We create videos that showcase our clients’ products and services. Well, this time we turned the cameras around on us! Our team had a lot of fun creating this new promotional video highlighting our studio capabilities.
Welcome to “The Whole Gamut.”
We used drones, motorized sliders, and we even we built a rotating platform big enough to host a small dance party — just an example of how our team always puts in the maximum effort to produce results!
Each year the team at Gamut One Studios decides to benefit a local charity through a silent auction at our Super Bowl party. We chose Second Harvest Heartland because they are one of the nation’s largest, most effective and most innovative hunger-relief organizations. Every $1 donated provides three meals.
Super Bowl 53 went down as the lowest scoring game in NFL history; however, at our 9th annual Super Bowl party, fans showed up and scored big for Second Harvest Heartland.
In addition to raising $2,827 through the silent auction, the food drive yielded over 300 items.
We want to thank all our corporate and private sponsors for donating to the silent auction. Our sponsors were: 3M, Caribou Coffee, Barb Koshenina, Chanhassen Dinner Theater, Chili’s Bar & Grill, Wild Wings, Larkin Hoffman, Claudia Wilde, Therese Bartlett, Northern Radiator, Droolin’ Moose, Wooden Hill Brewery, Frost River, Brandless, and Red’s Savoy Pizza.
The annual chili cook-off contest is one of the most talked about offerings at our party, and the biggest question each year is, “Who will take home the coveted Golden Chili Pepper Award? This year we had 6 varieties of chili for our guests to enjoy. The chili creators are kept anonymous to the guests and each guest can enjoy all varieties, but then has just 1 token to vote for his or her favorite.
Greg Kamin’s “Rio Rancho” – a hearty cacophony of spicy, sweet and savory was the winner this year. Among the jalapeños, pinto beans, and spicy beef, Kamin also packed in bacon and sweet onions.
“I put a lot of attention to the details with this labor of love, especially my hand- picked batch of jalapeños from Rio Rancho, New Mexico,” Kamin said with a smile and a proud pose in the Gamut One Photo Booth.
As always, guests have fun in the photo booth. Enjoy a quick video here and we hope you can join us next year!
Ever wonder how big our space is here at Gamut One Studios? Well, it’s big enough to build a small home in it. Bill Bartlett and crew proved this last summer on a unique photography project for Marvin Windows, if you build it, they will come.
Enjoy this quick Behind-The-Scenes video of the project that exceeded Marvin Windows’ “big” expectations.
Gamut One Studios is proud to introduce Bryce Kalal, our newest team member. With our continued growth in video production, Bryce has taken on the role of video production assistant. Bryce brings a unique set of experience to our team with creative writing, improv comedy and music production. We’ve already seen great work from him and appreciate all the positive feedback we’ve received from our clients since he started with us.
Gamut One Studios – Meet Bryce from Gamut One on Vimeo.
At this time of year, holiday traditions centered around food often ‘consume’ much of our time and energy. This year, Gamut One Studios wanted to spotlight the problem of hunger in the Twin Cities. Cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup and fried onions were cleverly shaped into a Christmas tree for our annual holiday card, by our own food-savvy photographer, Jeff Schmieg. With help from the crafty hands of stylist, Laurie Goeman, and G1’s builder-extraordinaire, Myron Wolf, they created a wonderful image that will hopefully warm up the holidays in more ways then one.
While it would be fun to grab our can openers and whip up a super size casserole, this work of art is a small part of Gamut One Studios’ gift to the Groveland Emergency Food Shelf (GEFS). Started in 1975, GEFS is located in the basement of the Plymouth Congregational Church in South Minneapolis. They serve over 1,500 households every month with a mostly volunteer staff.
Gamut One Studios is proud to support their much needed work with a donation on behalf of our clients. The gratitude expressed by the GEFS volunteers and their clients was incredible and confirms the validity of ‘It is better to give than to receive.’
If you are looking for a way to give back this season, GEFS accepts food donations of all varieties in person and gratefully accepts cash donations through their website at www.grovelandfoodshelf.org. It’s amazing how they can leverage their food dollars in ways that consumers can not with a normal grocer.
Gamut One Studios will continue to support the Groveland Emergency Food Shelf with a fundraiser and food drive at our 4th Annual Super Bowl party in February. We look forward to seeing you all there!
Feels like it’s been around forever…
Campbell’s Green Bean Casserole recipe (using their cream of mushroom soup) was developed in 1955.
That’s a lot, but they need more…
Groveland Emergency Food Shelf buys 70-80% of the more then 30,000 pounds of food they distribute every month.
