former Kennedy-Kenrick High School and the “Day of the Child” event at Gotwals Elementary School on Monday morning. Conant and additional videographers will also cover the Norristown Arts Hill Festival, International Festival on West Marshall Street, the Bike Race at Elmwood Park, Juneteenth Day, Gospel Concert, July 4 parade, Bocce tournament, Mexican Independence Day celebration and the Pennsylvania State Firemen’s Convention and parade.

A second videographer will be assigned to the Arts Hill, International Festival, Bike Race, July 4 parade and Firemen’s Convention, according to the proposal.

“The video will present Norristown through a series of interviews and additional footage gathered from Bicentennial events as an exciting and diverse town,” the proposal said, “and emphasizes the many advantages of making a home, business and life in Norristown.”

Black Hat Premiere Contest

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:51:26 +0000

Crystalline traveled to Anime Boston 2012 to film this contest video for Good To Be Seen Films, promoting the upcoming feature film Black Hat. We captured footage of dozens of cosplayers recording the script, and added some awesome titles in post to complete the excitement! Good To Be Seen Films will be flying in 3 Facebook fans at random to the World Premiere of their film, so check it out on the film’s Facebook page!

March means classical music, Bicentennials, & Anime Boston

matt — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:31:52 +0000

This spring has rapidly turned into one of the most diverse sets of clients and work we’ve ever done. And it’s just getting started.

We recently wrapped production and post-production on three promotional videos for The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia through Weston Sound & Video. One of the videos we mentioned already, an interview with composer Andrea Clearfield. The second was an interview with Tsering Jurme, the President of the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia about the types of Eastern rituals that the audience can expect to see at the April 29th concert. The third was a conversation with Artistic Director Alan Harler, getting his take on the mix of the Eastern and Western ritual music being performed in that concert. You can check them all out on The Mendelssohn Club’s YouTube Channel. Or check out the Andrea Clearfield interview above.

On March 31st, 2012, Crystalline Studios’ home town of Norristown, PA celebrated its official Bicentennial. At the same time, they realized that in their 200-year history, they didn’t have an official archive of press material to draw from for promotion. And as a town devoted to arts, culture, and economic development, having that might not be a bad idea to help draw the next generation of artists and arts-lovers. the Bicentennial event kicked off a summer’s worth of activities with a concert and presentations at Elmwood Park, while local landmark Elmwood Park Zoo offered free admission to Norristown residents and discounted admission to all visitors. Despite a cold and ugly day, weather-wise, the events went off without a hitch, and Crystalline documented everything with videography and still photography, like the image to the right. This project is still developing, but in all likelihood, we will be working over the course of the summer to capture many more Norristown events, including May’s Arts Festival and Bike Race, and interview some of the locals to build a pair of promotional videos for Norristown’s website, and possible TV ads.

Lastly, this past weekend, we took a road trip to Anime Boston with filmmaker Robbie Bryan of Good To Be Seen Films to create a video promoting his exciting new feature film “Black Hat,” the story of a 15-year-old Otaku whose dream is to attend Anime Boston and meet her favorite director. Black Hat is running a contest on Facebook and Twitter wherein they will be flying in 3 fans at random to the World Premiere of the film. Over the course of six hours, we spoke with dozens of cosplayers, and had them record the lines to explain the rules of the contest. It was a ton of fun, and honestly unlike any other production we’ve worked on. Our animation department saw the footage and decided to take a crack at making some sexy new titles for it to amp up the excitement yet another notch. Look for the final video here soon, and be sure to like the Facebook page for this project (Wrong In All The Right Ways).

APGA 2011: More

admin — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:59:39 +0000

Philadelphia hosted the 2011 American Public Gardens Association Conference. In preparation for that, Crystalline, along with Weston Sound & Video, captured interviews with representatives from various gardens, editing them into this slick and fun promotional tool.

In our client’s words: “Quite frankly, I am getting tired of hearing [from the rest of the group] the following: ‘It’s great, excellent work, better than the [example] video, perfect love it, awesome, does exactly what we wanted, etc. etc. ’ Thanks again to you all for the phenomenal job.

Educating Communities for Parenting, Pew, Mendelssohn Club, & CAEL

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:04:26 +0000

As we plow along into February, we find ourselves with full weeks of filming, editing, and graphic design, but yet more in front of us than behind. This past week and the week ahead mostly focus on local arts, culture, education, and other important non-profit causes, which make up a core component of our client work.

