Green Planet Bottling features 100% recyclable bottles.

T60 has taken on a couple of “green” clients lately.  First, Goose Island Beer Company is doing more and more to produce their beers in an environmentally friendly way.  They’ve even started brewing a new beer called, Green Line.  It’s locally sourced and all draft. We’ll be sharing a new video for that beer soon.

Another “green” client is Green Planet Bottling Company. This company is pretty cool. It’s a bottled water company, but its bottles are made from plants and are 100% recyclable. Seriously. You can put them in a compost and they’ll simply disappear over time. I told you, pretty cool.

T60 took a Zipcar to today's Green Planet Bottling shoot.

Anyway, T60 is a good match for “green” companies like these because our carbon footprint fits their efforts. We do not have a company car, instead, we frequently use the car sharing service, Zipcar, and occasionally take public transportation to meetings and shoots.

Yup… we support our clients in all sorts of ways.

–Tony Gnau

I have a fun video to share today and it raises a good question… what is art? Certainly, video production is art, but there’s also art in landing a new client, balancing a spreadsheet, you name it.

Then there’s what you’ll find at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI.  The linked story was shot and edited by my good friend Jeremy Nichols.

VIDEO: What Is Art, WISC-TV

While he’s a full-time news photographer, he’s also done work for T60 and will hopefully do more in the future.

Check out his artistry through his ability to shoot and edit art.

–Tony Gnau

Sofie beer being bottled at Goose Island Beer Company Wednesday morning.

How many different ways can you shoot video of beer bottles? How about hops? These are the dilemmas I find myself having these days.

This morning I worked hard at doing both those things during another shoot at Goose Island Beer Company. It can be a challenge, but I always remind myself that I really do have a pretty cool job.

After all, how many people start their day at a brewery?

–Tony Gnau

Logging then uploading video is probably the most boring part of my job, but it must be done.

It takes a few hours to log a 60-minute tape, and another hour to upload it. The logging is tedious, but honestly, that’s where the video comes together in a lot of ways.

Some people will hire interns to do this job. They’ll sit them down and have them transcribe an entire tape. What a waste. A good producer may not like logging raw video and sound bites, but they do it. That process often helps inspire how the story is told. Sometimes it’s not what someone says, but how they say that makes a difference.

You can’t get that reading a transcription you made your intern do for you.

–Tony Gnau

Sen. Millner Video Wins 2010 Telly Award

Wrapping up our look at T60’s 2010 Telly award winners is a video we produced for Illinois State Senator John Millner, Labor Day Parade.  This was actually a video that was never meant to be one.

T60 has a contract with Sen. Millner to produce a whole series of videos, so we’re always looking for opportunities to shoot good raw video of him to use in those future projects. I saw on his Facebook page he was going to be in Schaumburg’s Labor Day parade, so without any prompting from him or his staff I decided to show up and shoot it.

After his initial shock of seeing me, Sen. Millner settled in and really had fun at the parade.  It was obvious he genuinely enjoyed meeting everyone, so I convinced him to let me put together a short video about the parade.

60-seconds and one Telly later, it turned out to be rewarding day both us will remember.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Labor Day Parade

Click to see the rest of T60’s Telly winning videos.

Goose Island Beer video earns 2010 Telly Award

Continuing our spotlight on T60’s 2010 Telly Award winners, today it’s another Goose Island Beer Company project.

Last year we produced videos highlighting nine of Goose Island’s beers. I knew I wanted to submit one of them for the Telly’s, but they all turned out so well it ended up being a tough choice.

Brewmaster Greg Hall had a lot of great stories about each beer, so I finally decided to put aside criteria like camera angles, editing techniques, and I simply picked my favorite story, Pere Jacques.

I think Greg’s explanation of how that beer came to be really draws in the viewer, and especially how the beer got its name.  So with that, please click the link below and enjoy.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Pere Jacques

312 video wins Telly Award.

As I mentioned yesterday, T60 has won three 2010 Telly Awards.  It’s a huge honor, so over the next few days I’ll share some behind-the-scenes stories on each of the winning videos.

First up is Chicago’s Beer.  We produced this video for Goose Island Beer Company. Leaders there wanted a video to show wholesalers and retailers how committed they are to promoting their 312 beer.

This project took all summer. We had to shoot a bunch of events over the course of several months, but my favorite took place out on Lake Michigan.

We went out with the 312 sailing team during a race. The only problem… it might have been the calmest day of the summer. No wind. All the sailors were pretty bummed, but I assured them we’d make it look exciting.

Let me know how I did. :-)

–Tony Gnau

WATCH THE VIDEO: Chicago’s Beer

T60 wins three 2010 Telly's.

I’m happy to announce T60 has won three 2010 Telly awards.  The Telly is one of the non-broadcast industry’s most distinguished honors, and I’m proud to say over the last three years T60 has now won seven of them.

T60 usually submits about 3-4 entries every year for the Telly’s with the hope we’ll win one. This year we went 3 for 3.  Amazing.

Links to watch our 2010 winning entries are listed below. I’ll blog about each individual video over the next few days to provide some behind-the-scenes stories that are pretty interesting.

Again, it’s a huge honor to be recognized this way, and we share the moment with all our clients.

–Tony Gnau

T60’s 2010 Telly Award Winners

Chicago’s Beer: Goose Island Beer Company

Pere Jacques: Goose Island Beer Company

Labor Day Parade: Illinois State Senator John Millner

I was reading an interesting blog post today about social media and video. According to a study done by Dan Zarrella, Facebook stories that contain video are shared more than the average story on the site.

Just more confirmation, if you want to get noticed and shared on Facebook, create a video.

–Tony Gnau

p.s. did I mention you can follow T60 Productions on Facebook? Become a Fan

I’m an expert in my field, chances are you’re an expert in yours.  When I offer my expert opinion on video, I would hope my client listens, but that’s a two-way street.

A good example presented itself today.  I was shooting some beer video for Goose Island Beer Company.  I was looking at a shot that I thought was really good when company Brewmaster Greg Hall said it wasn’t right.  The beer needed more of a head on it.

Now, this is a guy who knows good beer, so guess what we did?  You bet, we re-poured the beer and my good shot looked even better.

Listening to your experts is an expert move in its own right.

–Tony Gnau