Did you know? Green beans are also called snap beans because of the sound they make when being broken. Green beans can also be called string beans because many varieties used to have a long string that ran along the seam of the bean.
Extending the reach…
The Groveland Food For Youth program was the state’s first food shelf specifically aimed at helping homeless and at-risk youth to age 23 with food and referrals to other organizations.
Happy Holidays from Gamut One Studios!
Put yourself in Bill’s shoes. Recently he set out to photograph the atmosphere of Nickelodeon Universe, a world-class amusement park. The best way to comprehend the challenge Bill faced is to visit the park at Mall of America. As proven in Nickelodeon’s 2012 marketing campaign, “We Want Your Scream,” the place is an overwhelming, kid’s nirvana. Bill’s recent assignment was to capture it all.
As you may know, the campaign went on to become an award-winning success. Just how did Gamut One contribute to this brand-building blockbuster? Well, Bill’s photography figures prominently in the campaign. Here’s how he operates…
First of all, Bill plans everything possible. Clients often ask: What contributes to a successful photographic shoot? The answer: Technical execution is critical, but the key to great photography and successful integration with the overall marketing campaign comes down to planning.
At Mall of America there were time constraints due to scheduling. Additionally, Mall of America’s enormous skylights change the lighting minute-by-minute. Navigating the model group through the rides required upfront planning and careful on-site management. Timing was a constant consideration. Allowing a motion sick kid to take one more “drop” on the Rock Bottom Drop (it’s exactly what it sounds like!) wouldn’t get Bill the shot he needed. Because the opportunity to capture genuine emotion is fleeting, successful shots don’t just happen, they are planned.
Understanding the key client objective is critical. During pre-shoot discussions with the client about the goals for “We Want Your Scream,” the mandate became pretty clear: capture the scream. To do so, Bill pushed the limit. Since he was dealing with high speeds and excitement, he had to board the rides. Riding backwards on a roller coaster eight times to get the perfect shot? Been there. Done that.
When Bill walked through the amusement park for a pre-shoot visit he was immediately struck by the magnitude of technical aspects the job would face. Each ride presented different obstacles and opportunities due to the layout and pure emotions of the ride models. Through utilization of stop action photography techniques, Bill was able to freeze flowing hair and capture peak emotions. Tactics such as slow shutter speed and effective panning illustrated the speed and raw power of the ride experience.
When Bill starts having fun it’s contagious. By participating with the group he gained insight into their experience and captured the unique essence of each ride. At Gamut One, having fun is more than a method of meeting client goals, it’s a competitive advantage.
And that’s the story of how Bill took more speed than a photographer can handle (to this day he can’t look at the Splat – O – Sphere, without getting “that sinking feeling”). To keep up with our adventures in photography subscribe to our RSS feed.
Gamut One Studios had a brush with fame last Friday when photographers Jeff Schmieg and Dewey Koshenina had the unique opportunity to photograph President Barack Obama. President Obama spent the mid-day touring and speaking at Honeywell while our swift and skillful photographers captured it all on camera.
The President has an extremely tight schedule, so when you are photographing him, you’ve got to be quick and on your game. Gamut One Studios, a contracted Honeywell vendor, was brought in to photograph the President’s visit and provided Honeywell with over 400 press ready images within hours of the event. Images were uploaded to a private web gallery where the Honeywell staff could quickly access and distribute images as needed for public relations, documentation and promotion.
Seeing how the whole White House machine operates behind the scenes was very interesting. It was a complex process but most notably, a very well oiled machine that is highly choreographed for maximum efficiency and security.
As you can probably imagine, the day was full of protocol, politics and stoic secret service agents. That doesn’t phase Jeff, our ‘nerves of steel’ photographer who has smoothly photographed tactical response teams while expert marksmen pointed automatic weapons at him. Provided with White House Press Pool credentials, Jeff followed the President as he toured parts of the manufacturing floor and met Honeywell employees. Jeff was then allowed inside the rope-line to photograph the president up close during the speech.
Rubbing Elbows with the Associated Press and White House Staff photographers who cover the president every day brought new insight into the workings of this political operation. Dewey photographed the event from the main press stage for another view point of the action.
Capturing the spark and excitement that people had when meeting President Obama made our job even better. The kids (and many adults) in attendance were beyond excited… beaming with perma-grins as they showed off their autographs and photos while they soaked in the whole experience.
We got some cool press pool badges that make great souvenirs from the event. I think Jeff and Dewey will wear them all week…you just never know when you may want to impress someone!
It’s easy to stay passionate about a job when you work in vastly different environments each day.
