One of the first corporate meetings and events producers to use Watchout was The Production Network [TPN], in Seattle. For them, I produced a Samsung keynote for the Consumer Electronics Show [CES] in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES is the world’s biggest electronics exposition; keynote addresses at that event are BFDs (big deals); Samsung went all-out, sponsoring an audiovisual extravaganza at the Las Vegas Hilton, to support an address given by Dr. Daeje Chin, President and CEO of Samsung’s digital-media business.I got to work with some colleagues from the former Watts-Silverstein studio who had since dispersed throughout Seattle: Charlie Watts was Creative Director, Cindy Krueger was the producer, in assisted by Patti Kappler; just as before, at WS, the project was over managed; there were a lot of chiefs, but I was the only Indian. Like before, most of the money was spent on meetings attended by many whose presence was redundant. Fortunately, they left me alone most of the time, because my studio was on Vashon Island, which made their visits inconvenient; they weren’t constantly looking over my shoulder, as had been the case at Watts-Silverstein. | TPN (The Production Network) built an elaborate, two-level stage set for the Samsung keynote at the 2002 CES. On top was a panoramic, 60 X 18-foot [18.3 X 5.5-meter] panoramic screen; under it, three mini-stages presented a series of product-reveal skits; the show featured TV celebrity Richard Karn, who starred with Tim Allen on the hit TV series Home Improvement.| Four xenon video projectors were aimed at the giant screen; their images were seamlessly blended together by Dataton’s Watchout software. [For the Vimeo video, the five Watchout files were recombined by Pete Bjordahl, using AfterEffects.] | Charlie Watts lucked out; Samsung flew him over to Seoul, Korea, with TPN’s founder and director, John Vadino, to tour the company’s operations; it was a real junket for them; when they got back, Charlie produced the sound track for the show at Clatter & Din, his favorite Seattle audio studio; the track is divided into nine parts, about the countries where Samsung did business—Korea, Australia, China, Russia, France, England, Brazil, and the USA; the musical trip around the world finishes up in Las Vegas, and leads directly to the introduction of Dr. Daeje Chin. | I photographed all the models and products you see in the show; those provided a visual red thread tying together a plethora of stock images supplied by Samsung, a few picture agencies, and my own image library. With the exception of the Asian girl, who Patti Kappler hired, all the other models were folks I knew on Vashon, who worked for peanuts [there was no budget for models; I paid them out of my photo budget]; my ex-wife, Anna Raus, made a cameo appearance (right after the Brazil section, she is seen using a video camera); Anna’s hairdresser plays the Russian babushka; and the butcher at Vashon Thriftway played the Frenchman. | Staging Techniques handled all the AV, sound and lighting. It was the first time I had worked alongside Bryce Will, after years of comradery with his father, Randy Will, while Bryce was a school boy. More information at mesney.com