For starters, Crystalline Studios is very excited to be working on a new project with Educating Communities for Parenting, a group that offers a variety of programs and services for children, youth, and teen parents in the Philadelphia area. We will be working with ECP to create a script, conduct interviews, and build an overview video using footage gathered during these sessions combined with pre-existing stills, to screen at an upcoming event in May. The goal? Help ECP raise awareness for their cause and contribute to future fundraising efforts with a clear and concise pitch. We also expect the video to help ECP expand their presence in the world of social media, and will be assisting in the optimization of the video for web, as well as the posting of the video to ECP’s website and YouTube pages.

In addition, Crystalline’s video work with Weston Sound continues in the world of music and arts. This past week, we documented a fascinating panel as a part of the Philadelphia Music Project held by our friends at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. The panel’s subject: Curating a Great Music Festival, featuring panelists who have curated festivals big and small, including Ashley Capps of Bonnaroo. Crystalline and Weston documented the event with three cameras, and will be cutting them together into a comprehensive video of the event for Pew’s archives so they can continute to present such innovative programming in years to come.

Continuing our non-profit work, Crystalline’s editing suite hosted our third voice-over recording session with Dorothy Wax of The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). Dorothy has been recording audio for training sessions which teach effective career counseling. This week was our third session with Dorothy out in our offices in Norristown, PA, and we covered Module 3 out of 5 – approximately 15 pages – in a mere hour and a half session. (Of course it helps that Dorothy’s prior life was in the world of radio.) Post-session, some minor tweaks and edits were performed, and then the files were sent digitally to CAEL before Dorothy even made it home from our session.

This coming week, Crystalline (again, in conjunction with Weston Sound) will be conducting a video interview with Andrea Clearfield, composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, dance, and multimedia collaborations. The interview, which will be edited together with footage, stills, and audio Ms. Clearfield has gathered in Nepal, serves as a part of a larger promotional effort on the part of The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia to promote their unique upcoming concert “Rituals: East/West“.

Much more to announce for the coming weeks, including much more from the world of Philadelphia-region arts, culture, and non-profits!

Preserve your memories – transfer your tapes ASAP!

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:03:51 +0000

Your VHS, VHS-C, and mini-DV tapes have a shelf life. Most video experts agree that the life span of a tape is between 8 to 12 years, depending on how well the tape was preserved (was it watched many times? Was it kept in a cool, dry condition?)

Preserve your memories! Crystalline Studios can transfer your memories to a digital file for $25 a tape. Have a lot of tapes? We’ll even pick up the tapes from your home and return them safely back for no additional cost*. This transfer will checked for glitches and gaps by a trained professional – not an automated machine – and transferred to an archival digital data file. This file can be stored on any computer, backed up multiple times, and shared with friends and family! Contact a video tape transfer pro before it’s too late.

*Within 50 miles of Philadelphia, PA, 10 tape minimum.

Want to embarrass your kids? Crystalline Studios can edit and upload clips you select to YouTube, Facebook, or your favorite social media site for a small additional fee (varies based on volume of edits & tapes). Contact us to help you upload your videos today!

After all, what’s a better viral video hit than a cute burping baby or uncle Bob falling into the wedding cake?

New Stage Theatre Company, Norristown Educational Theatre & more

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:15:51 +0000

It’s gearing up to be a busy January here at Crystalline Studios!

Having filmed the wonderful performance of “Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now” by the New Stage Theatre Company at the Theater for the New City in NYC, Crystalline returned to our humble Norristown, PA offices to work on a project for a keystone of the local arts community, The Norristown Educational Theatre, headed by Gene Frank. Both Frank and Crystalline’s Creative Director Matt Conant are on the board of Norristown Arts Hill, working to revitalize this burgeoning district of Montgomery County with arts and cultural events.

NET worked with us to extract some stills and audio from an old VHS tape and turn them into a soundtrack and program image for an upcoming performance. We extracted the video to DVD, imported to computer, and pulled the audio tracks into Final Cut Pro. At that point, we had the task of both extending the length of the track and removing a pesky announcer’s voice that often drowned out the performers. Some creative cutting, condensing, crossfading, and looping later, and we had ourselves an 11 minute CD, plenty of time to cover the pre-show intro, between-act set changes and final bows.

This weekend, we’re back in the editing chamber to build another pre-show musical sequence and a commercial for air on your favorite online networks. More soon! Have a great weekend, everybody.