Often, we’re in the studio lighting and shooting products, many times we’re on location in offices, factories and at events. And, sometimes we have tactical response teams pointing loaded weapons at us.
That was Jeff’s shoot out in Alameda County, California for Recon Robotics. He has been photographing their products in studio and location for the past five years. Jeff’s extensive knowledge of the product and close working relationship with Recon has now provided more unique location photography opportunities.
A recent assignment took Jeff to Urban Shield, a SWAT and Tactical Response Team training and evaluation event with teams from California, Israel and Jordan competing.
The event ran for 48 straight hours with 27 different scenarios. Recon Robotics sponsored one scenario in which the teams could utilize the Scout XT Robot to be more effective. Recon wanted photos of the teams using their robot in training situations and to build their corporate image library.
Jeff liked the fast-action shoot and seeing the teams from Israel and Jordan. He says, “Having expert marksmen pointing loaded automatic weapons at you will always make you think twice, even if it’s just paint.”
And, sometimes the perks are nice too. Jeff got to ride in this $170K Tactical Response Vehicle, aptly called the BAT.
In the last few weeks, he’s traveled in and out of state to photograph several different uses of Recon’s products. He worked with the Minneapolis Bomb Squad photographing the robots being used to help identify and scout police scenarios with possible explosives.
The latest shoot took Jeff to Fort Ripley near Brainerd, Minn. with a National Guard Squad. The military uses the Scout XT to help units with reconnaissance missions where they can remotely deploy the robot into buildings, around barriers and in the identification of suspected improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The project was very successful. We look forward to providing Recon Robotics with more great images while they build awareness of their great products.
Greg and Dewey recently traveled with art director Amy Rausch to complete a fast-paced, computer hard drive overloading, dog and pony, 4-day location shoot for Patterson Companies. The shoot took place at four locations in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
Dog and Pony? That’s right, the subjects were horses, dogs, cats, iguanas, and their caring veterinarians. As one Massachusetts local jokingly asked Greg, “Aren’t there any dogs in Minnesota?”
The draw to the east coast was Webster Veterinary, a division of Patterson Companies, Inc. Webster, located in Devens, MA, is the leading distributor of veterinary supplies to companion-pet veterinary clinics in the eastern United States. The goal, under direction of Amy Rausch and DVM Scott Handler, was to build a library of images to be used in Webster marketing materials.
As a doctor of veterinarian medicine and also the marketing director for Webster, Handler arranged for Greg and Dewey to photograph veterinarians, technicians, and patients in two Equine facilities and two small animal clinics/hospitals.
How can you pose a horse? With plenty of tranquilizer, of course. Well, that is not exactly true. It was very important for Greg and Dewey to be “shooting” as the doctors perform their patient care and exams.
Scott Handler and Rebecca Timpano, a marketing professional for Webster with extensive equine experience, guided the photographers to capture the essential procedures.
Why the headphones?
Shock wave therapy is a treatment that is increasingly used by veterinarians to treat orthopedic problems such as bone fractures. This treatment does not use electrical pulses, but rather high-energy acoustic pulses, much like sound waves, that have the ability to travel readily through soft tissues to effect hard material and tissues such as mineralized deposits or bone.
The small animal clinic in Nashua was bustling with furry feline patients, some with basic checkups and others undergoing extensive surgery. There were also many breeds and sizes of dogs from a Jack Russell all the way up to the Great Dane.
Did we mention the iguana?
This was a beautiful setting for our Saturday morning shoot in south eastern Massachusetts. Uxbridge is just an hour from Boston and only 15 minutes from northern Rhode Island.
Horses chew their food from grinding their teeth from side to side. This can cause sharp edges and uneven wear. Floating the horse’s teeth is a process that files down any ridges or points. This needs to be completed usually once per year to prevent possible damage to the horse’s tongue, cheek, or gums.
This last day of the shoot was another opportunity to capture more small animals,
photos in the lab, exams, and some with the animal’s owners.
That’s a wrap!Legal line: No felines or furry things were harmed during the shoot.
More about our wonderful client: Patterson Companies is an industry-leading specialty distributor serving the dental, veterinary and rehabilitation supply markets. Driven to meet the needs of healthcare professionals in these growing markets, Patterson provides a total-package approach to doing business.
Gamut One Studios is proud to be Patterson Companies’ contracted vendor for professional photography services. Gamut One Studios is a full service commercial photography studio in Minneapolis. Whether on location or in our 10,000 sq. ft. studio, G1 Studios delivers the best in high quality images and customer service.
