Dan Phenice (Left) and Drew Money are partners in the Norwood video production firm Seven/Seventy-Nine, Ltd. Here, they’re shooting a commercial for Jellystone Park Camp Resorts.

Good video producers can make even the padding under Astroturf look cool.

Video, after all, is about finding a good story in just about anything.

That’s the mantra of Dan Phenicie and Drew Money, who left the corporate world a year ago to start Seven/Seventy-Nine Ltd. at the Hamilton County Business Center in Norwood.

Shooting video had for years been a hobby of the two college friends, who both were born in July 1979 (hence the name).

They’d write and produce short Quentin Tarantino-style feature films or quirky commercials for Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. and events like Over-the-Rhine’s BockFest. Others liked their work and by January 2010 they had enough of it to quit their jobs. Phenicie had been in politics and marketing and Money, product design.

Today, the pair has quadrupled the workload and plans to hire additional staff.

They’ve filmed Jellystone Park Camp Resorts commercials that aired in movie theaters before last year’s Warner Brothers production, Yogi Bear. They’ve produced videos of physicians explaining surgeries for Private Health News, also in the HCBC. Those are distributed to patients and families prior to an operation. And soon, they’ll begin filming a travel show for Time Warner Cable’s local On Demand station.

The documentary-style turf padding video was created for a client of the downtown ad agency The Creative Department.

And a new license with a technology company called Veeple in California now lets them embed interactive links in videos on YouTube or a web site. It could provide clients a new way to advertise products or services during videos. They’ll soon test the technology through a series of web shows featuring a pair of local entrepreneurs sharing tips and horror stories of starting a company. Coffee mugs, for example, could link to advertising for a coffee shop.

“We want to use video in ways people don’t think about,” said Phenicie.

Phenicie and Money have a team approach for any project. Phenicie is a strong writer and networker. He writes scripts and handles sales for the team. Money is the guy behind the camera and the computer, guiding the creative direction of the video and its editing.

They spend time with clients before a shoot, outlining goals for a video project. Who is the audience? Is the client trying to sell a product or service? Will the video just provide information? Is it for television or a web site? Does the client want it to spread through social networks online?

“We understand how to take a message for a client and apply it in the best way,” Money said.

They also work to save clients money during production.

Operating on a shoestring budget when producing was just a hobby has forced them to be creative in their techniques. They rent rather than own all the highest tech digital video equipment. They create the effect of two cameras while using just one. And they’ve determined unique ways to maximize light during shoots.

“We found our own techniques that make our videos look like they cost twice as much as they do,” Money said.

The men are making money and investing back into the company these days. They hope to soon have time to shoot for fun again too.

“We want to be useful for business and industry and produce good videos, but use that income to create artistically compelling stuff,” Money said.

Share your thoughts and story ideas with me via Twitter @laurabaverman or e-mail lbaverman@enquirer.com.

Again, congratulations to Dress for Success Cincinnati and keep up the good work.

The 16 county region covered by HealthBridge is only one of two areas in the United States to receive this funding.  The entire team at HealthBridge is highly qualified, innovative, and motivated with lots of passion for the job they do.  That coupled with an effective communications strategy, which included a video produced by Seven/Seventy-Nine, most likely played a large role in the decision to award them this funding.

A well produced video that connects with people on an emotional level can convey a message like no other medium.  Producing a great video is a powerful tool that can help move you and your organization closer to achieving goals.  You can play a video at a meeting or conference and take the audience to a place outside of the meeting room without ever leaving  it.  You can also post a video on the Internet and make your message available to anyone anywhere all the time.  Video can give people a sense of who you are and what you do before ever meeting you.

But I digress.  It’s easy for me to digress when it comes to talking about video because I love talking about it almost as much as I love producing it (total dork, I know).  We here at Seven/Seventy-Nine are very happy for our friends at HealthBridge.  Keep up the good work!

-Dan Phenicie

Check on our website soon to see the finished videos!

Drew Money
Creative Director

Click here to read to entire post from eMarketer

We here at Seven/Seventy-Nine have been singing the praises of web video for quite some time.  Ten years ago your only option for distributing a video message was television or having a large number of DVDs or VHS tapes duplicated and these options were cost prohibitive in many cases.   However, thanks to the magic of the Internet, a video message can be posted on You Tube, Vimeo, or another web video platform for little to no cost and distributed through email, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and LinkedIn, and posted to your website.

The Entrepreneur post suggests that anyone considering adding web video to their marketing mix should, “work with a knowledgeable online video production company which can help you create the best type of ad to meet your goals.”  Seven/Seventy-Nine is capable of creating video for distribution through any medium, but one area that differentiates us as a production company is web video.  We understand that the principles of video production are the same regardless of the intended medium, but the principles of the content itself are different on the Internet.  Among other things you can say more in a web video and you can say it differently.  Best of all, you’re not constrained by the strict time limits imposed on video by other mediums.

If you’re not doing web video advertising you should seriously consider it and if you’re seriously considering it, then you should contact a “knowledgeable online video production company” like Seven/Seventy-Nine.

-Dan Phenicie

Ad Week has more on the story here.

We have a number of projects that are now in post production and we’ll be sure to share those videos once they’re done. Until then, enjoy these behind the scenes photos:

Behind the Scenes June 2010

We’re very proud to have worked with Moerlein on several TV commercials in the past and we’re excited about other projects we have in the works with them.  Right now I’m looking forward to tonight because I’m going to pick up some OTR and toast Moerlein on their continued growth.  I encourage everyone in the greater Cincinnati area to pick up some of their favorite Moerlein beer and do the same.